Rev. Gibbons current pickups

[Mark Hammer]

My wife and I went to see ZZ Top on their current tour last night. It seemed all 4 of the very reverend Mr. Gibbons' guitars had a rather distinctive bridge humbucker on them, that looked sort of like a Fender wide-range humbucker, in the way that height-adjustable screws were only visible for the lower 3 strings of one coil and upper 3 strings of the other. I was able to find something vaguely like them on the Guitar Fetish site, but I very much doubt that anyone with his means would be going bargain basement.

Does anybody know what those pickups are? Perhaps custom made by the same luthier who does the guitars themselves?

[copperheadroads]

Billy uses Seymour's pickups ,Don't he ? . They could be these Custom shop 3+3 Offset
3 + 3 Offset Humbucker - Seymour Duncan Humbuckers

[big_teee]

If it is the Gretsch Billybo Guitar below, the pickups are TV Jones Power'Tron Plus Pickups.

http://tvjones.com/pickups/filtertro...wer-tron-plus/

[Mark Hammer]

Thanks, gents. Yep the Seymours look closest to what I was seeing, albeit from row K.

Given that:

a) The Seymours are available in a variety of configurations and magnet types (and I don't know what configuration was in use at the show),
b) The guitars they were in were one-of-a-kinds,
c) I have no friggin' idea what sort of amp or amps was behind the screen between the tuck-and-roll cabs, and
d) I just learned that he prefers .007-.038 string sets.....

I'm in no particular position to be able to draw ANY sort of inference about what those pickups sound like, in and of themselves. Ah well, I guess it was worth a short, but I'm no further ahead.

[copperheadroads]

Here's a thread from the SD forum that just started & might shed some light on the pups
gibbons banger T - Seymour Duncan User Group Forums
Maybe Frank knows something about Billy's current pups ,Hope he chimes in

[soundmasterg]

Did the guitars look anything like the one in this video or on the website link?

Greg

ZZ TOP - Just Got Paid - YouTube

El Mirage « Tao Guitars

[Mark Hammer]

Nope. Here are some pics from the show. http://www.ottawacitizen.com/enterta...477/story.html It doesn't show the full gamut of guitars played (4), since the reporter had to fork over the pics for next morning's press deadline before the end of the show. The 10th picture in shows the pickup relatively clearly.

[SkinnyWire]

Ever notice the similarity in tone across all of his guitars? I found this a couple of years ago. It was on the Internet, so it must be true! :-)

Here’s what the Guitar Secrets book says about it: “To achieve as fat a tone as Pearly with his other guitars, Gibbons turns to a Gold Lune Frequency Analyzer and two DigiTech Mono 28 programmable EQs. Several years ago, he recorded the Pearly Gates guitar and then compared its sonic characteristics to those of his stage guitars. The DigiTech EQ was then used to adjust the tone of each instrument to make them sound like Pearly. The settings of each guitar are stored individually so that they can be recalled instantly during the live show. “You have to take advantage of the upper levels of sophistication that modern gear can provide,” Gibbons explains.

I think I have the book that the quote comes from, and a lot of folks don't feel it's a great source. YMMV.

[David Schwab]

d) I just learned that he prefers .007-.038 string sets.....

.007? I used to put .008s on my Vox 12 string, and I thought those were freakin' light! Who makes .007 strings?

So much for that myth about heavy strings = tone.

[Mark Hammer]

Perhaps you may recall waaaayyyyyy back before many of us knew of the existence of lighter gauges or any finer distinctions than the light/medium/heavy/jazz sets we used to buy at the department or music store, it was common to buy a "light" set, move everything over one string, and stick on a banjo string for high E. So, somebody makes them.

I'm just trying to imagine what playing a 7-38 set is like on a short-scale neck, or heaven forbid, an extra-short-scale neck like a Musicmaster.

And heavy-gauge = a tone. Ultra-slinky = a different tone. S'all good, but you gotta imagine that tuning is an issue if you do any bending at all.

[David Schwab]

Perhaps you may recall waaaayyyyyy back before many of us knew of the existence of lighter gauges or any finer distinctions than the light/medium/heavy/jazz sets we used to buy at the department or music store, it was common to buy a "light" set, move everything over one string, and stick on a banjo string for high E. So, somebody makes them.

I'm just trying to imagine what playing a 7-38 set is like on a short-scale neck, or heaven forbid, an extra-short-scale neck like a Musicmaster.

And heavy-gauge = a tone. Ultra-slinky = a different tone. S'all good, but you gotta imagine that tuning is an issue if you do any bending at all.

Yeah, people used banjo strings back in the day.

I don't like the tone of anything heavier than a set of 10s. It gets too chunky sounding. Some guitarist use way too much low end. That's because they are used to sitting in their bedroom playing. But that clogs up the mix and leaves no room for bass and drums.

9s work fine for me, and I'm used to big ol' bass guitar strings! You get a nice snap out of thinner strings.

[Bill M]

Ever notice the similarity in tone across all of his guitars? I found this a couple of years ago. It was on the Internet, so it must be true! :-).

There is a Premier Guitar youtube video back stage with Billys guitar tech giving the run down of his rig. All the amps on stage are just for show. His tone is made with 2 jmp1 preamps into Marshall power amps with a couple cabnets back stage. The tech went into detail of how they use Pearly Gates as the sound reference and use a spectrum analyzer to measure the response and then use some type of digital EQ to set up all the guitars he's using to to produce the same frequency responce. So, thats the reason all of his guitars sound the same.

[rjb]

...and stick on a banjo string for high E. So, somebody makes them.

The thinnest banjo string I've seen is a 9 (high A for tenor banjo light gauge).
The thinnest individual ball-end or loop-end strings I've found for sale are 8s (Elderly Instruments).
It's a mystery to me who makes or sells 7s.

[Dan T.]

From Just Strings....It is like hair.

[Mike Sulzer]

The thinnest banjo string I've seen is a 9 (high A for tenor banjo light gauge).
The thinnest individual ball-end or loop-end strings I've found for sale are 8s (Elderly Instruments).
It's a mystery to me who makes or sells 7s.

Or:
Roeslau Music Wire - Coils

33 feet .007" for $5.50. Save the little brass thingies from old strings. Used to experiment with plain G strings in the early 60s using rolls of piano wire. (That was larger of course. Never thought of using .007 for anything!)