I watched your video some time ago, and I've just got around to doing it. I removed the pole pieces from the neck pickup on my '97 Standard, plugged in and played. After 47 years of playing Les Pauls I've finally got the sound available that I've craved. And the best thing is, the modification came at the right price.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have a Gibson LP that I love but I also have a Gretsch Electromatic singlecut that almost became firewood until I saw your video. Definitely sounds like a P90 and so I will be able to use it now. Subscribed.
Oh, awesome! Glad you found it helpful. I also had a Gretsch Electromatic at one point, but it was much brighter than my LP. It was the guitar that first got me off the Stratocaster bandwagon I had been on for 14 years!
Thanks so much! I have since installed stainless screws just to fill the holes and make it look more stock. Sounds the same. Take a look at my latest video "All Creatures ......" To see the installed and hear it.
@@SteveWoodyMusic do you have a source for these screws? is the thread 5-40 and length 3/4 inch? where can you source stainless screws with the right screw-head dimensions? i was thinking brass and nylon could also be cool options.
@@LfunkeyA Sorry for the late reply, I just saw this! I just checked my Amazon history and it looks like the place I ordered them from (Libonstore) is out of them. But the product description is: 5-40 X 3/4 Slotted Fillister Narrow head Machine screw STAINLESS .205 #5 5/40 So I assume any #5 5-40 fillister head screw should work.
Wow. I can't believe the difference this makes. My Epiphone Les Paul Standard was muddy as heck, I needed to use and EQ/Clean Boost with bass and treble controls to fix it but THIS is incredible.
@@SteveWoodyMusic Crazy thought. I was wondering what would happen if I used a hack saw to cut the screws in half. I'd need some spares on hand in case things didn't work out. Thoughts?
I did this to the neck pickup in my LP. A lot of people put a P90 in there, but this sounds just as good and there's no hum. And if you don't like it you can just put the screws back in
@@SteveWoodyMusic Hey mate! Yes I tried on on one of strats by removing the pick guard and broke the fixed ceramic magnets loose by tapping on the center pole pieces down. Now they are all level flush with the covers. I Raised the pick-up height , instant warm gratification! Give it a try, just don’t break 💥 the ceramic magnets 🧲 on the bottom of the pick-up!
This is very interesting, might have to try it! I'd suggest having a look at a video series called the Les Paul that isn't by Dave Stephens. He goes into all the details of LP tone and how modern LPs basically get everything wrong and sound dull as a result.
Very nice, I like it, and the whole of the guitar and your playing as well. Would it be a good idea to put some plastic screws or something to prevent dirt or some liquid from getting into the pickup?
Great tone, great playing, well-presented demo, nice Bigsby! I recently switched to NYXLs on my downtuned guitar. Diggin em. 56 on the low string?! I play hard and am happy with 10.5-50. You’re a beast, man :) did you have to widen the nut slot a tad?
Thanks so much for the kind words! You know, I don't remember if I did widen the nut slot, but feel like I probably had to. The heavier strings help with the bigsby (remember, there weren't and"light" strings when it was developed) and also, I strum pretty hard sometimes and the heavier strings don't flap around as much lol
This sounds really good and I am thinking about trying it on my custom, but man without the before clips it's really hard to tell. Did you try flipping the pup before taking out the pole pieces? How was that?
Yeah, flipping the pup doesn't do anything, unless you had the pole pieces set pretty drastic. I do get the wishing you had a before/after. Maybe someday I'll get around to making one. But, it's a free, reversible, 5 minute test to see if you like it on your guitar or not. I say go for it and let me know how you like it!
Have you tried getting pickups with lower winds? I just installed a GFS 'Metal Foil' humbucker which is rated at 6k, which sounds awesome to me. You can also get them at 5k, which seems a little crazy to me. They sound similar to a strat but not as harsh, and of course less noise. You do lose a bit of high end harmonics, but it is a easy trade.
Wow, that's very low! I'll have to check them out and see if there are some videos online. I'm guessing it's like the old Gold Foil Gretsch type pickups?
