Jump to content
Gibson Brands Forums

Les Paul Tribute 2017 FHB - The "wrong" pickup


Snorten

Recommended Posts

Hi

 

I just upgraded the stock pickups of my 2017 Tribute and to my surprise discovered that they put a 496R (at least thats what the label on the back says) in the neck position instead of a 490R as the specs say.

(The bridge pickup was a 490T, as expected) - It this a labeling error, an assembly error or a spec error? :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The ceramic-loaded 496R should on theory have a considerably "hotter" output than the 490T with an AlNiCo 2 magnet although the coil DC resistance of the only one of mine reads just slightly higher than that of the two of my 490Rs. Has the neck pickup of your Tribute LP been significantly louder than the bridge pickup?

 

The specs saying 490R/490T for your LP seem plausible to me. To my guess this is either labeling or mounting error. Interestingly covered 496R are something special, they usually come with open coils only. (My Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess has a chrome cover on her 496R like on her 498T bridge pickup). They are combined with 500Ts in most cases, and the latter don't allow for soldering covers to them since they have three magnets each. The two magnets at the outer edges would lose some magnetic remanence due to the heat.

 

By the way, the two Frank Zappa "Roxy" SGs of mine were advertised to come with a pair of '57 Classics but feature a '57 Classic/'57 Classic Plus combo. Gibson never released official specs, so it probably was a marketing blooper. [biggrin]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... Has the neck pickup of your Tribute LP been significantly louder than the bridge pickup?[/Quote]

I'm not 100% sure because I made some adjustments to the pickup height when I bought the guitar (which was factory new, btw) I definately found it quite hot compared to the neck pickup of my other Les Paul, which has Burstbucker Pros.

 

(...) Interestingly covered 496R are something special, they usually come with open coils only. (My Alex Lifeson Les Paul Axcess has a chrome cover on her 496R like on her 498T bridge pickup). They are combined with 500Ts in most cases, and the latter don't allow for soldering covers to them since they have three magnets each...

Yeah, in order to sell it I did some "price range research" and found not one shop offering the capped variant solely, which was another mystery to this PU :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't know how Gibson assembly line is set up - but that would seem to me that they put the wrong pickup in when they built it. Should be 2 490s, not a 496 and 490. No matter what adjustments you could make to pickup height etc, I don't think you could ever get those two pickups to play real nice with each other. Accidents happen, but you really shouldn't have to go out and buy a pickup on your own to fix it. [glare]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... Accidents happen, but you really shouldn't have to go out and buy a pickup on your own to fix it. [glare]

Yeah and I would have claimed this for sure if the guitar wasnt meant as a "customizing project" to me right from the start. So this time Gibson will get away with it :) I was just curious if this happens sometime, or wether they messed up the specs. However this story explains why I tried to re-balance the pickups right from the start, so obviously my ears are not that bad at all :P BTW: I upgraded both PUs with Suhr DA 50s which are damn killer pickups! Really hot tone perfect for Hard and Heavy stuff. And as for the guitar: Its a beautiful guitar, stripped down to the crucial parts. Well, locking tuners would have been nice, anyway

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...