stan 58 Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 I found the stock PUs in my 02 Gibson firebird weak and tinny,I put a Mini Bird GFS PU in the neck pos. and it sounds like a Gibson again, I love it. Stan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted July 18, 2008 Author Share Posted July 18, 2008 A little Progress report. As I had mentioned earlier, my '76 Gibson LP Deluxe's mini's had gone "microphonic," and I had to send them in, to a guy I know in the OKC area, to be rewound and wax potted. Got them back a couple of days ago, and finally got around to re-installing them (last night), in the Deluxe! DAMN...I don't know what he did, but they are AWESOME, again! Now THAT's what a LP Deluxe should sound like! All the bite, clarity, & tone, with absolutely NO microphonic feedback, even right next to the amp, with "marshall" like gain! I'm stoked!! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slotter Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 oohh i just read that the mean 90's are a little less hotter and more p90 soundin... sooo.. i think im gonna try em. one thing ive read about but not understood is changin th caps to 250 when ya install single coils... is this important? can i just replace the pickup in my dot studio or do i ned to change everything? thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Revolver Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 Mean 90's would be nice in a faded Epi studio IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carverman Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 ...swappin the pups for dream 90's.. anyone had any experience with this guitar/pup mix? Harmony Central has a good pickup review list and there is more of a cross section of players from all over the world that seem to update it. Scan for whatever pickup you are interested in.... Gibson, GFS, Gretsch..etc. http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Electric+Guitar+Pickup/brand/GFS+Pickups Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbirchett Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 oohh i just read that the mean 90's are a little less hotter and more p90 soundin... sooo.. i think im gonna try em. one thing ive read about but not understood is changin th caps to 250 when ya install single coils... is this important? can i just replace the pickup in my dot studio or do i ned to change everything? thanks Slotter, I think you meant the pots to 250K pots. If you leave the 500K tone pots in, I think that you will be letting more treble through than with 250K pots which would be why 250K pots are usually used with single coils -- to tame the treble and darken the tone slightly. Those with mean 90s would probably be able to tell you how they react to 250K or 500K pots. Someone indicated that they thought that ALL GFS pickups should have 500K pots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpdeluxe Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 I have a '70 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe with Seymour Duncan SM-1 pickups installed and it is the single killer Les Paul I've ever played. Like others, I almost always use the neck pickup, and play it through a Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight (if you haven't checked one of these out, they are the schnuckels). Full-size humbuckers sound too growly to me, and single coils don't have enough beef, so the minis are a perfect compromise. Does anyone know of a way to mount minis in a guitar routed from full size? I imagine the difficulty would be in the picku ring -- finding one as large around as one for a standard humbucker but with a smaller opening for the mini -- but I've never seen one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geetar playr Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 CB - Keep us posted. I am ordering some GFS mnis for a tele project and my Epi firebird. Would like to hear your opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iansmitchell Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 oohh i just read that the mean 90's are a little less hotter and more p90 soundin... sooo.. i think im gonna try em. one thing ive read about but not understood is changin th caps to 250 when ya install single coils... is this important? can i just replace the pickup in my dot studio or do i ned to change everything? thanks That's only for fender single coils, 90's get that bite best with a 500k pot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron G Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 hey everyone' date='just a quicky... i just bought a dot studio as a cheap travelin guitar. love the neck and this thing.. was thinking about swappin the pups for dream 90's.. anyone had any experience with this guitar/pup mix? gfs seem to get great reviews for the dream 90's and ive got some gfs in my mexican tele and they sound great! cheers[/quote'] I have Mean 90s in my Dot Studio. Very pleased. It seems that since GFS introduced the Mean 90s, they have become more popular than the Dream 90s. Maybe somebody here on the forum can try to tell you what's different. BTW, pickup replacement on the Dot Studio is especially easy because the only thing you need to pull thru the F hole is the 3-way switch - there was enough wire slack on both of mine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted July 18, 2008 Author Share Posted July 18, 2008 Ian's turned into Kurt! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iansmitchell Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 Ian's turned into Kurt! CB I was thinking of doing the pic from the smells like teen spirit vid, but I liked this one better.# I knew it was gonna be kurt though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted July 18, 2008 Author Share Posted July 18, 2008 I was thinking of doing the pic from the smells like teen spirit vid' date=' but I liked this one better.# I knew it was gonna be kurt though.[/quote'] I like it! Was just surprised...seemed like one minute it was your old Avatar, then...Kurt! LOL! CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpdeluxe Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 The minis are nearly the same width as the full-size, and .353" shallower from the neck side to the bridge side. Hmmmm...and the pickup screw holes in the flanges are quite close to the same distance apart. This might just be doable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlie brown Posted July 18, 2008 Author Share Posted July 18, 2008 The minis are nearly the same width as the full-size' date=' and .353" shallower from the neck side to the bridge side. Hmmmm...and the pickup screw holes in the flanges are quite close to the same distance apart. This might just be doable.[/quote'] Well, it will be interesting to see what you come up with! Keep us posted (with photos, too...if possible). CB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluelake07 Posted July 18, 2008 Share Posted July 18, 2008 If your Jr. had a humbucker in it' date=' a dog ear P-90 will not cover the cutout. You may want to leave the '59 in the Jr. and put mean or dream 90s in the dot. Just something to think about.