Someone else pointed out that in the movie It Might Get Loud Jimmy Page's neck pickup has no pole pieces. It is during the song Ramble On. It looks to be true but I am not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me.
It is true. See Jimmy's guitar sans pole screws in It Might Get Loud starting at 28 seconds here ua-cam.com/video/4gDsbOraiqg/v-deo.htmlsi=OswnM0cwD_Km90tG. And you can also see Eric Clapton's guitar sans pole screws starting at 35 seconds with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers here ua-cam.com/video/PkulcvRkd4I/v-deo.htmlsi=Iw_rCtXG5kCE0Opy
At 1:19 there appears to be light hitting the tops of something in the polepiece positions. I'll have a guess. The pickup in there is ancient and the nickel is worn and dark as heck - He later replaced a cover, and there's a finish mismatch.
I seen a picture of Keith Richard’s, he had Gibson custom 335 and he had tape over the neck humbucker where the screw pole pieces would be. I assumed this is what he is doing.
The Epiphone Custom Pro is designed to give you all of the things you’ve described. I guess wanting the strat sound on a Les Paul works but why not play a strat?
I played a strat as my main guitar for around 14 years. I think there is a beefiness to the Les Paul that I never could get on the strat which worked better for the rhythm stuff I do. Though, if this guitar were stolen or something, I would probably go back with some sort of strat with a humbucker in the bridge. That or maybe the black R4 Les Paul with the bigsby and P90/ Staple pickup. Or, even better, I would hunt down that '56 Gretsch Silver Jet I played in one of my other videos. It was the best sounding guitar I've ever played!!!
Also a solution. In fact you get a single coil with lower output than a P90, but still with humbucking effect. If I did this, then only on the neck pickup, as I love an authentic bridge PAF sound. Certainly nice for clean tones, but hardly will improve the overdrive sounds in my opinion. For the neck pickup certainly a good solution, as this one has a tendency to sound too bassy and too muddy, especially, but not only in a Les Paul. Cool, simple idea and if you dislike the tone, you simply can reinstall the screws again. Having turned around the neck pickup is a good idea too, so the still active coil is closer to the neck. But even this is a matter of taste. Another way to get similar sounds is, to screw down the neck pickup, but raise the screws a lot. Also alters the magnetic field and you also get a more single-coilish sound, but the difference is not so extreme, but you keep the authentic output level, while it also lowers with your solution. Ritchie Blackmore did this, when he still played an ES-335 with PAF's. My personal favorite Les Paul optinization is, to change neck tone to neck bass-cut and bridge tone to master tone. Allows precise, adjustable neck pickup bass control - if using the right capacitor values without altering any mids and treble - and this also allows to get some very differently sounding combined pickups sounds. The advantage for me is, that the pickups keep their (hotter) output level, while your solution reduces it, as I anyway hardly ever play clean.
I bought a used Gibson sg short neck bass from a private party and i noticed that the pole piece screws on the humbucker pickup near the neck of the bass are missing.
Interesting. I wonder if that coil it the hotter of the 2 and it dropped most of the volume? You could also try running the screws in well below the pickup cover. Should have a similar effect about the volume drop maybe
@@SteveWoodyMusic the PRS pups didn’t sound that great but I had a set of Gibson ‘61’s that are working nicely. I tried them with no poles and mixed with different lengths of poles but none of them sounded very good outside of their original set up. Your recordings sound nice but I couldn’t reproduce that tone.
That's actually what I ended up doing. Bought a pack off Amazon, and it's looking stock again! Check "All Creatures" video I put up this year to see it with them in
Interesting, I had never considered it. That neck really does sound like a P90, almost a strat sound. I have one with humbuckers, one with P-90s,, and a Strat.Might do a comparison later. Just curious, did you move the pickups closer to the strings after you removed the pole pieces? I'm not really a pedal guy either, but one of the few I have is a n LPB-1. I have found that if I add it to my signal path with the knob set to 9 or 10 o'clock (pretty low) it brightens my tone without coloring my clean tone very much. From there you can play with the volume and tone pots until you are happy with the tone. An added bonus is with the same clean tone I can roll off my tone all the way and crank up that pedal and get a good approximation of Clapton's famous Woman Tone.
