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pickup swap black beauty 3


stabarah

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i have an epiphone black beauty and i am thinking of switching the mid humbucker for a single coil. I want a sound close to john mayer in the song "gravity". First off, will the swap work even if the wiring is for humbucker? If so, then can i have some suggestions and links for good single coils? I dont care about the gap left behind in the humbucker slot. Any help is great, thanks alot guys.

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A humbucker is basically 2 single coil pickups joined together. If you get one with 4 leads (plus earth) you can wire it to select just one coil, using either a push/pull switch on one of the pots, or a small DPTP switch. Pete Townshend used several Les Pauls modified to that configuration in the late 70s/80s.

 

Unfortunately Epi humbuckers usually only have 2 leads so you can't seperate the coils. If you buy an aftermarket pickup with 4 leads your luthier could fit it in the middle position and swap your current Epi gold cover onto it. Should only be a 1 - 1.5 hour job for someone competent with electricals, and no change to the appearance of your guitar if you go for a push-pull pot switch.

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you might try a p90.. you can get them in humbuck size.. with matching covers.

they usually come in various outputs.. ranging from 7K to 9K. so you can balance them well.

they are single coils with all the treble you'd need I think.. and a smoother low end than humbucks.

 

I use a neck p90 with my bridge humbuck in my lp and I love the combination.

better balance between outputs, and smoother cleaner lows at the neck position.

 

TWANG

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would the bigsby on my guitar wreck sustAin?

 

You have a beautiful guitar there =P~

Nice to see that you also have the Bigsby B5 tailpiece (most people get the long-tail version). Are you happy with the Bigsby? Did you cover up the stopbar anchor holes? If so, what did you use?

Cheers,

Frank.

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i did a horrible job that gives it a roughed up look. I put this kind of clay/plaster in the holes and painted it with a shiny ebony color. From far like in the picture, it looks great, but up close its a crap job. oh well, nothing's perfect. especoally when its done by a thirteen year old.

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i have an idea based on the ultra II. I wanted to re-wire the pots so that each pickup would have its own volume knob so that i can blend different amounts of each pickup at the same time. I dont like selectors so i would like the pickups to feed directly to their specific pot and then all to the master tone. please let me know if this makes any sense at all. And how to wire it properly so that it works. if it doesnt make sense, then what to change to make it work.

 

, Sean

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stabarah, go with the aftermarket with the correct number of wire leads. I got a nice veh brown sound from www.guitarfetish.com and coil-tapped it. put in my 98 epi coronet along with a strat lipstick stlye from them too. really nice !!!!. i believe most of their humbkrs come with 4 leads and earth for coil tapping. they even have gold. u maybe able to match or just have cover from replacement swapped. since u are going to have a luthier do, see if the can mimic the wiring on the new epi riviera p-93. has a master tone and individual volume for each p-90. i love mines.

 

on another note. I would like to know for those who have the p-rail from seymour duncan what they think.

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thanks wardog. If anyone could tell me how many wiring leads are in a p-rail? But the idea of the push-pull volume knob for a regular humbucker interests me. what would be cool is if the push position would use the full humbucker ( and be its volume ) and the pull position would use half the pickup which would be a single coil ( and be its volume ). I wont use this plan if i find a p-rail. If I can find a humbucker with 4 leads instead, then this plan is a go.

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