Japanese Epiphone Humbuckers

[mrwendel]

Anybody ever decompose a set of humbuckers from a Japanese era Epiphone? I have a nice Sheraton and am curious about the pickups. I'm a beginner winder and am just trying to get specs on the pickups I own to build some sound/spec intuition (w/o pulling all of them apart.) Any info you have would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[David Schwab]

I have replaced the stock pickup on a Sheraton with Duncans, and it sounded like a brand new guitar! The stock pickups are crap. You might get them to sound better with new magnets and rewinding them. I have heard they are caked in wax too.

I have a FirstAct GarageMaster, and it's a great little guitar, but the stock pickups were awful. I replaced them with some pickups I wound and it sounds very different.

Just following Gibson PAF specs with some kit parts will give you pretty nice sounding pickups, and better than the stock Epis.

[soundmasterg]

Most of the cheaper humbuckers out there, including the ones on the Epiphones have brass baseplates, which kill the good tone in that pickup design. I'd probably try to find something else myself. There is a local shop around here that sells those after pulled from guitars for like $15 a pop....and they sit there for months before some dummy buys them....

Greg

[David Schwab]

Greg, it's more than the brass baseplates. They have cheap weak magnets and just aren't wound in a way that sounds good. I've rewound these kinds of pickups and replaced the magnets and left the brass baseplate on, and they sounded much better.

But I agree that you are better off just replacing them with someone else.

[fieldwrangler]

They have cheap weak magnets and just aren't wound in a way that sounds good.

What is it about the wind that drives the nails into the coffin here, d'ya think???

Bob Palmieri

[David Schwab]

What is it about the wind that drives the nails into the coffin here, d'ya think???

Bob Palmieri

I don't know. Probably wound to neatly or with a bad turns-to-layer ratio?

[fieldwrangler]

Reason I ask is because being somewhat limited in the amount of time I have for research I'm always all too happy to learn from the mistakes of others.

[soundmasterg]

Most of the cheaper humbuckers out there, including the ones on the Epiphones have brass baseplates, which kill the good tone in that pickup design. I'd probably try to find something else myself. There is a local shop around here that sells those after pulled from guitars for like $15 a pop....and they sit there for months before some dummy buys them....

Greg

Yeah I agree, there is a lot wrong with those pickups...but something about a brass baseplate in a Gibson style humbucker design just doesn't work well. Brass works in some other pickup designs just fine though....

greg