I don't think I moved the pickups closer, but I could be wrong about that. It always surprises me when I hear bright Les Pauls, but I know that used to be the rule, not the exception. My favorite Les Paul sound is a video of Greg Koch playing "Way Back Home" live in Milwaukee. Gotta check it out!!!!
@@SteveWoodyMusicPlease! I’m wondering about doing it soon. Probably will on my next string change haha. How do you do it? Just screw them out until they’re loose and fall?
@@stopitrightnow12 yep, that's all there is to it. Just unscrew them and remove them. You can always put them back in. Also, you don't need to wait until your next string change, or even loosen the strings, though I suppose it could be easier if you do.
I may be wrong but I don't think so. I believe what you have done is turn your humbucker pickups into single coil pickup with hum canceling properties. There is a reason why pickups have pole pieces.
@@sooparticular yep, that's it. Super easy, though they may be tight depending on the amount of wax potting in the pickup. I purchased some non-ferrous stainless screws to put back in their place just to keep it stock looking and keep dirt out. Oh, and thanks so much for the compliment!
@@SteveWoodyMusicThat was nice to read! My grandfather was born in 1875 (my mother was born when he was 60). He died in 1965 five years before I was born. He had two brothers that emigrated to America from Northern Norway. His family originated from northern Sweden/Finland (Torne Valley). They went to Northern Norway seeking a better life. My great grandfather had 22 children. Our name is "Isaksen". "Son of Isak". I have my "summer house" in the northermost municipality in Norway - Northcape municipality. 24 hours of daylight in the summer. Greetings from Bergen Norway :)
IMO you're essentially doing a partial coil split. Should be replicable by coil splitting the humbucker using a specific value resistor (probably somewhere in a 2k to 6k range, but that's just my guess). And while it would be a more "difficult" mod than simply removing the screws, it would at the same time allow one to still have access to the full humbucker sound with just a switch.
Ahh, that's a good idea. I've considered doing a capacitor on a switch to shelves off some of the mud. I hard wired one in at one point, but moved back to normal
Not sure, I haven't really played through one in 4 years. But, I'll wager it could sound great or terrible depending on the amp settings and player :) That being said, we have a guitar get-together at church tonight, and there will be a couple tube amps there. Maybe I'll check one out.
If each coil in the humbucker has Allen head or straight slotted screws you can make it sound similar to a telecaster too or take out the screws in the upper coils of each humbucker to make it the brightest for a single coil sound
They still cancel hum in this configuration. It’s a series dummy coil. I got kicked off of some manufacturers forums for saying people should try it. Sounds very single coil with no hum.
I played only strats for 14 years. The Les Paul suits my "live" playing better for thicker rhythm stuff, but it has been a little dark for my finger picking
Interesting idea but hard to tell - there was no "before and after". Just talk. It would be interesting to science this out and see how pole pieces (or lack thereof) impact the shape of the magnetic field. The pole pieces are not magnets - they are just ferromagnetic material. I tend to think of them as analogous to lenses for light. They don't create light - they just bend it. The pole pieces (and the metal PU covers for that matter) don't change the strength of the magnets in your PU but they do alter the shape of the magnetic field the string is vibrating in. Science aside, at the end of the day there is only one rule that matters - if it sounds good, it is good.
Yeah, I had never intended to do a before/after video, but wanted to share the idea after having found it so useful. But, hopefully one day I can do a proper before/after. And I took would love to know the actual magnet effect. I've since bought non-ferrous stainless screws to plug the holes.
Why are most people so in love with distortion? I play as as clean as possible, so I can hear my mistakes and fix them and try and improve my musicianship. i guess that answers the question. This guitar now sounds like it has stage 4 throat cancer, and since that's it's baseline sound, when you add stacked tube screamers or whatever, it will go from this barely articulate sound, to a roaring, howling, screeching, agonized sounding mess, but I'm sure that will be considered desirable.
