Humbuckers on a 300 series?

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 9:53 am

Paul, some advice please.

What would the problems be with mounting burstbuckers or similar humbuckers on a 330/360 & what's your best guess at the sound? I know it's a hall of shame job, but just wondering.....

beatlefreak · Post by **beatlefreak** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:15 am

If they're RIC humbuckers, it wouldn't be a Hall Of Shame job, Tony.

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:40 am

Tony, here's a pic of John Fogerty's 325 with a PAF at the bridge: http://www.stthomasu.ca/~pmccorm/research/1969jfogerty.jpg

A little out of place, but not terrible IMO.

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:43 am

And here's Paul Weller with his 330 WHAAM!! guitar, which also has PAF's. Not a great pic.

http://www.stthomasu.ca/~pmccorm/research/pwellerwhaam.jpg

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:50 am

Kris....a Ric humbucker is not an option for me!

John, thanks for the pics, I didn't know either of those players did that mod to their gtrs, so maybe it's not such a crazy idea after all....

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:08 am

Yep, doesn't look half bad on Weller's 330 eh?

What's your gripe with the RIC humbuckers? Just a Burstbucker guy? One of my first good guitars was a LP Standard with Burstbuckers and I was never crazy about them. I thought the neck was muddy and the bridge was kind of lifeless.

I've currently got an Epiphone 335 Dot with a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover PAF in the bridge which I really like, especially with a little gain.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:14 am

The Ric humbuckers are caught in no mans land IMO John. They are fantastic sounding pickups if you want a single coil sound, but fall a long way short of the Gibson 'buckers. I can't understand your appraisal of the burstbuckers, as mine on both my Pauls are superb, totaly the opposite of what you describe. My amp however, is the 100w Marshall head that was designed for the Les Paul back in the late '70's, so maybe that's why mine sound so good. Out of interest, what year was the les Paul that you tried?

I agree with you...Wellers gtr doesn't look that bad at all.

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:31 am

Tony, I owned the Standard for a year or so. I've been through a lot of amps, but I'm pretty sure at the time I was running it through a Twin Reverb and an Orange OR-80 via an a/b/y switch. Quite a rig!

I thought the Burstbucker in the bridge really came alive with some gain. After all, i'm told, it was designed to emulate Jimmy Page's pickups. But I found it not really usable for me when clean. I also thought the neck pickup lacked definition as well.

This was about the time that I switched over to Ricks and other single coil guitars, so maybe my tastes were just changing, as yours seem to be as well.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:36 am

I just wondered, as the Burstbucker came in in 2000 & two years later thay upgraded it to the Burstbucker pro. Both mine have the 'pro' version, so unless your Les Paul was year '02 or later, then the pickups were different to mine.....the clean sound really impressed me, not that I use it!

You are right with the gain thing, as humbuckers seem to need the gain to get the very best out of them, whilst single coils can sound really great at very low volumes.

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:48 am

Actually Tony, I'm pretty sure mine was a 2002! There ya go.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:54 am

Their ya go indeed John, but back to the question...I wonder what they'd (or similar) sound like in a 300 series? Do you know what Wellers sounded like?

sloop_john_b · Post by **sloop_john_b** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 11:58 am

I'm familiar with a lot of The Jam's music but I can't say definitively if and when that guitar was used on which recordings. I think most of a guitar's tone comes from the pickups anyway, so perhaps the sound wouldn't be far off from that of an ES-335?

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:03 pm

That's exactly what I was wondering John, how much it would sound like a 335!

kcole4001 · Post by **kcole4001** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:24 pm

Would baby humbuckers fit in roughly the same space as RIC pickups? They do have a different tone than normal Gibson hb's if I remember correctly.
If they could be fit in with little or no modification to the guitar, so much better.

tony_carey · Post by **tony_carey** » Tue Oct 10, 2006 12:30 pm

That's a good point Kev...not sure how much bigger they are than hi-gains, or quite frankly, what they sound like. Might be worth investigating though. I'm sure the Curmudge knows, so I'll await his input first.