Quantcast Ryan's Guitars: 2001 Gibson R7 Les Paul Black Beauty Gets DiMarzio Super Distortion Pickup

Sunday, August 08, 2010

2001 Gibson R7 Les Paul Black Beauty Gets DiMarzio Super Distortion Pickup

While it's true that I love the WCR Darkburst pickup I installed in the bridge of my Black Beauty Les Paul recently, I've just never quite felt the pickup had enough output to properly compliment the guitar. This guitar is very bright for a Les Paul (and especially bright for an all mahogany custom). I even tried pulling the cover off and positioning the pickup as close to the strings as possible. This definitely helped, but I still felt the overall tone was a bit bright.

I happened to have a double creme DiMarzio Super Distortion lying around so I thought it would be cool to try it out and see if the higher output and darker tone would better compliment the natural brightness of this guitar. Plus, it's ultra "'70s cool" to have a double creme DiMarzio Super Distortion in your Les Paul! :)

I have to say that I really like how this pickup sounds in this particular guitar. Even with this pickup the tone remains bright, but with the added output and the darker tone of the Super Distortion the notes are rounder and thicker and sustain has also improved. I may end up keeping this pickup in there! Time will tell. Once I get my recently acquired Duncan Antiquity potted I may very well pop it in the Black Beauty for a quick test. It's nice to have options!

3 comments:

  1. very cool site! can't wait to explore it a little. you should check out my new guitar blog if you'd like.

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  2. The creme Super Distortion looks great with the black body! My fav pickup!

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  3. Huh... how about that!
    I've got a super distortion in the bridge of my Gibson les paul too, and I've also been contemplating switching to a Seymour Duncan antiquity. I actually almost did yesterday, but then I discovered such a great tone out of phase with the neck (kinda like peter green crossed with jimmy page), so I'm not sure now...
    If you do end up trying the antiquity do you reckon you could let me know how it goes?

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