I agree with you 100%. The planet is full of guitatists who spends THOUSANDS dollars in a good guitar.......... To connect it to a Chinese multi effects unit and then to a high gain megadistorted amp. Then playing djent style 90 percent of the time. It was Eddie Van Halen who played cleaner and cleaner towards the end of his career. Another example is Jeff Beck, or Mark Knopfler just to name a few.
There are hole-less pickup covers in existence, but I'm not sure who makes them. But if your pickups are not currently covered, Be prepared to lose a little bit of the high end, etc by adding them.
I watched your video some time ago, and I've just got around to doing it.
I removed the pole pieces from the neck pickup on my '97 Standard, plugged in and played. After 47 years of playing Les Pauls I've finally got the sound available that I've craved.
And the best thing is, the modification came at the right price.
@@Rich6Brew so great to hear this!!!!! I'd love to hear some clips. What type of music do you play?
great video, great tone. this made my neck les Paul pickup sound much better.
Oh, thanks so much! Glad you found it helpful!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have a Gibson LP that I love but I also have a Gretsch Electromatic singlecut that almost became firewood until I saw your video. Definitely sounds like a P90 and so I will be able to use it now. Subscribed.
Oh, awesome! Glad you found it helpful. I also had a Gretsch Electromatic at one point, but it was much brighter than my LP. It was the guitar that first got me off the Stratocaster bandwagon I had been on for 14 years!
Best tone, man! 👏
Thanks so much!
Sounds great!
Thanks, John!!
Pretty music and pretty genius idea...
Thanks so much! I have since installed stainless screws just to fill the holes and make it look more stock. Sounds the same. Take a look at my latest video "All Creatures ......" To see the installed and hear it.
@@SteveWoodyMusic do you have a source for these screws? is the thread 5-40 and length 3/4 inch? where can you source stainless screws with the right screw-head dimensions? i was thinking brass and nylon could also be cool options.
@@LfunkeyA Sorry for the late reply, I just saw this! I just checked my Amazon history and it looks like the place I ordered them from (Libonstore) is out of them. But the product description is: 5-40 X 3/4 Slotted Fillister Narrow head Machine screw STAINLESS .205 #5 5/40
So I assume any #5 5-40 fillister head screw should work.
Wow. I can't believe the difference this makes. My Epiphone Les Paul Standard was muddy as heck, I needed to use and EQ/Clean Boost with bass and treble controls to fix it but THIS is incredible.
Wow, so glad this was helpful! Spread the word!!!!!
@@SteveWoodyMusic Crazy thought. I was wondering what would happen if I used a hack saw to cut the screws in half. I'd need some spares on hand in case things didn't work out. Thoughts?
I did this to the neck pickup in my LP. A lot of people put a P90 in there, but this sounds just as good and there's no hum. And if you don't like it you can just put the screws back in
Yeah, I agree totally! My understanding is that it sounds more like a mini-humbucker. Narrower field of pickup range, but still him canceling.
@@SteveWoodyMusic would love to hear this with some crunch settings. Sounds great.
Great mod to try mate! Bravo 👏🏻 as an owner of Two Les Pauls, I’ve been looking for these tonal qualities! Thanks mate. Peace ✌🏻 Dana E💫☮️
@@danaeverhart6487 oh, you are totally welcome! Have you tried it yet? And how did you like it if so?
@@SteveWoodyMusic Hey mate! Yes I tried on on one of strats by removing the pick guard and broke the fixed ceramic magnets loose by tapping on the center pole pieces down. Now they are all level flush with the covers. I Raised the pick-up height , instant warm gratification! Give it a try, just don’t break 💥 the ceramic magnets 🧲 on the bottom of the pick-up!