[/quote'] Unless you get one of these or one similar: http://www.wdmusic.com/kent_armstrong_p90_guitar_pickups_29746_prd1.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slotter Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 hey fellas. thanls for all ur replies and help.. ive decidied to go for the mean 90's and 500K pots as I like the high end bite... i play a lot of jazz.. just released a tribute album to grant green.. so you can understand that i like the bite the p90 gives. hopefully the means and the 500K's will gimme this sound. also bought some orange drops to play around with as they get such great reviews from everyone... may aswell do the whole lot while i'm at it! thanks again slotter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iansmitchell Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 hey fellas. thanls for all ur replies and help.. ive decidied to go for the mean 90's and 500K pots as I like the high end bite... i play a lot of jazz.. just released a tribute album to grant green.. so you can understand that i like the bite the p90 gives. hopefully the means and the 500K's will gimme this sound. also bought some orange drops to play around with as they get such great reviews from everyone... may aswell do the whole lot while i'm at it!thanks again slotter Good luck man! Post some youtube vids for us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpdeluxe Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 I have made a drawing of a mini-to-full size adapter plate. If anyone wants a copy, let me know and I'll email it to you. It's in the form of a .tif file. Mini-humbuckers mount differently from the method used for full-size pickups: there are no mounting screws to attach the ring to the body. A full size humbucker sits in a ring that mounts solidly to the body of the guitar. There are flanges at the sides of the bottom of the pickup: the adjustment screws extend from the top of the ring and screw into the flange hole. Springs around the screws (or tubing, a modern alternative) provide support for the pickup. On the mini, there are no mounting holes on the ring. The adjustment screws pass through the flanges and screw into a threaded plated mounted in the pickup cavity, and the ring "floats" in the routed cavity. Among other disadvantages, this means that you must adjust the pickup height before you attach the pickups. When I replaced the minis on my Gibson Les Paul Deluxe with Seymour Duncan SM1s, I discovered that nuts had been soldered to the pickup adjustment screws to prevent movement. A debate at the Les Paul forum revealed that this is pretty common practice, and perhaps was done at the factory. I'm not convinced, but only because the soldering on mine looked pretty amateurish. In any case, I reassembled the Deluxe without soldering nuts on the screwsl (and I notice, no new nuts were included with the SDs). So: after you mill a piece of pickguard material to the dimensions of the drawing, you'll still be faced with the problem of physically attaching the pickups to the guitar. I would put the springs between the mini ring and the plate, and run the screws into the pickup flanges, and see if that worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
layboomo Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 I have made a drawing of a mini-to-full size adapter plate. If anyone wants a copy' date=' let me know and I'll email it to you. It's in the form of a .tif file. Mini-humbuckers mount differently from the method used for full-size pickups: there are no mounting screws to attach the ring to the body. A full size humbucker sits in a ring that mounts solidly to the body of the guitar. There are flanges at the sides of the bottom of the pickup: the adjustment screws extend from the top of the ring and screw into the flange hole. Springs around the screws (or tubing, a modern alternative) provide support for the pickup. On the mini, there are no mounting holes on the ring. The adjustment screws pass through the flanges and screw into a threaded plated mounted in the pickup cavity, and the ring "floats" in the routed cavity. Among other disadvantages, this means that you must adjust the pickup height before you attach the pickups. When I replaced the minis on my Gibson Les Paul Deluxe with Seymour Duncan SM1s, I discovered that nuts had been soldered to the pickup adjustment screws to prevent movement. A debate at the Les Paul forum revealed that this is pretty common practice, and perhaps was done at the factory. I'm not convinced, but only because the soldering on mine looked pretty amateurish. In any case, I reassembled the Deluxe without soldering nuts on the screwsl (and I notice, no new nuts were included with the SDs). So: after you mill a piece of pickguard material to the dimensions of the drawing, you'll still be faced with the problem of physically attaching the pickups to the guitar. I would put the springs between the mini ring and the plate, and run the screws into the pickup flanges, and see if that worked. [/quote'] Although the gibson deluxe style rings work as you described....you can still mount most mini's just like a conventional humbucker with springs and screws into the flanges on the side of the pickups. The soldered nut thing is not factory as far as I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpdeluxe Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Although the gibson deluxe style rings work as you described....you can still mount most mini's just like a conventional humbucker with springs and screws into the flanges on the side of the pickups. The soldered nut thing is not factory as far as I know. Yes, but that requires drilling additional holes in the mini rings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lpdeluxe Posted July 22, 2008 Share Posted July 22, 2008 Out of curiosity I searched EBay for "Les Paul Deluxe" and discovered that there are still dreamers among us... ...specifically the guys listing Norlin Deluxes for $14K US and up. Interestingly, one of these showed nuts fastened with boogers of solder on pickup screws, never mind that the description extolled its utter originality. By the way, I'm not knocking Norlin: my own '70 Deluxe is from that era, and it's a terrific player. But also including the modified ones (one with a green full-size humbucker -- oooh, gotta have it! and another has P90s and a Wilkinson tremolo) for close to $2K US. There are several for reasonable prices ($1.2K to $1.7K) but 0 bids are the rule. Guess it's not a good time to be trying to skin people with **RARE**VINTAGE** guitars (as the ads say). It's a pity that Deluxes get no respect. People are always butchering them to put full size humbuckers in (thereby destroying the one advantage Deluxes have over Standards) or tremolos or phase switches or whatnot. Glad I've already got one. Did I mention that I paid $750 for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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