Changing PUPs in Epiphone Les Paul to Burstbuckers

[SessionMan]

I own a Standard Plus Top which is my go-to guitar. No band experience but I love to play for hours and recently I was reading about modding lower end guitars. Not to say the standard pickups aren't great but I've heard alot of great things about Gibson's Replica Burstbuckers. In this case I chose to go with #'s 1 & 2. 1 in the neck and 2 in the bridge. To be honest the wiring in the back of the body was like a rats nest. When I first picked up the guitar it needed to be taken back for adjustments on the nobs, switch, and contacts on the pots. I do electronics for a living so soldering new wires in and taking old ones out was easy. Where I ran into problems is the disappointment I had in the sound of the new pickups. The website where I looked up the procedure didn't mention specifics on height of the pickups, height of the individual pots on PUPs, PUP mounting alterations, etc.

 

My questions are;

 

What are the physical specifics on the pickup height or screw height?

 

Do I need to change the mounts for the pickups?

 

Was I better off with the stock PUPs because EPI's are not constructed the same as the bodies in Gibson's?(where i'm assuming the BB's would feel more at home)

[Ricochet]

First off. Pretty much any pickup on offer from either Gibson or Seymour Duncan is an upgrade over the stock Epis.

 

With that outta the way...My rules of thumb:

 

Screws: sorta flush with the PU-cover(I keep my Es flush with the PU bobbins/cover) following the neckradius.

 

Height: with the 22th fret "fretted" you want the PU-height as high as possible but stay clear from the strings.

Screw'm up till they almost hit the strings when picked. Then the tricky part. Start screwing'm down till you loose any weird oscillating effect and harmonic falsies. You will need to plug your guitar into an amp(crunchy setting), and go by ear!

Generally that will leave the PU between one or two dime's thickness distance from the PU. Again, with the last fret fretted.

 

If you experience any large volume discrepencies between the pickups, lower the loudest PU till it matches the output volume of the other.

 

You won't need to change mounts.

[tulsaslim]

I will tell you that when you get it 'right' you'll be very glad you went with the BBs. They are the very best humbuckers I've ever played through. 1,2,3, or BB pros, they are great. You will love them.

 

If they do not sound as good as you thought they would take it to a tech to make sure it's wired correctly. The difference between stock epi pickups and BBs is like night and day. The difference will be obvious to a deaf person.

[gearhead]

Check this out on pickup height:

 

Pickup Height

[ReneBoedker]

The difference will be obvious to a deaf person.

WOW' date=' then they're powerful! (Just joking)

[SessionMan]

Thanks for the affirmation of a good decision to switch out PUP's to the BB's. I'll fine tune them and post back to let everybody, that is curious, how it sounds.