Tradbucker: What is it, exactly?

[TattooedCarrot]

Picked up a new Traditional Pro V satin mahogany today and these are the pickups in it. They sound decent I'm trying to find out more to these myself. I've read that they are offset coils with an underwound neck and overwound bridge. The bridge sounds a bit hot to me, so I'm thinking these are a BB1 & BB3 set with alnico V magnets instead of A2. Anyone know for sure?

[TattooedCarrot]

Still wondering. And does anyone from Gibson interact on these forums? Can they chime in?

I measured them:

Neck: 7.64k
Bridge: 8.68k

Edited February 2, 2021 by TattooedCarrot

[IanHenry]

You could contact Gibson's Customer Service, they're usually quite helpful.  If the bridge pickup is to hot you could always lower it a bit. 

[TattooedCarrot]

2 hours ago, IanHenry said:

You could contact Gibson's Customer Service, they're usually quite helpful.  If the bridge pickup is to hot you could always lower it a bit. 

To the contrary, I replaced them with Duncans, a much hotter SH-5 Custom bridge, and a 59 neck along with Bourns low friction pots and Orange Drop caps. The stock Tradbuckers sounded pretty darn good, but I like using Duncans. Just curious as to what they actually are, I have heard they are burstbuckers.

Edited February 3, 2021 by TattooedCarrot

[Sgt. Pepper]

7 hours ago, TattooedCarrot said:

To the contrary, I replaced them with Duncans, a much hotter SH-5 Custom bridge, and a 59 neck along with Bourns low friction pots and Orange Drop caps. The stock Tradbuckers sounded pretty darn good, but I like using Duncans. Just curious as to what they actually are, I have heard they are burstbuckers.

I am not sure you are going to get an actual Gibson employee to answer your question on the forum. Just us yahoo's aka forum members.

[kidblast]

there used to be customer service guys that came by the forum occasionally (A guy named Jeremy comes to mind) but I don't think we've seen anyone else for a few years now.

Any questions on the products Gibson markets, would be answered by customer service.  The time it takes them to answer is all over the map too.  So you may have to be patient and peristent.

you could also try here:  My Les Paul Forum   you may find someone there who's got the 411 on these.

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by kidblast

[JOATEON]

I was at Guitar Center in Hollywood, CA the other day, and a Gibson rep was there. I asked about the Tradbucker pickups in the GC exclusive Trad Pro V.

He said the Gibson reps were told that they started with a Burstbucker Pro pickup and used alnico V magnets. Then slightly under wound the neck, and slightly overwound the bridge, and then tuned them to take full advantage of the HP-4 electronics. (ie, in/out of phase switch, coil tap vs split, high pass filter treble bleed switches, etc) So they are a little different than any other normal Burstbucker.
 

They are a little clearer than normal Burstbuckers, with the neck having more on the low end but not as much on the high end, and the bridge being the opposite, with a brighter tone and more highs, but slightly less punch on the low ends. As a result, you can get more interesting tone blends when in the middle position and with a clean amp, than with standard Burstbuckers. But when you push them through a good dirty amp or OD pedal, they can still growl with the best of them. 

He said that Gibson does not currently sell Tradbuckers as replacement pickup options. They are only available in some Traditional Pro guitars, like the Trad Pro V. But Gibson did apply for a patent on them,  as they even have a “Patent Applied For” sticker on the back of each pickup. So they might make them available to purchase separately in the future. 

Very interesting pickup.  When I was playing with it in the store, I was going back and forth between a Marshall and a Fender amp, and comparing it to a LP Standard with Burstbuckers. To my ears, I surprisingly preferred the sound of the Tradbuckers in every combo I tried. Especially the neck. However, I tend to prefer brighter pickups anyway, since I always feel it sounds better to darken up a bright pickup, than it does to brighten up a darker pickup. 

Hope this helps. 

[JOATEON]

Got a little more info from a Guitar Center manager. He said that he was told when Guitar Center got the deal to have this exclusive guitar made for them by Gibson, the idea behind the Tradbucker pickup was to get a blend of the best tones from both a Burstbucker Pro and a classic P90 in one. That would explain why it still sounds like  a Burstbucker, but slightly clearer and brighter like a P90, but with less hum and more punch than a P90. 

[Bikernator]

👍

 

[jozimmy]

Not sure if this is accurate or not but if you click on the trad pro v gloss version on guitarcenter the listings for the ebony and cherrywash both have tradbuckers as the pickups. If you click  on the blueberry burst it says it features a pair of burstbucker pro's with alnico v magnets. This could be a typo or more likely accurate since burstbucker pro's and tradbuckers are both marketed as overwound and underwound alnico v magnet humbuckers.