Chinese Pickups

[JJGross]

OK, racism and blindly ignorant stereotypes aside, I bought a Chinese LP copy (Stellar brand) that's actually a nice guitar and just plain stupid nice for the price (about $250 delivered). I swapped out the tuners for locking Grover 18:1 and replaced the pickups with a Gibson 490R & 498T pair. Now it's right up there with my 68 Gibson LP. The reason I swapped out the pups wasn't because they sounded bad, quite the contrary. The original Chinese ceramics sound better (brighter and pleasingly crunchier) than the AlNiCo Gibsons but they need to be potted to control volume squeal so until I do that, I stuck in a pair of Gibbys I had laying around. I tried to pay for it in buttons, but the exchange rate works out to about $650 worth of buttons so I paid cash.

- JJ

[GlennW]

I just got a Jay Turser "54 P-bass copy, made in China. The SC pickup has 5mm alnico rods so I'd guess it's Chinese too.

A few months ago I tried a Fender SCPB RI pickup in a couple of basses and didn't like it. That might be MIJ.

The Chinese pickup blows away the Fender. Last night I added some wire to it so it can be coil tapped for the original 7.15K of 42? or that plus another 1.7K of 43. Sounds pretty good.

[Possum]

Chinese?

I don't think the Stellars are from China, there is no markings anywhere that say so. I own one and you can see it in my PAF demo on youtube. The cool thing about mine is its NITRO finished, has a real maple top and mahogany neck and body. I like the frets, nice and fat and great for blues bends. My guess is they might be from Vietnam or Malaysia. I had to dress the frets a bit at the end of the neck but heck you have to do that to Gibsons too. I rewired it put new pots and caps and that guitar kills! Came with a case too. Its way better than the piece of shit Epiphone plain top les paul I got, it woulnd't even play right out of the box, broken knob, busted tone pot, shitty tuners etc.

[Regis]

I have two Stellars, the LP Mercury 6 and the 335 Mercury 8. They are very nice guitars. They both needed a setup right out of the box, but what guitar doesn't?

[Possum]

Fenders,,,

Your average Fender doesn't need as much work especially a fret dress, they are alot better in that area. It blows my mind that you can spend a huge chunk of money to get "a real Gibson" then you HAVE to have the frets dressed before you can go out and actually play it. You would think more money would equal better quality set up but not in Gibson's case. I have a couple Fender guitars from cheap to middle expensive and never had to do any fret work on them.

[madialex]

IMO Gibson is going to hell in a bucket baby and they are enjoying the ride

[madialex]

If these young rich weenies who cant play a friggin note would stop dishing out the damn cost of these gibsons they would have to lower the prices. The guitar is more a conversation piece or something to brag about with his rich buddy next door. Like, hey dude, check out my new Gibson, it was 4 grand and this is the Marshall stack I got to go with it, aint this the shit!! Then he proceeds to crank out Smoke on the water using the big E string alone