What should I upgrade: Probuckers on ES Les Paul

[ours]

Thanks guys, that's very good advice and thanks for the link. Next week I should have all the pots and caps to rewire, I will give a report, but have nothing to record properly, sorry it will all be subjective. I might also turn my Explorer to a Guinea pig, and try different Pickups, including swapping magnets in the 490/498, I heard it might help, at least for my taste.

 

[Oldhand]

Hi ours! I replaced oem pups on my Ultra with the PBs you have. I love the sounds, not at all like you describe. Previously upgraded to 50's wiring (thanks jonesy), so I suspect your wiring upgrade will make a big difference that you'll like.

 

[ours]

Hi ours! I replaced oem pups on my Ultra with the PBs you have. I love the sounds, not at all like you describe. Previously upgraded to 50's wiring (thanks jonesy), so I suspect your wiring upgrade will make a big difference that you'll like.

Thanks Oldhand, do you know if your harness has 300k or 500k volume pots? I have some Black Bee from taihan caps, lying around, I think Jonesy has mentionned them. If you have the chance to check which caps are in your harness, it could help.

Too much work this week to start my tests, but I set up my audio interface to compare pups, hopefully sometime this month.

 

[Oldhand]

They are 550k from jonesy. Both 300 and 500 will work but 500k will give you more tone and volume flexibility, the closer they measure to 500k the better.

 

[ours]

Hi guys, thanks for the answers.

Short report, the ES is still without pickup. I move the PB to the Epi Explorer and they sounded great, I had to change the wiring and remove one tone pot of course, but the push/pull did a great job on this guitar. I now sold the EX to a guy who plays it in a church and he is a very happy Epi owner. For the ES I think I will try the 490/498 I have in my drawer and see how they sound with 500k pots.

 

[Gem23]

I was surprised at the difference with my 490/498 combo after I swapped the magnets and took them out of my 1998 LP studio and put them into a similar aged epiphone LP custom. . I liked them a lot more.

 

[eeprete]

Just crank your amp more and control the volume at the guitar. I have an Epi Florentine/ES and the pickups are AWESOME through both my 5150 and my Bassbreaker 15.

 

[ours]

Hi guys, end of story follows, but first thanks to all of you. I tried to summarize all your inputs before starting the rewiring, since this process in an ES guitar is a bit cumbersome and I didn't want to have to do it twice. For the same reason I cross checked the harness 4 times before inserting it.

So I changed the pots to CTS 300k volume and no load 500k tone pots and used the 490R/498T pickups I had in a drawer from my Gibby LP (no magnet swapping, I was to afraid to ruin them). The sound improved massively. As I said earlier the Probuckers did wonder in an Explorer, but were not doing it for me in the ES LP, so I have nothing against them, just a matter of taste.

I am now very pleased with the sound of the 490R (neck) it is what I define as creamy and what I was looking for. Yes I am using a good amp to hear the differences ;-) (I mean it's all subjective!) and the color of the guitar does certainly plays a part too ;-).

The 498T is not as pleasing to my hears, but it is still an improvement from the PB. That is, less thin sounding and less muddy with overdrive. Don't bash me, that's just how it sounds to me even if it seems contradictory.

So, all in all, an excellent pickup swap both for the EX and the ES, both excellent Epiphone guitars, one made in Czech Rep, one in China.

Cheers
R