This is very interesting, might have to try it! I'd suggest having a look at a video series called the Les Paul that isn't by Dave Stephens. He goes into all the details of LP tone and how modern LPs basically get everything wrong and sound dull as a result.
Interesting, I'll have to check that out. Thanks!
Nice sound
Thanks so much!!!
Tasty playing, well spoken with no hype/BS. Subscribed. Going to try. Thank You and Best Regards and Best Wishes!
Oh wow, that's a great compliment! Thanks so much!
Very nice, I like it, and the whole of the guitar and your playing as well. Would it be a good idea to put some plastic screws or something to prevent dirt or some liquid from getting into the pickup?
Thanks so much! I ended up ordering some non-ferrous stainless screws and installed them a couple months after this video was made.
or just a cover with no holes
@@VicenzzoPaiva oh, I didn't know those existed!!
I really like your staccato finger picking style. 👍🏻
I’ve never tried removing pole pieces. Quite interesting. 🤔
Thanks so much! You should give it a shot and let me know what you think about it!
Great tone, great playing, well-presented demo, nice Bigsby! I recently switched to NYXLs on my downtuned guitar. Diggin em. 56 on the low string?! I play hard and am happy with 10.5-50. You’re a beast, man :) did you have to widen the nut slot a tad?
Thanks so much for the kind words! You know, I don't remember if I did widen the nut slot, but feel like I probably had to. The heavier strings help with the bigsby (remember, there weren't and"light" strings when it was developed) and also, I strum pretty hard sometimes and the heavier strings don't flap around as much lol
Brilliant!
Thanks so much!
Awesome! Just did the same to my lp!
Very cool. How do you like it?
It’s great ! Huge difference in clarity and brightness,Highly recommend for any set of buckets. Thanks again!
@@edcaouette5180 that's awesome, glad you like it!!
This sounds really good and I am thinking about trying it on my custom, but man without the before clips it's really hard to tell. Did you try flipping the pup before taking out the pole pieces? How was that?
Yeah, flipping the pup doesn't do anything, unless you had the pole pieces set pretty drastic. I do get the wishing you had a before/after. Maybe someday I'll get around to making one. But, it's a free, reversible, 5 minute test to see if you like it on your guitar or not. I say go for it and let me know how you like it!
good idea
Thanks!
Have you tried getting pickups with lower winds? I just installed a GFS 'Metal Foil' humbucker which is rated at 6k, which sounds awesome to me. You can also get them at 5k, which seems a little crazy to me. They sound similar to a strat but not as harsh, and of course less noise. You do lose a bit of high end harmonics, but it is a easy trade.
Wow, that's very low! I'll have to check them out and see if there are some videos online. I'm guessing it's like the old Gold Foil Gretsch type pickups?
Sounds good to me 👍
Sweet, thanks!
Someone else pointed out that in the movie It Might Get Loud Jimmy Page's neck pickup has no pole pieces. It is during the song Ramble On. It looks to be true but I am not sure if my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Yeah, I saw that as well! They are either out or lowered well below the cover.
It is true. See Jimmy's guitar sans pole screws in It Might Get Loud starting at 28 seconds here ua-cam.com/video/4gDsbOraiqg/v-deo.htmlsi=OswnM0cwD_Km90tG. And you can also see Eric Clapton's guitar sans pole screws starting at 35 seconds with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers here ua-cam.com/video/PkulcvRkd4I/v-deo.htmlsi=Iw_rCtXG5kCE0Opy
At 1:19 there appears to be light hitting the tops of something in the polepiece positions. I'll have a guess. The pickup in there is ancient and the nickel is worn and dark as heck - He later replaced a cover, and there's a finish mismatch.
I seen a picture of Keith Richard’s, he had Gibson custom 335 and he had tape over the neck humbucker where the screw pole pieces would be. I assumed this is what he is doing.
That's pretty cool and I'm sure a good solution, esp while on the road, etc
I did this on the neck pickup on my Godin Summit Classic SG, The neck pickup was too muddy, now it has twang, sparkle and funk.
Awesome! I used to have a Godin LGXS and wonder how it would've cleaned that one up!
