Gibson Guitar Replacement Parts

This is the original Gibson go-to pickup, that they put in all of their electric guitars until the humbucker replaced it in 1957. Because of this, most people do not associate this pickup with the sound of a Les Paul when they hear it. However, it does have a really interesting quality. Being a larger pickup, it looks like a humbucker, but is actually single coil. It really doesn't come close to the sound of a Strat or Tele pickup, though, as it's not nearly as bright or shrill as those can be (I love those pickups by the way, that's not a diss). The interesting thing about these pickups is that while they lack the brute force of a humbucker, and are obviously noisier, they quite possibly work better for lighter rock situations than a humbucker would, especially in a Les Paul. While you can't rock out like Slash from Guns n' Roses does, you can get a nice Free/Bad Company/Thin Lizzy style sound with these pickups and the right amplifier (most likely a Marshall or something similar). This is with distortion, of course. A clean sound with these pickups will quite honestly sound fantastic in the right amp. With a Fender twin, these pickups can give you a great smooth tone that still cuts through a mix and comes right out front. The original Gibson pickups are hard to get a hold of, but Seymour Duncan makes replicas that are virtually identical. They sound pretty much exactly the same, and only cost about 70 dollars, so it's not exactly a bank-breaking purchase. It can make a nice alternative to the standard Fender-style single-coils, or a respite from the enormous sound of humbuckers. While they really aren't for everybody, I do recommend that most people check them out.

These are certainly a great pickup, for many reasons. The most obvious reason, which I'll discuss first, is the Gibson Les Paul. These are the first humbuckers that came with the Les Pauls in the late 50s, which were introduced to help with the massive amounts of noise that came with single-coil pickups, at least among rock guitarists who were trying to increase the gain on their amps without too much feedback. Technically, the first burstbuckers were earlier, but they were redesigned for improvement shortly afterward, hence this model. These pickups are some of the more versatile pickups I've ever played. The great thing about them is that they sound awesome in many different guitars. I really like the sound that they can produce with the Les Paul (who doesn't?) but I also have a great appreciation for what they can do with a hollow-body. Before these guys came around, hollow-bodies could not handle any type of distortion, as they'd feed back tremendously. That changed with these guys, and now hollow-bodied guitars are used in rock music all the time (everyone from Robert Fripp to Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age). I've even seen them used in Telecasters and Stratocasters to great effect (though I prefer them in the Teles). I think that it's interesting that guitars so often identified with single-coils can still sound great with humbuckers in them. That's testament to how solid these pickups are. If you are looking to replace your pickups and are sure you want humbuckers, make sure you check these out.

I lucked into a pair of Gibson Alnico V Burstbucker Pro pickups. (whew! What a name!) when a younger guitarist had hotter, more "metal" pups installed in his Gibson Les Paul. These replaced the adequate but maybe uninspiring stock pickups in my Epiphone Les Paul Standard, and they REALLY upgraded the tone of this guitar. This is not just my opinion- other guitarist have commented on how good the Epi now sounds, with it's new pick ups- some have said that is is my best-sounding guitar- and that guitarist is quite the tone snob, so coming from him, that really means something. As to the value- at around one hundred to one hundred and twenty dollars, and up, EACH, these do not come cheap, when bought new, but they are worth every penny, and then some. They are less expensive than the "endorser" pickups, and thus a better value. Drop 'em into your less-expensive guitar, save the original pickups, and be rewarded with excellent tone. When you either upgrade your guitar, or sell it, take the Gibson Alnico V Burstbucker Pro (there's that long name, again) out and put the originals back in. You can then either sell the pups for good money (I would estimate they beat the "half what they cost, new" rule by about an additional twenty five percent) or put them in your new axe. They come with either chrome or gold-plated pickup covers- I prefer the chrome, but that's a matter of personal taste. Of course, the gold plating adds to the cost of the pickups. If you are looking for rock or blues tone from 'buckers, forget EVERYTHING else, including Gibson's "endorser" pups- these are all you need. I've compared these to about a dozen other HB pickups, and these always sound the best. One of the few items- no, the ONLY item, I have given such a high rating, so far.

The PAF is a classic pickup. It was the first humbucking pickup and was invented by Seth Lover in the mid 50s. The PAF stands for Patent Applied For. Gibson could not wait for the patent to be approved before selling the pickup because they knew anyone could go look at the patent and steal their design so right after they applied for the patent they started selling them with that name. This was good because it took a few years for the patent to get approved and by then they were some of the most popular pickups in the market. There are plenty of pickups that say they are PAF relicas. Every passive pickup maker makes one pretty much. The Gibson ones are the closest modern mass produced pickups today that are close to the original PAF. Seymour Duncan makes some special aged PAF style pickups but these are pretty much custom jobs. The 57 Classic is probably the best pickup that Gibsons come with nowadays.. The 57's have just the right amount of sag in the tone so you can really work the dynamics like you would with a set of real vintage pickups. In the neck position is super smooth and when you throw in some tone knob you can get that sour tone like you have a parked wah on. In the bridge position it has a little more bite and spank to it. With some gain you can get good classic rock tones from the bridge pickup. These pickups can handle more gain than a set of PAF's could. Because of their modern design they retain their composure longer than a set of old pickups could. If you have a humbucker guitar and want a really classic sound from it. You can go directly to the source and get some real life PAF's from Gibson in the form of the Classic 57.

