epiphone les paul ultra upgrade

[fendercat]

Hello all , well other day I got slightly carried away with mybeutifull epiphone les Paul ultra and ended up ripping it apart off came the strings out came the pickups out came all the electric bits n bobs and now its just an empty vessel awaitint new bits. OK heers the plan, I have a pearly gates ready to go in the bridge and a new top notch pre wired harness coming from the us all the way to Australia you know the ones 500k pots and all the fruit n veg' but my problem is, I don't have a clue what to put in the neck as i am very uch a start player and don't know alot about les Paul's so could y'all give me some recomendationd please somat that will compliment the pearly gates I play the usual blues rock stuff through a message express 52 and a fender blues devil any info would be great cheers all

Shake n bake

[Edgecrusher]

Why not another PG? The 59 or AP2 would work great also. If it was me I think i would go for a 59

[RoccoFunnyMan]

I did the PG at the neck, JB at the bridge, YMMV, maybe a Seth Lover?

[LtKojak]

I got slightly carried away with mybeutifull epiphone les Paul ultra and ended up ripping it apart off came the strings out came the pickups out came all the electric bits n bobs and now its just an empty vessel awaitint new bits.

I'm going to go out in a limb and assume you didn't like the way it sounded...?

Not even the piezo did it for you...?

Or it was the booze?

[Sruffie777]

Check out Suhr Doug aldrich pickups

[jake_xms3_punk]

any PAF should do it but they come in different flavours. what do you want in neck pickup tone? do you want smooth or crunch for example?

[Aceman]

Those Ultra Les Pauls are bad@$$.

Not saying their may not be pups more to your liking. But it's a cool sounding guitar with lot's of tonal awesomeness with that Piezo!

[Grindspine]

Since you're a start player (did you mean "strat player"?) have you thought about a Phat Cat for p90 (fat single coil) sounds from the neck position?

Alternately, you could opt for a Stag Mag at the bridge so you can coil tap to a stratty single...

[Stratman]

i am very uch a start player and don't know alot

Does this mean you don’t finish, because you don’t know a lot?

Try a 59n in the neck and get that nanomag working again.

[gibson175]

If you already have a pg bridge, then a pg neck would be the simplest and best way to go.

[fendercat]

See now I am confused. What the hell is a piezo sounds like a rash .yeh the guitar sounded good but just a little muddy. You know when you know its strange how us guitarists are never happy yeh i am a start player and was thinking about slamming another PG in the neck I dunno. Once along time ago I had a gibbo les Paul studio that i bought on a whim and it sounded awful it sort of honked and lacked any clari justbuty so that put me off les Paul's for a long time until I saw the epiphone and thought wow that is beautiful so i bought it because it sounded so good I took it to rehearsal and played it up against my mate who has a gibbo and he said wow that sounds great not far away from his but after a bit of time and more expierienc with it started to realise that it was just on the dull side but only just so i ripped it apart and put the pickups into my go in freeway classic that i use for slide and in that they sound great but still a bit dull so it is the pickups I suppose the sound I am looking for for the neck is sizzling rather than smooth hot but not metal hot you know like rude and brash and to the point I was looking around on the interwbness and came across irongear hot slags to my ears they sound awesome and dead cheap. But been as i already have thepearly gate I just need another for the neck so I will have to do some more reaserch maybe the AP ll hmmmmmmm. I have waffled on a it hear. Haven't I

[fendercat]

God I am a strat player start player not a start player a start player. God damed predictive texting oh now I know what a piezo is. No that is the ultra 2 that has that i have the ultra 1 just a straight up les Paul

[dvadneau]

The Ultra II has the nanomag. It's not a piezo. Piezos are used at the bridge and rely on vibration. The nanomag is a 3 mag pickup sitting just after the 21st fret.

The Ultras are chambered (practically semi-hollow). I had an Ultra II and couldn't put a Super Distortion in the bridge because of the mid range howling feedback. Too warm, too loud. An old Dirty Fingers was a great bridge pickup in that guitar, though.

I never tried a Phat Cat in there, but I'd expect it to be pretty good. The Pearly Gates neck, Alnico II Pro neck and 59n, as mentioned, are all good choices. The Alnico II Pro neck, although warmer than the other 2, is well suited in a guitar like that. Mine at least was fairly bright.

Best neck pickups I liked:
Seth Lover - lower output than I'm used to, but playing the neck (or neck/bridge) clean was like heaven.
59n - this was in my guitar the longest. The 59 brings out the best qualities of a decent sounding guitar.