I also added a .033 mfd capacitor in series with the neck pickup. I mounted it it the selector switch cavity.
@@ChasTheOhm oh really? How did that affect the sound?
It cut the fatness back a bit more, made it even funkier sounding. Easy mod, and easy to reverse if you want to try it.
@@SteveWoodyMusic
Nice minor 4 chords
My fave move in all of music
Thanks man! Totally underrated for sure :)
iv to I and I'm crying
@@iamjakt hits the feels for sure!
The Epiphone Custom Pro is designed to give you all of the things you’ve described. I guess wanting the strat sound on a Les Paul works but why not play a strat?
I played a strat as my main guitar for around 14 years. I think there is a beefiness to the Les Paul that I never could get on the strat which worked better for the rhythm stuff I do. Though, if this guitar were stolen or something, I would probably go back with some sort of strat with a humbucker in the bridge. That or maybe the black R4 Les Paul with the bigsby and P90/ Staple pickup. Or, even better, I would hunt down that '56 Gretsch Silver Jet I played in one of my other videos. It was the best sounding guitar I've ever played!!!
Because, as we all know, one guitar isn't enough.
Also a solution. In fact you get a single coil with lower output than a P90, but still with humbucking effect.
If I did this, then only on the neck pickup, as I love an authentic bridge PAF sound. Certainly nice for clean tones, but hardly will improve the overdrive sounds in my opinion. For the neck pickup certainly a good solution, as this one has a tendency to sound too bassy and too muddy, especially, but not only in a Les Paul.
Cool, simple idea and if you dislike the tone, you simply can reinstall the screws again.
Having turned around the neck pickup is a good idea too, so the still active coil is closer to the neck. But even this is a matter of taste.
Another way to get similar sounds is, to screw down the neck pickup, but raise the screws a lot. Also alters the magnetic field and you also get a more single-coilish sound, but the difference is not so extreme, but you keep the authentic output level, while it also lowers with your solution. Ritchie Blackmore did this, when he still played an ES-335 with PAF's.
My personal favorite Les Paul optinization is, to change neck tone to neck bass-cut and bridge tone to master tone. Allows precise, adjustable neck pickup bass control - if using the right capacitor values without altering any mids and treble - and this also allows to get some very differently sounding combined pickups sounds. The advantage for me is, that the pickups keep their (hotter) output level, while your solution reduces it, as I anyway hardly ever play clean.
Oh those are some great ideas! Thanks for that. I'll have to give those a try especially if I ever get around to doing a comparison video!
I bought a used Gibson sg short neck bass from a private party and i noticed that the
pole piece screws on the humbucker pickup near the neck of the bass are missing.
Interesting. How does it sound?
it sounds great!!@@SteveWoodyMusic
@@doyleholloway1818 just saw this. Very cool!
I’d love to hear a before and after comparison
Yeah, I think maybe someday I'll do a before and after, but I never seem to get around to it.
I tried this on a PRS neck pick up, it sounded strange and the volumes didn’t match the way I hoped.
Interesting. I wonder if that coil it the hotter of the 2 and it dropped most of the volume? You could also try running the screws in well below the pickup cover. Should have a similar effect about the volume drop maybe
@@SteveWoodyMusic the PRS pups didn’t sound that great but I had a set of Gibson ‘61’s that are working nicely. I tried them with no poles and mixed with different lengths of poles but none of them sounded very good outside of their original set up.
Your recordings sound nice but I couldn’t reproduce that tone.
Seems like you could put non ferous screws in the holes for looks.
That's actually what I ended up doing. Bought a pack off Amazon, and it's looking stock again! Check "All Creatures" video I put up this year to see it with them in
Interesting, I had never considered it. That neck really does sound like a P90, almost a strat sound. I have one with humbuckers, one with P-90s,, and a Strat.Might do a comparison later. Just curious, did you move the pickups closer to the strings after you removed the pole pieces? I'm not really a pedal guy either, but one of the few I have is a n LPB-1. I have found that if I add it to my signal path with the knob set to 9 or 10 o'clock (pretty low) it brightens my tone without coloring my clean tone very much. From there you can play with the volume and tone pots until you are happy with the tone. An added bonus is with the same clean tone I can roll off my tone all the way and crank up that pedal and get a good approximation of Clapton's famous Woman Tone.
