Metropoulos Forum

I'm having a pickup & amp combination problem and need some advice.

I bought a new Les Paul Standard Premium the other day and it was equipped from the factory with Burstbucker Pro pickups in bridge and neck positions. According to Gibson, the magnets are AlNiCo V and coils are 8.7k for the bridge model. When played without an amp, the guitar has a clear and present chime with plenty of clarity. It sounds very nice. I plug it into my Marshall and it sounds like pure mud. No amount of manipulation of any of the controls will get rid of the mud. It sounds just terrible.

The amp is a Jubilee 50W going into a Marshall 4x12 loaded with 2xG12H and 2xG12M. Power tubes are Tesla EL34 black base from TubeTramp, biased ad 70% and have less than 20 hours on them. The preamp tubes are V1 RFT, V2 Mullard and V3 Sylvania. The only pedal I used was a TS-808 to goose the front end a bit. I don't like the lead channel on the amp all that much. Its too fizzy for me. I did the tests with and without the pedal engaged. With most of my other guitars that Marshall sounds fantastic. However most of my other guitars have pickups like a DiMarzio Super 2 or Super 3 in the bridge position and those things have Ceramic magnets and shitloads of output. If I plug a guitar into this amp with a Duncan JB is also sounds like muddy crap.

As a second test, I decided to plug the Paul into my Orange combo AD30TC (EL84, open back cabinet with 2 x Celestion Vintage 30's) and it sounds clear as a bell. Actually, it sounds amazing with both clean and dirty sounds. Also, the Paul has coil tap, phase reverse and "all circuits bypass" options. That last option just unleashes the bridge pickup. It reminds me of Angus Young's live tone (raw, clear, agressive and massive amounts of bite). I play classic hard rock so I like that sound.

So, do I:

a. Remove the Burstbucker Pro pickups and install something like a DiMarzio SuperDistortion or Super3 into the bridge.

b. Keep the Bursbucker Pro combination and just not use it with this amp (my favorite amp)

c. Try to further tune my Marshall to work with this guitar, while not messing up the great sounds from my other guitars.

Suggestions would be appreciated if you guys respond item #C.

FYI - I play classic hard rock (AC/DC, DefLeppard, Boston, DeepPurple, etc...)

Thanks,

-Dono

I just love those Jub's man, they get that fat midrange that is immediatly reminiscent of the Marshall glory They are also sort of a one trick pony though, and very hard, imo, to get spanky type tones out of. Just pure Browness galore !

If you had said that your Paul was sounding 'bad'on all the amps you tried,I'd reccomend making sure your volume pot is for sure reading around 500k. You could try a 1000k pot as well, that would brighten things up I'd imagine.

Maybe try a real bright cutting pu (brighter than your other ceramic pu's),like say a Bill Lawrence 500xl or something.

You might try changing your output tubes to more efficient ones,like say 6ca7's or better yet 6550's. Try some reissue Mullard 12ax7's in there too. They are brighter sounding.

#C Is what I'd naturally guesstimate. Maybe 70 % static dissipation is too hot for your bias, try reducing to 60 - 65% static dissipation to see if that makes a notable difference. Check your pickup height(s) on your guitars, try swapping preamp tubes one at a time, check your cable connections. Maybe worst case scenario, your Silver Jubilee needs to be gone over. Check your G-12H and G-12M cabinet with your Orange head to rule that out.

hmm... This is a BB1 in an Oxblood '54 a.k.a. as a Jeff Beck...

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I had a 50W 2554 combo Jubilee for about a year and a half.
Had two sounds woofy and mushy w/ the bass up or clunky and honky with the bass lowered.
I do remember it sounded best w/ a Tungsram Ecc83 in V2. Matched better w/ a vintage Super D and sucked w/ a Duncan JB(pure mud).
I remember that amp being a constant struggle to use.
I used it both w/ the stock V30 and a 1960AX cab with RI G12Ms

JimiJames wrote:hmm... This is a BB1 in an Oxblood '54 a.k.a. as a Jeff Beck...

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single ... i&newref=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That "Oxblood" color is actually "Botswana Brown" on Beck's actual "Blow By Blow" Les Paul, one would think that Gibson would at least get that part correct.

The music store told Gibson what color it was...?
My Special Order CS '57 Gold Top factory spray painted Black is named BlackBird.
The music store told me that...
_____

In regards to Ferrari-Dude using Burstbucker Pro's, the clip I posted (IIRC the amp also has glass from Trampy.)
was a BB1 in the bridge and thought it represented good Marshall/Les Paul tone. I was not sure if that new Les Paul Standard Premium was equipped from the factory with Burstbucker Pro 1&2's or 2&3's.


So, What other troubleshooting ?
O.K. given the Jubilee 50W sounds good...
2xG12H and 2xG12M in phase ? Running at 16Ω ?
Is the cab sitting on the ground/floor/carpet ? If you have your Bass on Zero and still too much > put it on wheels.

By all means use your favorite amp, Dono. If you're not satisfied with all the tweaking,
sounds like you might just prefer a hot bridge P.A.F. type pickup for that classic hard rock.

Dono, I grew out of that higher output pickup phase (like with the DiMarzio Super Distortion pickup) years ago. I liked to clean up when I needed to, and the hot pickups of my early youth didn't cut the mustard. I got into vintage output pups, and even an occasional slightly overwound set or two. I look at a lot of guitar heroes from my era before there were all the pickup winders around. Unless you were someone special, and could get either Fender or Gibson to wind you custom pickups, you had to settle for stock. All those classic artists managed to get by for all those years on vintage stock pickups (with the occasional odd overwind).

I would have expected the results of your story only in reverse, that your guitar's with higher output pups sounded muddy in comparison to the BB's (very odd?).

Certain pu's just have a very 'precise' sound to them. The Duncan Screamin' Demon is one like that, and from what I can tell, the Super-v pu as well (both are George Lynch models). Both of these pu's are hot, one is A5 43wire at like 12k (SDemon) and the other is a 16k 44wire with A2 (Super-V). Both have MORE cut and clarity than lots of 42wire 8-9k types I've heard. In general though, that is not the case.
The jubilee's have that great nasal midrange thing going on that , to me, is a Marshall chaerecteristic.Like Kassof's sound on 'All Right Now'. Slightly darker, woody midrange. The Jub's have that, though in a 'slighty' synthetic way (cascade and diodes, etc). I'd say to simply get a few ceramic bar types and start messin with the pu's you already have.

There is so much that goes into the overall equation of how a pickup will eventually turn out. My friends and myself were just discussing how nice the cheap Wilkinson PAF clones are in some of the Vintage Icon line of guitars. However, the bridge measures 13.5K, and I assume that Wilkinson is using 43 AWG wire for this position which still makes it equivalent to approximately 12.5K when wound with 42 AWG wire. So in this particular instance the overall output and tone is not just about the DCR of the pups, but strength of the magnets, type of magnets, scatterwound vs. light scatterwound (or not), wire insulation, wire type, etc. In the case of the Wilkinson PAF bridge pup, judging the pup based upon its DCR (can/could) prove to be very misleading indeed.