eor Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 has a consensus been reached? rebadged 57 classics? rebadged 490s/498s? somehow lesser copies of one of those? none of the above? i've read all these theories on the all knowing internet at one point. thought it would be nice if we could suss this out here. most curious about the humbuckers, but any clarification on any set of elitist pickups would be cool. for what it is worth, the bottoms of the elitist sheraton pups are identical to the gibson mins. no epi stickers or engraving. as for the hums, i've been cool with the neck (50sr?) pickups, but found both the 50st and 60st too hot and fizzy for me. pot and cap changes help immensely with these as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueman335 Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 They've got A5 magnets; '57's, 490's, and BB's have A2's. BBP's have A5's and 498T's, but the 60 isn't as hot as a 498T. I doubt Gibson created a new PU wind for Epi Elites, they're probably an existing PU with a different magnet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parabar Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I recall seeing a writeup on the Elitist Broadway which said the pickups are Gibson 490R/498T. I think maybe some of the Elitist LP's were supposed to have Burstbuckers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mud guy Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Hey Eor- Does your 05 elitist les paul have 4 conductor wire? My 2003 Elite custom has braided 2 conductor wire. I like the pickups, the bridge is really hot but not nasty. -Cal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted February 28, 2012 Author Share Posted February 28, 2012 this is wonderful news. as having always fancied myself not a a5 magnet kinda guy, i have justification to seek out "improvement". though i'm not entirely unhappy with the neck- i can do very nice things with it. i just always wonder if it could be better, you know. maybe it can :) blue- do you suppose they took an extant a2 pup (say, the 57 classic) and swapped the magnet, thus preserving gibson "superiority"? mud- mine were two conductor. having noted on the gibson site that factory 490/498s have two contuctor wire, i got a little suspicious. pete- thanks for that. i actually had that catalog in print at one point. nice to see it again. glad it has been preserved for archival purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueman335 Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 this is wonderful news. as having always fancied myself not a a5 magnet kinda guy, i have justification to seek out "improvement". though i'm not entirely unhappy with the neck- i can do very nice things with it. i just always wonder if it could be better, you know. maybe it can :) blue- do you suppose they took an extant a2 pup (say, the 57 classic) and swapped the magnet, thus preserving gibson "superiority"? mud- mine were two conductor. having noted on the gibson site that factory 490/498s have two contuctor wire, i got a little suspicious. Your Epi Elitist PU's won't sell for as much as if they came out of a Gibson (don't ask me why), so why don't you put A2's in them yourself? You can get the magnets from Addiction FX for several dollars each. And you'll have real Gibson A2's PU's and not have to buy anything else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueman335 Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 I recall seeing a writeup on the Elitist Broadway which said the pickups are Gibson 490R/498T. I think maybe some of the Elitist LP's were supposed to have Burstbuckers. A hot 498T in a hollow body? No one does that. Reduces the acoustic overtones and increases the feedback. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted February 29, 2012 Author Share Posted February 29, 2012 Your Epi Elitist PU's won't sell for as much as if they came out of a Gibson (don't ask me why), so why don't you put A2's in them yourself? You can get the magnets from Addiction FX for several dollars each. And you'll have real Gibson A2's PU's and not have to buy anything else. what a fascinating idea that i have not once considered before. can't be that hard, right? i wonder how the rough and polished magnets differ. A hot 498T in a hollow body? No one does that. Reduces the acoustic overtones and increases the feedback. you'd be surprised. the bridge pickup is both hot and zingy. certainly hotter than i need it too be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Your Epi Elitist PU's won't sell for as much as if they came out of a Gibson (don't ask me why), so why don't you put A2's in them yourself? You can get the magnets from Addiction FX for several dollars each. And you'll have real Gibson A2's PU's and not have to buy anything else. I thought this was a good idea too and decided to try it on my Elitist Dot. Blueman: I pulled the magnet out of one of my pickups and it is exactly 2.50" long, but the longest A2 magnet that AddictionFX has is 2.44", which is 1/16" shorter. (Pole spacing is longer on Epiphone pickups than Gibson.) Do you think the 2.44" magnets will work OK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Nevermind......I see he has some 2.50" unpolished magnets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted March 4, 2012 Author Share Posted March 4, 2012 so how does this work? do you have to remove the pickup entirely or can the magnet be swapped without unsoldering the leads? what's the difference between the polished and unpolished? i might like to try a2, a3 and a4 mags in various pickups. would the firebird magnets fit the regular mini humbucker as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueman335 Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 so how does this work? do you have to remove the pickup entirely or can the magnet be swapped without unsoldering the leads? what's the difference between the polished and unpolished? i might like to try a2, a3 and a4 mags in various pickups. would the firebird magnets fit the regular mini humbucker as well? There's online video of mag swapping at Project Guitar.com, and lots of posts on the Duncan site. Basically you loosen the strings, unscrew the 4 screws of the PU ring, lift it out and turn it over. Set it on a towel or washcloth. If it has a cover, I use a dremel to cut the two solder blobs. Some guys use a screwdriver or an exacto knife (be careful with your fingers!). Loosen the four base plate screws about 1/8" (if you loosen them all the way, the coils will come loose too). Peel back the black tape so the ends of the coils are exposed. There's wires at one end of the PU; carefully move and lift them slightly, so you can get a screwdriver in there to push the mag out the other end. If the mag is stuck in place by wax, soften it with a blow dryer. Slide the old mag out halfway, and hold the new mag up to it. Orientation: the ends repel and sides attract. Push the old mag out all the way and slide the new one in. Push the wires back in place. Tighten the four baseplates screws and put the black tape back in place. Put the PU