upgrading my son's pickups

[pippin65]

about to do complete rewire on my son's 2006 epi les paul standard. want to complete the job with a set of reasonably priced pickups. Have two sets in mind:
seymour duncan vintage blues set , at $130 shipped or, a set of stew mac golden age parsons street pickups for approx $124 shipped.
kid's into classic rock and blues, looking for thoughts. thanks.

 

[rclausen]

Dimarzio 36th Anniversaries might be another option, around the same price

 

[Jnorm]

Maybe something a little hotter in the bridge slot for some kick.

 

[DPaulCustom]

about to do complete rewire on my son's 2006 epi les paul standard. want to complete the job with a set of reasonably priced pickups. Have two sets in mind:
seymour duncan vintage blues set , at $130 shipped or, a set of stew mac golden age parsons street pickups for approx $124 shipped.
kid's into classic rock and blues, looking for thoughts. thanks.

Of the two, I'd lean toward the Parson St., lots of good reviews on those.

 

[Sinster]

Dimarzio 36th Anniversaries might be another option, around the same price

These.

Or these http://www.buildabucker.com/products.html if you don't mind some assembly. The vendor is a MLP member as well.

 

[pippin65]

thanks for the replies. saw the 36th's compared vs the masters on a youtube video and loved them both. will buy... what the heck is f spaced though?

 

[pippin65]

so to all my more guitar-savvy friends here at mlpf, please guide me to the correct 36th anni pickups for my son's 2006 epi les paul. from what i've read elsewhere if one upgrades the bridge components, that would potentially impact spacing. I haven't upgraded bridge/ tailpiece yet but it is a consideration. btw want to order from amazon, site doesn't seem clear if the pups are f spaced or not...

 

[DPaulCustom]

Make sure it's regular spaced for the neck, the bridge won't really matter.
I'd do f spaced for the bridge.
Something like this
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/DiMarzio-F-Spaced-Anniversary-Regular-Humbucker/dp/B00ULA0CP2/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&qid=1430328381&sr=8-23&keywords=dimarzio+36th+paf[/ame]

 

[stratfish]

Measure the distance between Low E & High E strings at the bridge...
your son's Epi should be close to 50mm.

Here's info from Lollar website re: pole spacing:
If you were to measure the distance between the high E string and the low E string you would get different measurements if you were measuring a Gibson style pickup versus a Fender style pickup. When measured from center to center of the two outside (E) strings, a standard Gibson style pole spacing is right around 50 millimeters. A standard Fender style pole spacing is between 52 and 53 millimeters, depending on the pickup.


Here's a thread that says DiMarzio pole spacing is "unusually narrow" so if this is true their F-Spaced is not a the full 53mm E-to-E, so what DPaul says is spot on...

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/pickups/151100-f-spaced-pickups.html

Here's a set of 36th's in aged nickel for a decent price...
Ad doesn't say spacing.
http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/member-classifieds/334812-36th-anniversary-set-aged-nickle.html

 

[Quill]

What a cool thing to do for your son, good for you - I love it! Have you also thought about the pots and caps? Epiphones and Gibsons both benefit from simple upgrades there, and the clear top end of an upgraded pickup might not speak to full advantage through the stock pots, which probably have a maximum resistance that is far below 500 kohms. Jonesy, one of the MLP vendors, sells a great product at an affordable price. He always seems to always have a supply of excellent NOS and even new-manufacture capacitors that are not necessarily the most expensive caps in the world but he selects and sells the ones that sound great. In my experience he tends to respond to questions quickly and ships right away. Of course there are other vendors that sell excellent products and offer a great service but Jonesy likes to offer options designed around a price point that is probably about right for your son's guitar - and really, you'd have to get pretty fussy about your parts to beat his products at any price point.

 

[AJK1]

Email Dimarzio and tell them the model of the guitar
They will recommend what pickups and spacing to get.
Any of those pickups you mentioned will be a vast improvement on the stock ones

 

[pippin65]

Dimarzio said:
The neck pickup should be standard-spaced. The bridge pickup should be F-spaced.
DiMarzio Inc.

I purchased wiring, caps, pots individually, as opposed to a kit; will wire vintage 50's. cts short shafts, switchcraft jack and three way switch. bought sprague vitamin q caps .o22uf
doing this because he's number 1 in freshman class of hs and I have the heart of guitarist with, sadly, none of the skill. youtube: lameaxe and you'll see the epi lp and my poor playing. and my kid when he was way younger, he's 15 now. I am essentially his guitar tech/financier.
any other support, advice, links to setups, etc. greatly appreciated.
he's been a fender guy, I want to help him see the lp side of things....
36th's ordered! (now have to face the wrath of finance minister--my lovely wife...)

 

[DPaulCustom]

dimarzio said:
The neck pickup should be standard-spaced. The bridge pickup should be f-spaced.
Dimarzio inc.

I purchased wiring, caps, pots individually, as opposed to a kit; will wire vintage 50's. Cts short shafts, switchcraft jack and three way switch. Bought sprague vitamin q caps .o22uf
doing this because he's number 1 in freshman class of hs and i have the heart of guitarist with, sadly, none of the skill. Youtube: Lameaxe and you'll see the epi lp and my poor playing. And my kid when he was way younger, he's 15 now. I am essentially his guitar tech/financier.
Any other support, advice, links to setups, etc. Greatly appreciated.
He's been a fender guy, i want to help him see the lp side of things....
36th's ordered! (now have to face the wrath of finance minister--my lovely wife...)

 

[Quill]

.... I purchased wiring, caps, pots individually, as opposed to a kit ...

Right - perfectly obvious in the "complete rewire" part of your OP, please pardon my careless reading. Sounds like you've got all the right parts, and those caps in particular are great choices. You obviously know exactly what you're doing and he's gonna dig it.

If you have trouble explaining the expense, maybe you could try showing her what you've paid for your parts, and then show her what you could have paid if you'd bought some of the pre-wired packages that are out there and that's not even to mention what you could be spending on the pickups. It's a lot of fun, and on-going fun at that, for not a lot of expense, you and he will be having.

 

[AJK1]

Dimarzio said:
The neck pickup should be standard-spaced. The bridge pickup should be F-spaced.
DiMarzio Inc.

I purchased wiring, caps, pots individually, as opposed to a kit; will wire vintage 50's. cts short shafts, switchcraft jack and three way switch. bought sprague vitamin q caps .o22uf
doing this because he's number 1 in freshman class of hs and I have the heart of guitarist with, sadly, none of the skill. youtube: lameaxe and you'll see the epi lp and my poor playing. and my kid when he was way younger, he's 15 now. I am essentially his guitar tech/financier.
any other support, advice, links to setups, etc. greatly appreciated.
he's been a fender guy, I want to help him see the lp side of things....
36th's ordered! (now have to face the wrath of finance minister--my lovely wife...)

Yeah, meanwhile, like every woman, she has a secret account that she has that her husband doesn't know about....