I tried out a couple of Gibson 60th Anniversary 1959 Les Paul Standard's today

RandallFlagg

I visited Peach Guitars this morning, what an excellent store. I tried out some Gibson Custom Shop guitars and in particular a couple of 60th Anniversary 1959 LP Stds. I was very underwhelmed with the sound from the pickups. They sound extremely bright and harsh lacking the warm mid range I would expect. 

I owned a 2016 R9 for 3 years so know what I was expecting the Custom Buckers to sound like but the new guitars sound quite different. I also tried a used 2014 R9 which sounded much more like I was expecting.

I also tried a '61 Custom Shop SG Std, which the specs say are the same Custom Buckers, Alnico III (now un-potted), as are fitted to the 60th Anniversary LPs and it sounded much warmer with more mid range punch that the Les Pauls, it was the best sounding guitar of the ones I tried.

I also tried a 2018 R7 with the narrow tall frets, which were OK, a bit like 6105s that fender use,  and that sounded harsh too.

The new 60th anniversary R9s all look a bit orange too, and appeared to have little red in the tops.

Interesting...it's put me right off the new R9s.

richardhomer

But did you buy one?

stickyfiddle

Alnico 3 suits an SG very well but is hardly ever used. Interesting to see them putting them in the top line stuff

xchrisv

It's really interesting – not everyone will enjoy the extended treble of unpotted pickups and one person's 'clarity' is another's 'bright and harsh'. I really like the voicing but everyone has a different ideal Les Paul tone in their head. I used the 60th Anniversary model we had in for this Marshall demo, should anyone fancy hearing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-tElpTRsHE

RandallFlagg

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

Nope...and won't be. Glad I tried them out. Not the Les Paul sound I hear in my head at all.

RandallFlagg

chrisv said:

It's really interesting – not everyone will enjoy the extended treble of unpotted pickups and one person's 'clarity' is another's 'bright and harsh'. I really like the voicing but everyone has a different ideal Les Paul tone in their head. I used the 60th Anniversary model we had in for this Marshall demo, should anyone fancy hearing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-tElpTRsHE

Nice playing Chris and that is a fair representation of the sound, although through a Friedman I was struggling to get the top end under as much control as you have in the demo. You can definitely hear that they are spankier and a bit thinner sounding that LPs of the past.

As as the one in your demo, they are a bit too orange for my taste!

mgaw

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

Bridgehouse

mgaw said:

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

How many posts do you actually read then?

meltedbuzzbox

stickyfiddle said:

Alnico 3 suits an SG very well but is hardly ever used. Interesting to see them putting them in the top line stuff

Nearly all of my guitars have alnico 3 pickups in them.
It's the best magnet for me

richardhomer

Bridgehouse said:

mgaw said:

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

How many posts do you actually read then?

As a mod @Bridgehouse - I don’t think you should be further stifling my dwindling fret-whoring capability. 20,000 is looking increasingly out of reach....

tony99

So this is the kind of stuff I need to learn really. I've got 2 Gibsons, one has humbuckers 490R and 490T an the other one has (I think) classic 57s. Does that mean one of my guitars has potted and one has unpotted?

Bridgehouse

richardhomer said:

Bridgehouse said:

mgaw said:

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

How many posts do you actually read then?

As a mod @Bridgehouse - I don’t think you should be further stifling my dwindling fret-whoring capability. 20,000 is looking increasingly out of reach....

A man of your capabilities should get to 20,000 just from a few well pitched posts in Parody

scovell001

Played 2 of these last week & 2 true historics. Yeah I think anyone who is looking for this kinda tone https://youtu.be/haH1Suh6zHs will be a little bit underwhelmed with the pickups in these guitars. They are very bright and neutral.

 I have the 59 tributes from ‘14 & they’re all over them ( and I thought the tributes were a little bit thin sounding). 

With that said, they would be great for pedal board use as they are so neutral sounding.

mgaw

Bridgehouse said:

mgaw said:

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

How many posts do you actually read then?

just this one

RandallFlagg

Bridgehouse said:

richardhomer said:

Bridgehouse said:

mgaw said:

richardhomer said:

But did you buy one?

@richardhomer must be the funniest guy on here   laughed my socks off at this one   classic

How many posts do you actually read then?

As a mod @Bridgehouse - I don’t think you should be further stifling my dwindling fret-whoring capability. 20,000 is looking increasingly out of reach....

A man of your capabilities should get to 20,000 just from a few well pitched posts in Parody

How exciting, I wait with baited breath to see something funny in Parody rather that some of the crap that's there like car names and pictures of Peter Frampton looking nothing like Jeremy Corbyn.

RandallFlagg

back on topic, with regards the new unpotted Custom Buckers that Gibson are now using on the historics, I wasn't aware that potting pickups changed the tone, so is it typical that potting reduces treble and so unpotted pickups are brighter?

The tone I associate with an original 'burst, among other examples, is the live tone that Jimmy Page gets on How The West Was Won album, yes, it has brightness but there's a thick mid range and roundness to the tone on the lower strings. I thought the Burst Buckers were pretty close when they were introduced in 2013, and really liked them in the 2016 R8 I had, although the bridge could be a bit spiky, which was hard to dial out sometimes. These new pickups seem to accentuate that glassiness.

Are these new Burst Bucker pickups the same pickups but now just unpotted? Is that more historically accurate?

scovell001

Are these new Burst Bucker pickups the same pickups but now just unpotted? Is that more historically accurate?

Simply put, yes.

xchrisv

RandallFlagg said:

Nice playing Chris and that is a fair representation of the sound, although through a Friedman I was struggling to get the top end under as much control as you have in the demo. You can definitely hear that they are spankier and a bit thinner sounding that LPs of the past.

Thanks – there’s tonnes of nerdy info in my review here, plus an interview with Mat from the Custom Shop in which he explains the rationale behind the various tweaks: https://guitar.com/review/electric-guitar/review-gibson-custom-60th-anniversary-1959-les-paul-standard/

crunchman

Was it purely the pickups on the guitars that @RandallFlagg played?  My first Custom Shop Gibson was very bright sounding, and I swapped pickups etc, but it didn't change the character.  I ended up selling it and getting an R8.

The R8 sounded far "bigger" if that's the right word, but what I heard plugged in, I also heard in the unplugged tone of the guitars.  The first guitar was very light weight (maybe the lightest fully solid Les Paul I've come across), and was very bright sounding unplugged, with a lot of top end.  The R8 sounded much fatter unplugged, as well as plugged in.

p90fool

@crunchman that's my experience too, no amount of pickup swapping will cure a lightweight, plinky Les Paul. 

Skipped

If you were to put a camera in Gruhn Guitars, and record the reaction of guitar playing tourists, who are playing a 'Burst for the very first time, you would see lots of people expressing mild surprise at the brightness of PAFs (in a 50s Les Paul), when compared to their perception, which was based on listening to some of the greatest recordings of the past 60 years.

Joe Bonamassa has made an important contribution to this topic. A few years ago he recorded an album track which  featured an obvious and deliberate Bluesbreakers sound. This was achieved with one of his 'Bursts plugged straight into a period correct Marshall combo. I think the track demonstrates that Clapton was not using a treble booster on that iconic album.

Because there was no need to.