I purchased a Yamaha Pacifica 120SD that is essentially a Telecaster style guitar with an alder body, maple neck with rosewood fretboard, and hardtail construction that was loaded with a set of Gibson 490R/498T humbuckers by a previous owner. They were my first good quality pickups that I'd owned so it was a revelation coming from cheaper OEM humbuckers. I would say they're a medium output pickup set, which on paper looks to be a very versatile pairing for many different styles of music. I've always thought that they were a decent pair for sure. The neck pickup (490R) is a very nice sounding neck humbucker with a nice lush sounding low end and a decent sparkle in the top end as well. It sounded best for jazz type sounds I found (using a clean tube amp) but I also enjoyed them for a slightly Hendrix esque sound with a mild fuzz and a cranked tube amp. Obviously they don't sound like true single coils or anything but I found that the neck pickup had a nice shimmer that took the tones one step closer to that sound. The bridge pickup is a nice reasonable output pickup that does everything from Clapton to Van Halen fairly well and I dig that versatility. It doesn't quite have that top end that the neck pickup has, but it does have a nice punchy low end and some good strong midrange frequencies that sit very well in a band mix. Cleans have a very full bodied tone overall and the drive tones are really spongy and cool sounding, kind of like playing through a browned out amp. I do prefer the 57 Classic set over these, but for a slightly higher output set of pickups, I was fairly impressed with these. If given the choice over again, I would opt for the 57 Classics, as I feel they're the best pickups that Gibson makes, but considering I bought the guitar used with the pickups pre-installed, I guess there wasn't much choice in the matter! All in all I felt that these were decent sounding pickups that worked well for a wide variety of styles. Definitely worth a look!

The Gibson Classic 57+ has just the right abount of output to push your wood and allow articulation. My favorite combonation is 57+ bridge and 57 neck. I have this set up in a LP Standard 2001---best guitar made in years but that is another review. The 57 will easily push my JCM800, Soldano Avenger, CAE OD100 or Bogner Shiva anniversary into overdrive. At the same time fully strummed chords maintain note articulation. The pickup is well rounded not too dark or too bright. The pluss in the bridge gives the player a tad more power. These pickups allow the guitar to sound unique to the guitars make and model. You can't go wrong with the classic 57. I also have the regular 57 set in a Gibson 335 and SG 61 reissue. The pups work well in both gutiars. I would indeed make the same choice in fact I may put them in the bridge positon of a strat one day.

I recently had the opportunity to play this pick-up in a John Sykes Gibson Custom shop. My immediate reaction was "so that's how he gets his thick wall of sound tone!". Seriously, you hear a lot about how Sykes used older Mesa amps and that was the secret. I'm here to tell you, a part of that secret is the Dirty Fingers pick up. This thing is pretty wicked, very hot and has a massive thick tone to it. The bass reaction is really well and it has lots of response to palm mutes and thumnpy thick tones. The high end is also very good with lots of grind, maybe not as much as I normally like but very good. Probably an 8 and a half out of 10 on the grindy mids. The overall balance of the pick-up is very pleasing and you overlook that it isn't absolutely perfect. It is definitely the kind of pick up that makes you not want to put down the guitar. Now that being said, it does have one shortfall and it is one that is hard to pinpoint. I'm not sure if it is the overall tone or elements of it but when I switch between my EVH Wolfgang with the stock EVH Humbucker, the tone is immediately better. Don't get me wrong the Dirty Fingers is thicker and beefier but the overall package loses to the Wolfgang. The DF on its own without comparison is addictive more for the feel than for the perfect tone you might be waiting for. Sometimes feel is more important and if that's the case, this one is for you. I think there are better pick-ups out there if great tone is what you seek. There is no doubt about it if you are looking for chunky and big, this pick up is for you. If you want something a bit tamer, you may want to look at something else. Oh and if you are looking to sound like John Sykes, look no further, the Dirty Fingers is for you.

I wish Gibson would put these on more of their guitars. If they are not going to use better tuners you will need one of these to get your guitar in perfect tune. The TP6 is not just for Gibsons. It will work on pretty much any tune-o-matic bridge guitar and have bad tuners this is a good part to have on your guitar. It give you the fine tuning capabilities of a Floyd Rose or a similar type of bridge. If you have locking tuners this is also great because you can adjust your tuning without unlocking your tuners. This is good for when your guitar is just slightly out of tune due to like temperature changes or something. Its out of tune but it is not worth unlocking your tuners to fix it. This stop tail setup lets you finely adjust the tuning of the strings. I think the tuners on this have something like a 40.1 ratio or something very fine. It is a lot finer than any headstock tuners you will ever find. They will get you right in tune. The biggest problem with these is the price Gibson sells them for. Currently on their site they have them for sale for 170 dollars which is a joke really. These go for about 30 or 40 dollars used and frankly I got my first one for free. Frankly if Gibson just put good tuners on their guitars there would be no need for these. Gibson puts low quality non locking tuners on their guitar then sells a piece to fix it for 170 bucks. That is a joke on Gibsons part. I would never pay what Gibson is charging for these. If you are looking for one of these get one used and dont pay more than 50 dollars.