back in the guitar, tighten the strings and retune. The whole thing takes 10-15 minutes, and most of that is loosening and tightening strings. Practice on a cheap Asian HB first if you want. Very easy, and you've just made a 'new' PU. Firebird PU's have the wire wrapped around the magnet so it can't be swapped. Not sure what size mags are in mini-HB's. P-90's have two mags (same kind as HB's) and I've swapped many of those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snoopy Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 The last catalog where elitists where shown tells.... All Elitist instruments are equipped with custom wound pickups 'made in the USA' exclusively for Epiphone by Gibson Musical Instruments The Tak Matsumoto has Gibson Burstbuckers 3 & 2 the others can be viewed here in the 2006 catalog http://s669.photobucket.com/albums/vv55/paruwi6172/Epiphone%20catalog/ and another link to epiwiki http://epiphonewiki.com/index.php?title=Elitist_Series My Epiphone '63 Dot Elitist has about a 13k bridge pickup. I pulled it out to see under it and it says 50ST on it. So what's with the 50SR/50ST 8.5k spec on the chart? Maybe mine has a 60ST with a 50ST sticker. It's not like a 498T other than ohms reading. I've had a 498T in an ES333 so I've compared the two pickups. The response of a 498T is very low on bass. It's not hard to make a different wind, just change the settings on the machine. I myself do believe these are a different wind just for the Epiphones. I'd like to disect them and see if they have maple spacers and plain enamel wires. I don't think they have PE, I think it's polysol, which I think is more like the '63 patent # pickups would be, also with the A5 magnets. So these aren't really like any other Gibson pickup either. They're also no better than anything Gibson makes either. The PAF's were all made using hand guided wire on the winders from '58-'63 or so. That's where there was the magic to be found. Some sounded like garbage, but others sounded good. So from that inconsitency comes many flavours of PAF. I've put in a set of JS Moore A5 Pafs, a V1, and V3 which are hand guided. The difference is night and day. Stock pickup makers like Gibson, DiMarzio, Seymour Duncan all sound acceptable but they're pretty average. As for the swapping the magnet in the neck to an A2 you're just going to get mud like a '57 Classic and the wind is still the same. It's basically a waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 The plot thickens! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueman335 Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 As for the swapping the magnet in the neck to an A2 you're just going to get mud like a '57 Classic and the wind is still the same. It's basically a waste of time. On the Duncan site, players put A2's, A4's, and UOA5's in their '59's with good results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 I wanted to report back that I have tried a couple different magnets in my Elitist 335 pickups. Note I did not dislike the tone of the stock pickups. They seemed a little bright to me compared to Classic 57's, with some added bite, which I appreciated when trying to cut through the mix at gigs. I started with a pair of A2 magnets. I bought unpolished, as these were the only magnets I could find that matched the size of the stock polished magnets (0.5" x 2.5"). I assume polished vs. unpolished makes no difference, but I don't know. The A2's did sound somewhat muddy to me, especially in the neck, and the output level seemed lower. I had trouble cutting through the mix at rehearsal. I left them in there for a few weeks and decided to move on. Next I tried Unoriented A5 magnets, based on the understanding that they would fall somewhere between A2 and A5. They seem a little brighter than the A2s, but the overall output still seems lower than the original A5s. Overall the guitar with UOA5s has a lower output than my Epi 355 with retrofitted Classic '57s (which was not the case with the original A5s). I will try the UOA5s for a couple of weeks to see if I bond with them, but at this point I'm leaning towards going back to the original magnets. Someone had suggested earlier that perhaps the Elitist pickups might actually be Gibson pickups with different magnets. The Elitist pickups have the Epi pole spacing rather than the Gibson pole spacing, which I believe would rule them out as Gibsons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LPDEN Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Interesting, Gunner. By chance have you inquired with customer service to see if they had any answers from the inside, should they be willing to share the info? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Interesting, Gunner. By chance have you inquired with customer service to see if they had any answers from the inside, should they be willing to share the info? I have not. I think the original poster, eor, was interested in the heritage of the Elitist pickups. I was just trying to see if I could improve on the tone a little and maybe learn something in the process. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted April 3, 2012 Author Share Posted April 3, 2012 I am, in fact, interested in anything and everything in regards to them. They seem to be quite the hot item these days-the last few sets I've seen go in the $75-100 range. I backed off the magnet swap when I realized that the pups had been wound for said magnets, and if I changed them, i'd be messing with the strength and output, not just the flavor. This would give me an inaccurate impression of both the pup and the magnet. But if I'm wrong about this, I'd love to know. So I'll wait and hopefully try and get pups built to sound a certain way. Also,i quite shamefully submit that the more I play with the pups and the knobs and the amp, the less I dislike them. Which almost disappoints me, to be frank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vomer Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 the more I play with the pups and the knobs and the amp, the less I dislike them. Hate it when that happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eor Posted April 5, 2012 Author Share Posted April 5, 2012 yeah, i was pissed. mind was racing with all the possibilities in regards to a swap and now they want to stay. but with great effort, i can get some nice sounds. however, the part of me that loves to waste money on nonsense, which is the only trustworthy part of me, of course, says it'll sound even better with new pickups. i trust that guy. i think that fundamentally i'm more of a set and forget, plug and play guy. but with all the mods and upgrade, i've become more a tone... seeker? explorer? if i replace them, i'll have a base sound closer to what i want, like re calibrating zero, if you like. but i'll probably lose some tones inherent to these pickups. then again, as amused as i am by them, i probably won't ever "seriously" use them. to say nothing of the fact that more expensive pickups sound better. because we all know that more money = better. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.