surfpup

No it's not just you.

Tough call, but since I have Les Pauls with each of those pups in them I guess I should give it a shot... First I have to say that I like both quite a bit. However, here's what I notice about each... The Duncan Pearly Gates are a great classic rock pickup. I love them. There is a slightly increased mid-range response over a standard PAF pup, and this is even more noticeable in comparison to the BB Pros in my other LP. I have used the Duncan '59 quite a bit also, and I like the extra mids in the Pearlys better. Gain wise they are similar to most PAF type pickups. The BurstBucker Pros in my other LP have noticeably less mid-range than the Pearlys. They are smooth, but have a bit more treble bite. Initially, I didn't like them and preferred the other guitar with the Pearlys, but they have really grown on me over time. The verdict... (sort of)... generally I grab the LP with the Pearly Gates pups for a rock sound and the LP with the BurstBucker Pros for a purer blues tone, but they both sound great on almost anything. I have vids of each guitar here - the gold top has the Pearlys and the faded has the Burst Bucker Pros. However, I used different guitars with different amps on different songs, so there is no direct comparison - sorry. Hope that is helpful. Hit me back if I can be more illustrative.

Yep, most of which came out of the same few Japanese factories. The differences are usually in name only.

Here in the US there were a lot of Cortez brand LP copies - black with a bolt on neck - just like that one.

I am liking the VMs a lot. The brown one reminds me of my first LP a 1979 "The Paul." The VM looks better I think because of the larger fret marker inlays and pup covers. The T-Tops on my "The Paul" were uncovered and fret markers were dots as I recall.

What a pity. I sure hope some of them found their way into guitar players hands. I imagine Lester would hope so too!

That Warehouse blue does sound nice. I need to check those out. I'd love to put an Alnico Blue in my '66 Epiphone combo, but have shied away from the price!

That sums up my experience with them pretty well. They sound pretty good at low volumes. Great for practice. When they have to compete with anything else, they don't have the warmth and presence of a tube amp. Also lots of the programmed sounds seemed real processed - very "wet". Too much delay, chorus, etc. Of course you can tweak that, but why spend a lot of time trying to get a good basic warm tone when you can get that to begin with in a good tube amp?

Our resident Vox/LP user is Thunder God and he will undoubtedly weigh in with some specifics. I think you will find the general consensus here is yes on the AC30 - like buttah!

I had a similar problem with a Telecaster. Static like crazy if I touched the pickguard, which I do a lot. Full shielding was the only way to solve the problem, but it's dead quiet now. You could try shielding just the back of the pickguard first - StewMac has shielding tape or spray glue and aluminum foil is the cheap route.