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!

Stopping Microphonic Squeals and Feedback on Covered Pickups

Thanks to Jim Wagner of WCR Pickups fame I have learned a great new technique for stopping microphonic squeals from pickups with metal covers. This won't work for pickups that are prone to microphonic squealing even without their covers... but if the cover is the culprit, I have the solution!

It has happened to me so many times. I'll buy a new guitar that has some great sounding (and looking) nickel, chrome or gold covered humbuckers that end up producing sharp, squealing feedback when played at gig volumes with moderate to high gain distortion (which usually forces me to remove the covers). I personally like the look of a covered humbucker, and there is no question that the cover also influences the sound of the pickup, as well. So if you have a nice VOS Les Paul, for example, and are looking for that classic PAF tone (and look) you'll definitely want to leave those covers on.

The cause of all this annoying feedback is actually micro-vibrations from the cover itself. You can test this by taking a pencil eraser and pushing down on the center of the cover while the pickup is feeding back. If the squealing stops, the cover is the definitely problem. So, what we need now is a permanent "pencil eraser" in contact with the cover to stop that vibration.

Jim's trick is super simple. Pick up some "poster putty", which goes by many different names (Handy Tack, Poster Tack, Scotch(R) Adhesive Putty, etc.). You don't need very much to stop the cover from moving, so one pack will definitely do. De-solder the cover from the pickup and remove it. Take a small amount of putty and then stretch flatten it into a thin ribbon about the size of a single pickup bobbin, but no more than the thickness of several pieces of paper. Apply this putty ribbon to the slug side on the inside of the cover. You can add some thin ribbons of putty to the sides of the cover, too, for good measure. Just be careful not to add too much or make the ribbons too thick... it will make for a poor fitting cover if you do.

I just recently put the cover back on a Seymour Duncan JB that resides in the bridge position of my James Tyler Classic Strat. I loved the look of this guitar with the chrome cover, but it suffered from sharp, uncontrollable squeals when played on a loud, distorted amplifier so the pickup cover was removed shortly after I acquired the guitar. The putty trick worked beautifully and now my Tyler is whole again!

Just remember to squeeze the cover and pickup together very tightly to spread the putty around inside and keep on squeezing hard to get the two pieces as close together as possible. Then just solder the cover and pickup together like normal, and you're done! Voila! No more squeals!!

Gibson R7 Black Beauty Les Paul Historic Gets New Electronics Kit and WCR Pickups

I recently posted about a lovely Gibson R7 Black Beauty Les Paul Historic I added to my growing collection of Les Pauls. This is a wonderful guitar that plays beautifully and has a great sound. Even just strumming around on it unplugged the tone is loud and rich. However, I have never been a big fan of stock Gibson electronics and the stuff in this guitar was especially bad. It just had to go!

Since I had some WCR pickups lying around (a Darkburst bridge and a Crossroads neck) that were not being used for anything it made perfect sense to pop them in. But, these particular pickups have double black bobbins and chrome screws and slugs. I knew I wanted to keep the gold hardware consistent on this guitar so I called Jim Wagner of WCR Pickups and inquired about gold screws and covers. Jim, who is a very nice and helpful guy, confirmed that they sold the gold parts I needed and assured me that installing new screws in the pickups was a safe operation that would not damage the internal windings. While I was ordering I decided to stray this once and try one of Jim's wiring kits instead of my usual favorite, the RS GuitarWorks Vintage kit.

Once the parts arrived I got to work installing the gold screws and covers on the WCR Darkburst and Crossroads pickups. Nothing could have been easier! The quality of materials that Jim uses in his pickups is quite evident once you start taking them apart. :) Nice thick, heavy bobbin plastic, high quality screws/slugs and heavy gauge lead wires are a big part of why his pickups are so good. Once I got the screws in I used some putty to dampen the covers before installing them on the pickups so they don't squeal when played on a high gain amplifier at volume. With the pickups ready, it was time to gut the old electronics and install the WCR kit.

I now build Les Paul kits outside the guitar using a piece of card board with holes punched in it to accommodate the potentiometers. This gives you free access to the parts when soldering and you don't burn your guitar in the process. :) Once I had as much of the harness wired up as possible on the cardboard I slipped it into the guitar and finished the job by wiring up the bridge ground, switch leads and the pickups to the harness. One thing I don't like about the WCR kit is the lack of switch, jack and wire. For about the same price as an RS GuitarWorks complete kit you don't get those extras. Something to keep in mind in the future, because this guitar probably could have used a better switch, jack and high quality braided wire. I'll likely put those things in at a later date.

Another thing I did on this guitar was to fix the bridge radius. Gibson never seems to get this right. A Les Paul has a 12" neck radius, but the string slots in the bridge saddles were not cut properly so the strings did not follow the curvature of the neck. Since the D string was the lowest I used it as a starting point and reslotted the other saddles to create a perfectly radiused bridge.

I have some locking Grover tuners on order, which will complete this gem. I love this guitar and the new electronics and pickups really do sound great. It's just classic Les Paul, through and through and it doesn't get any better than that!

Gibson VOS R9 Les Paul Gets RS GuitarWorks Vintage Kit Installed

This is the first post of 2010, so Happy New Year! This past weekend I put an RS GuitarWorks vintage complete kit in my '07 R9 VOS Les Paul. I had previously installed a pair of double-creme WCR pickups (Goodwood bridge, Crossroads neck) in this particular guitar, but I had not yet upgraded the electronics. It was a success! This has always been one of my favorite guitars, and not just due to awesome playability and gorgeous esthetics, but also due to its great tone. This kit coupled with the WCR pickups make this guitar sound even better then ever.

The kit install went smoothly, especially now that I've done several of these Les Paul kit installs lately. I immediately noticed a clearer, more articulate tone when plugging in for the first time after the install. The vintage kit seems to have helped roll off upper frequency harshness while retaining all the good, bright top-end that is necessary for great Les Paul tone.

The WCR Goodwood pickup is known for its perfect rolled off midrange, giving you plenty of spank without harshness plus great low-end response... perfect balance. This kit really helps this pickup shine in all its glory. Same goes for the WCR Crossroads pickup in the neck position. It has beautiful, thick and liquidy lead tones with just the perfect amount of top end "hair" on the notes; and both pickups clean up nicely thanks to the treble-bleed mod I am fond of using.

It is hard to believe that this guitar's tone could be improved upon, but the RS GuitarWorks kit did just that.