I never had a Pearly Gates neck in that guitar so I can't comment on whether or not it'd be good in an Ultra, but the PGn is a great sounding pickup in the guitars I have heard it in (LPs).

Seymour Duncan, LP, PAF sound - the 3 mentioned are the go-to for many. The Seth and Antiquities would be in there but might sound a little weak with a PG in the bridge.

I had a P-Rails in my current LP, which isn't an Ultra or chambered, but has some brightness to it. I actually wired it for P90 only, but throw a tripleshot in there and you'd have a good range for an LP neck. Being a strat lover you would probably appreciate the snappier sound you can get with the P90 or rail tones. Then go to full humbucking to get a more classic LP neck tone.

If you stuck a gun to my head and I could only pick one, based on past experience: 59n and tune the pole pieces and pickup height to dial it in.

[fendercat]

Wow thanks for all that advice alot of stuff. But I just realised something :-) :-) the pearly gates is out of my start and is actually a pearly gates plus so its a bit hotter and has alnico v magnets so i am a bit concerned that it will howl back being that the guitar is chamberd i guess I will just have go wait and see I was just thinking what the pearly gates neck pickup with alnico 2 magnets would compare to the PG plus bridge. The pickups that came out of it were the stock hotch 57s I think and it used go feed back a little bit I will see thanks for all the help I will let y'all know if it works or not

[fendercat]

ok so hears my latest dilema ,i have figures out that my pearly gates is a pearly gates plus that i took out of my strat but now i need a suitable companion to it for the neck position in my epi les paul ultra i am thinking that there maybee the pg+ may overpower a 59 or a normal pg neck pickup any suggestions

[allstarrme]

the pearly gates plus is no where near as hot as a JB, a custom or any other hot bridge pickup. the hotter bridges work fine with low output put neck pickups, I have a custom 5 with an A2pro neck in a dot and it matches great. I wouldn't be to worried about feedback, lots of real gibsons are weight relieved and most don't have a problem with it.

Just adjust the neck closer to the strings and the bridge further away from them until you find a good balance.

Thats the thing about les pauls some just speak to you and some are terrible, just like JCM800's you need to try a few to find a really good one that stands out before getting one.

[Aceman]

Okay - let's just jump tot the end:

Put a set of Pearly gates in their and wire it back up correctly so the NANOMAG (or whatev er) works properly.

Done.

[dvadneau]

Okay - let's just jump tot the end:

Put a set of Pearly gates in their and wire it back up correctly so the NANOMAG (or whatev er) works properly.

Done.

^This.

The Pearly Gates Plus will NOT cause it to feedback. The ONLY pickup that caused feedback for me was a Super Distortion using hotter amp settings with a good amount of low end. The Super D is a warm hot pickup - warm as in lots of low mids and mids. Seymour Duncan pickups don't have this characteristic. I don't consider many of SDs pickups warm in comparison to DiMarzios.

I had an Invader neck, Duncan Distortion, Pearly Gates Plus, JB, Custom, Custom Custom, Custom 5, and 59 bridge in the bridge of the Ultra II and never had an issue like I did with the Super D. I also had some other DiMarzios in there and didn't have issues. It will probably depend on your guitar as well, but I seriously doubt you'll have issues with any Seymour Duncans in terms of unwanted feedback.

Hopefully we're talking about the same kind of feedback here. There is good feedback. Even my DiMarzio PAF (low output) in the bridge caused feedback in a very good way when within a few feet of my speaker. The bad feedback I was talking about was an uncontrollable feedback that continues even when you're holding the strings from vibrating. The difference is obvious when you hear it.

The PG+ worked very well for me with a 59 in the neck.

The combo that I had before I decided to trade that guitar was an original Dirty Fingers in the bridge and a PG+ in the neck. I had to back the bass side of the PG+ down and raise the pole pieces to reduce the boom, but it was a decent neck pickup in that situation. The PG+ is like a louder 59 in the neck. In the bridge the PG+ was a great sound as well.

Just get the PGn and get playing

[gibson175]

Okay - let's just jump tot the end:

Put a set of Pearly gates in their and wire it back up correctly so the NANOMAG (or whatev er) works properly.

Done.

yep

[fendercat]

OK. Then I am gonna go with a pearly gates neck and see how I go thanks for all the good feedback I will let you know when its all done how it sounds