I don't think I moved the pickups closer, but I could be wrong about that. It always surprises me when I hear bright Les Pauls, but I know that used to be the rule, not the exception. My favorite Les Paul sound is a video of Greg Koch playing "Way Back Home" live in Milwaukee. Gotta check it out!!!!
Wonder what the sound would be like if you pulled the slugs too…?
No clue. The pole screws were easy to take out :)
You should have made a small clip with the screws in too mate, so we could have heard the difference 👍
Yeah, I'm thinking I'll go back and make a comparison video at some point. Hopefully I can get to that soon.
@@SteveWoodyMusicPlease! I’m wondering about doing it soon. Probably will on my next string change haha. How do you do it? Just screw them out until they’re loose and fall?
@@stopitrightnow12 yep, that's all there is to it. Just unscrew them and remove them. You can always put them back in. Also, you don't need to wait until your next string change, or even loosen the strings, though I suppose it could be easier if you do.
I may be wrong but I don't think so. I believe what you have done is turn your humbucker pickups into single coil pickup with hum canceling properties. There is a reason why pickups have pole pieces.
The coil still has some amount of pickup potential, but you are essentially correct. But it's a big sounding single coil :)
heyy how did you remove the screws??? and what model les paul is that??? thanks
I just used a flathead screwdriver and backed them all the way out. This is a 2017 Made 2 Measure (M2M) '58 Reissue (R8).
u sound amazing! so all I have to do is unscrew them while pickup is on guitar that easy?? thank you...will try this@@SteveWoodyMusic
You seriously need to ask that?
@@sooparticular yep, that's it. Super easy, though they may be tight depending on the amount of wax potting in the pickup. I purchased some non-ferrous stainless screws to put back in their place just to keep it stock looking and keep dirt out.
Oh, and thanks so much for the compliment!
yes asswhipe I do@@djolemadzarevic
Before and after sound examples?
Sorry, I don't really have any. I'll try to make some one day.
@@SteveWoodyMusic I'm gonna try this, thanks for the upload, cheers from Norway!
@@limerot oh, great! Please let me know how you like it! Cheers from a small Norwegian town in the US (Stoughton, Wisconsin) :)
@@SteveWoodyMusicThat was nice to read! My grandfather was born in 1875 (my mother was born when he was 60). He died in 1965 five years before I was born. He had two brothers that emigrated to America from Northern Norway. His family originated from northern Sweden/Finland (Torne Valley). They went to Northern Norway seeking a better life. My great grandfather had 22 children. Our name is "Isaksen". "Son of Isak". I have my "summer house" in the northermost municipality in Norway - Northcape municipality. 24 hours of daylight in the summer. Greetings from Bergen Norway :)
if you are happy then that's all that matters.
I am for sure!!!
IMO you're essentially doing a partial coil split. Should be replicable by coil splitting the humbucker using a specific value resistor (probably somewhere in a 2k to 6k range, but that's just my guess). And while it would be a more "difficult" mod than simply removing the screws, it would at the same time allow one to still have access to the full humbucker sound with just a switch.
Ahh, that's a good idea. I've considered doing a capacitor on a switch to shelves off some of the mud. I hard wired one in at one point, but moved back to normal
you can reverse this right ?
Yep, just screw the pieces back in.
No, like any screw, once you unscrew them, you can never put them back. You'll need special skill and equipment for doing that.
funny...@@djolemadzarevic
@@Dragnerve. Yeah, isn't it? Sorry, I couldn't resist. Cheers :)
Interesting concept, but really hard for me to hear any improvement because you didn't show what it sounded like with the screws in 1st.
