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Pickups question


Belva

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I'm gonna buy a les paul custom soon.

 

I play jazz / funk stuff.

 

I need a very jazzy tone to the neck, like the Pat martino tone, dark thuncdering but not muddy and with a lot of harmonycs.

 

At the bridge, i need some extreme biting stuff like Black Sabbat hstuff or Hawkwind or Miles electric period.

 

What would you suggest to install? take care.

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For the sonic, genre, and tonal descriptions you posted I think you should be looking at an ES-335 or something similar. I'm not sure you'll get Pat Martino tones OR "jazz/funk stuff" out of a LP Custom, regardles of the pickups.

 

Between the neck and bridge pickup, rolling the tone completely off on the neck pickup, adding a little overdrive to the bridge pickup, and other tonal capabilities you'll find with an ES-335, you'll easily be able to recreate all the sounds you mentioned.

 

PS: Gibson does, or did, make a Pat Martino single cutaway thinline model, and John John McLaughlin did play a Black Beauty LPC when he was playing with Miles. In my 35 years of professional playing, I've found the Gibson ES-335 to be the most versatile guitar I've ever owned.

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Being only SEMI hollow, feedback is very controlable with a 335. Easy to supress it when you don't want it, easy to control when you want to use it. Controled feedback is a very useful effect in itself, and can be coupled with the fuzz and distortions you mentioned for some incredible sustain.

 

The Les Paul Custom is a fine guitar, as are most high end Gibsons, I'm just trying to explain some options that you may not have considered. I guess the other thing I'm trying to explain, since the original post was about pickups, is that the pickups themselves only play a small part in the tone and sonic qualities of the guitar, the design and construction of guitar itself ( solid, semi, hollow, flattop, archtop, mahogany, maple, spruce, cedar, rosewood, ebony), is where your tone and sustain come from, the pickups only serve to amplify the existing "voice" of the guitar.

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So basically you'r telling me a semi hollow can take as much distortion as a les paul?

How do you control feedback with a fender blender crancked to the max? Give me some examples.

 

I'm very interested in the howard roberts fusion, but again I'm afraid of feedback dring concerts.

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I'm gonna buy a les paul custom soon.

 

I play jazz / funk stuff.

 

I need a very jazzy tone to the neck' date=' like the Pat martino tone, dark thuncdering but not muddy and with a lot of harmonycs.

 

At the bridge, i need some extreme biting stuff like Black Sabbat hstuff or Hawkwind or Miles electric period.

 

What would you suggest to install? take care.[/quote']

 

 

I think your are making a mistake buying a LP to play jazz and funk stuff and hoping the pickups will make up for your decision. It ain't going to happen.[angry]

 

If Pat Martino is one of your tone hero, why would you go with a solid body guitar?

 

I too have been there looking for the jazz and funk guitar all in one thing. And what I discovered is that you need to choose the guitar first then the pickups, then the amp and finally, the cables.

 

Don't blow your hard earned cash on a mistake!

 

LOL

 

Jazz

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Sir

 

Thanks for oyur advice.

 

Martino built his tone around the les paul sound. All the other guitars he played where more like chambered mahogany than real archtops or semihollows. The pat martino is a semihollow but with a dark percussive tone you can achieve with a les paul.

 

You won't however achieve that airy tone that comes out from hollow sounds, more like a "jazz standard" es 135 tone.

 

But a good les paul can bring you the tone of let's say "Baijina" or "Footprints".

 

I know bodies are the first thing that makes the sound. However the pat martino model for example doesn't come in black, and I do want a black guitar, plus it would sustain if utilized with fuzz effects, while the lp won't.

 

I'm ready to sacrificy the "brigther" side of the martino's guitar sound for a guitar that can resist to distortion.

 

Hence my question.

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