changing pickups on es130?

[riffhai]

is it worth it to change pickups on a es 130?
i'm much more into single coil pups and therefore i'd like my es to sound as clear and lively as possible.
i put a faber aluminium tailpiece instead of the stock zink tp and was surprised how it changed the overall sound of the instrument in a positive way. i'm pretty satisfied now but still curious to hear, if there are more options.
greetings
tom

 

[marcusnieman]

Single coils on an ES guitar? Why? Are you talking about P90 style p'ups?

 

[riffhai]

no, i'm talking about humbuckers. i'm just wondering if the stock pups are already very good, or if i could get a bit more clarity and "3D" out of a replacement pickup.
this is my first HB guitar in 20 years, all my other guitars are SC, so i'm missing some sort of reference.

 

[marcusnieman]

Have you played it with the stock pickups in it? An ES130 will sound as lively as you want it to - it'll peel paint off the wall if that's what you want.

If you are comparing the tone of a solid body with single coils (strat for instance) to a semi hollow body, you're not comparing apples to apples. You have much more tonal variance in the ES model - due to the body size and construction. Also because you can blend the output of the pickups individually - rather than having a single master volume control as on a strat.

Play it first .......right out of the box, an ES130 is a top notch sounding and playing guitar without changing a thing - of course in my opinion.

 

[Ducati]

If you have a sound in your head, try talking to Will of WB Pickups. He can wind pickups for you that will get your tone or recommend one of his base models. I have two sets of WB's & they rock.

Custom Guitar Pickups

 

[DaveWW]

You'll never quite make it sound like a Strat though - if that's what you want. I love my ES120 and as said above because of the wood, the pups and the body the tonal variation is huge. But because I also like single coils I have a strat as well................

Dave

 

[togps]

ES180, modified at Tokai

 

[DaveWW]

Very, very nice (I want one!) ..................... but I'ts still not gonna sound like a solid body strat though - if that's what he's looking for.

Dave

 

[Le Chat Noir]

I have an ES-120. Sounded great out of the box, never had any cause for wishing to change the stock pickups! Really meaty, warm, full, vintage character but with plenty of balls for modern rock too.

Perfect for my style.

To me, my single coil equipped guitars just seem to lack the low-end oomph and ballsiness of my ES-120 when I pick them up. I also love its highly musical distortion!

But sound is all subjective... what is right for one guitarist is totally wrong for another.

If you want a guitar that has single coils and sounds like a Strat... why not buy a Strat? Give the ES a try, if you don't like it, don't waste your time trying to equip it with single coils (they're harder to swap the pups in anyway, due to the nature of their construction). It'll never sound like your other guitars, and why would you want it to? It'd be like marrying someone, then deciding you want to spend thousands on plastic surgery to make them look like another girl you could've married instead.

Just my tuppence

 

[riffhai]

thanks for all your posts.
i'm not gonna change humbuckers for single coils and i don't want my es130 sounding like a strat. i actually don't want any guitar sounding like a strat (i'm a teleman..), except maybe........ a strat.
i just wanted to know, if it was worth to search around for different (better?) pickups, which seems, considering your posts, not to be the case with tokais.
on teles for example, you can have a nice old instrument, and still want to change the neck pickup, because it's lacking clarity. instrument and pickups have to be matched on those instruments.

so i will get more accustomed to the meaty, full sound of my tokai. b.t.w. this guitar seems to like my ac30 and i just found some settings that make it rrring pretty nicely.
greetings
tom

 

[Le Chat Noir]

Well, good luck with it! I didn't mean to assume you necessarily wanted a single coil sound (or were a Strat man!), hehe. I can't comment on the neck pickup really, as I only ever use the bridge pickup... but I'm more than happy with it.

I guess the only thing you can do is play it a bit, if you try it thoroughly and don't like it you could always buy the Gibson classic 498T 490R combo and have yourself a ringer for a top-notch ES335, only yours will be better made and with a better name on the headstock

 

[riffhai]

i totally agree about the workmanship. tokais are superbly made and seem to have a certain vibe, that i don't see and feel in the newer gibsons.
the only thing i'm not crazy about, is the supernice look of my flamemaple natural es130. cherry or sunburst would have been a bit more rocknroll, but the natural one just sounded best. maybe i'm gonna put some ugly stickers on......and perhaps a bigsby (oh i can hear you guys knocking: "don't do it, don't do it!)
salut
tom

 

[telehack]

I don't mean to state the obvious, but have you tried adjusting the pickups for a better clean sound? I just gigged my ES130 last night with the stock pickups and was really happy with my sound. When I first got it, the pickups were very close to the strings, so I backed them down a bit. I also tried a trick I heard and raised the polepiece screws on the wound strings on the neck pickup some. The B and E still sounded strident on the bridge pickup, so I screwed those in some. In the middle position and even on the neck pickup I'm getting superb clean sounds. I'm not super keen on the bridge pickup, but I've got it adjusted pretty well and I use it only for rock sounds. I guess what I'm saying is that the stock pickups excel in clarity and really are quite decent.

Having said that, as a typical obsessive guitarist, I got a Seth Lover neck and a Bare Knuckle Mule bridge pickup fairly cheap and I'm going to give those a shot at some point.javascript:emoticon(':wink:')

-Tom

 

[luis]

Interesting ES180 model, I have seen only one in my life.I gues a 90?s models.Let me know more about it Gottfried!

 

[togps]

.... I gues a 90?s models.

Luis, you are right. It's a '91 model

 

[hamerfan]

Hi, riffhai!
i think since 2 weeks the same way. I have always been a humbucker-guy until a recieved a Squier Strat with Texas special and a Pearly Gates + (from a Lonestar strat). This clearness in the neck is amazing.
I had a Humbucker sized P90 in the neck of a hollow body, which is great too.
Maybe a combination of a Seymour Duncan Phat Cat in the neck with a PAF in Bridge would give more versitality. So move the Neck pup of the ES 130 to the Bridge and buy a P90 clone for the neck.(BTW all Duesenberg guitars have this combo!!)