Yeah, it hadn't crossed my mind when I made this video to do a before/after. Maybe I'll do that someday
Probably sounds like every other les paul that has the screws still in it...
1k pots works too
Yeah, I think that's what I have in here. I always swap out for 1M, even on my strats
I took the magnets out of my pups. Lighter and more resonant.
Awesome! Hope you like it in the long run. It's nice that it's easily reversible
I wonder how it sounds with a real tube amp, no effects. 🤔
Not sure, I haven't really played through one in 4 years. But, I'll wager it could sound great or terrible depending on the amp settings and player :) That being said, we have a guitar get-together at church tonight, and there will be a couple tube amps there. Maybe I'll check one out.
ha, i was going to try this until I remembered my LP doesn't have covers... 😊
Do it anyway!!!
@SteveWoodyMusic oh God, I'm slow. Giving it a try.
I thought that removing the covers will just make the pickup brighter
If each coil in the humbucker has Allen head or straight slotted screws you can make it sound similar to a telecaster too or take out the screws in the upper coils of each humbucker to make it the brightest for a single coil sound
Buckers
They still cancel hum in this configuration. It’s a series dummy coil. I got kicked off of some manufacturers forums for saying people should try it. Sounds very single coil with no hum.
Should have just bought a strat
I played only strats for 14 years. The Les Paul suits my "live" playing better for thicker rhythm stuff, but it has been a little dark for my finger picking
Scott Grove has every video on pickups literally ..lowering the pickup for more sustain where it's located on a guitar etc....
Oh, cool, thanks for that!
Interesting idea but hard to tell - there was no "before and after". Just talk. It would be interesting to science this out and see how pole pieces (or lack thereof) impact the shape of the magnetic field. The pole pieces are not magnets - they are just ferromagnetic material. I tend to think of them as analogous to lenses for light. They don't create light - they just bend it. The pole pieces (and the metal PU covers for that matter) don't change the strength of the magnets in your PU but they do alter the shape of the magnetic field the string is vibrating in. Science aside, at the end of the day there is only one rule that matters - if it sounds good, it is good.
Yeah, I had never intended to do a before/after video, but wanted to share the idea after having found it so useful. But, hopefully one day I can do a proper before/after. And I took would love to know the actual magnet effect. I've since bought non-ferrous stainless screws to plug the holes.
But don't take the cover off. If you do the cover off, there will be nothing left to create the inductance.
Just for that one coil?
The cover was already off when I removed the pole pieces. It worked fine.
Why are most people so in love with distortion? I play as as clean as possible, so I can hear my mistakes and fix them and try and improve my musicianship. i guess that answers the question. This guitar now sounds like it has stage 4 throat cancer, and since that's it's baseline sound, when you add stacked tube screamers or whatever, it will go from this barely articulate sound, to a roaring, howling, screeching, agonized sounding mess, but I'm sure that will be considered desirable.
Thanks for sharing your opinion/preference for clean tone. Glad there is a variety among guitar players and musicians in general.
thank you for your gracious reply to my lopsided opinion.@@SteveWoodyMusic
Did this to epi 335.....took the mud right out
@@michaellathim791 sweet! Glad it worked for you
I agree with you 100%. The planet is full of guitatists who spends THOUSANDS dollars in a good guitar.......... To connect it to a Chinese multi effects unit and then to a high gain megadistorted amp. Then playing djent style 90 percent of the time. It was Eddie Van Halen who played cleaner and cleaner towards the end of his career. Another example is Jeff Beck, or Mark Knopfler just to name a few.
You'd get far better tone by lowering the pup overall and raising the screw poles!
Already did that many times. Couldn't get any lower with the pup or higher with the screws. This got me where I wanted to be tonally
Dude commented w o even watching the video
DO you think I could add a cover over some ss pickups on a LP just for looks, but not add the screws? Hmmm...
There are hole-less pickup covers in existence, but I'm not sure who makes them. But if your pickups are not currently covered, Be prepared to lose a little bit of the high end, etc by adding them.