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I never wanted to do something like that, but the Franz P90 on the neck never convinced me.
The sound was always a bit lifeless and led me to leave the guitar in its case most of the time.
I knew that the construction and the acoustic sound was good, not great but good.
The playability was excellent after a refretting by a master Luthier.
I heard good things about the Gibson Classic 57 humbucker and in the end I decided to have one build in.
The result is pretty amazing, The humbucker sounds warm and brilliant, not muddy at all. It isn’t sounding
like a Gibson 175, it’s a bit more acoustic with a nice sweetness to it.
The P90 on the bridge is a good contrast, lots of midrange and twang.
Strings are Thomastik Bebop 012- 050
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12-23-2024 11:30 AM
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Nice guitar. The 57 classic is a great pickup and yes has the sweetest top end of any pickup I've ever tried. Interested how your middle pickup selector position with both pickups on sounds?
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Good for you. I'm always interested in making a guitar sound as good as it possibly can.
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I haven't really tried out how well they blend yet because I like the 57 so much
Originally Posted by DawgBone
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+1 on the Gibson 57 Classic. It is right up there with real PAF's as one of my favorite electric guitar pickups. FWIW, I have had a few guitars with the later Duncan made Guild Humbuckers and I did not like them at all. I think the OP made a good choice on this upgrade.
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Nice work. I have had that model and an A-150 Savoy. Both are excellent guitars and punch in way over their weight compared to other Korean hollows available today. And I have had few of those others to honestly compare the Guilds to.
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I had a 90's X-170 with the Duncan designed humbuckers for a while and I found them to be quite excellent. Sweet, warm, and clear. Strangely they are the only Duncan pickups I've tried so far our of 4 or 5 models that I liked. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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I found the Duncan Guild Buckers to be a bit dull in the high end. The only Duncan pup I like are the Duncan 59's, which are pretty much Alnico 5 versions of the Gibson Classic 57 (which are Alnico 2's) Originally Posted by DawgBone
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That's strange because I thought the Duncan Guild buckers matched that guitar very well. They reminded me of '57s a little bit but not quite as fat on top. I generally standby to replace everything with '57' classics cause '57 classic but I immediately scrapped that idea with the Guild. Granted I sold it later so I was better off but I found the factory pickups quite worthy in there. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
As for the Duncan 59's....I had the N version in an Edwards LP when I got it and I found it seemed pretty sterile and bland compared to a '57 though admittedly I did not spend a lot of time adjusting them.
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I had two 90's era Guild Starfires that had the Duncan made Guild buckers. Both seemed lacking in the high end,but as always, other factors could have contributed to that. Those guitars had thick poly finishes. I have two guitars at present that use the Duncan 59 Neck and I have owned a couple of others in the past with that pickup. I find the Duncan 59N to be pretty damn close to a Gibson 57 Classic. The Duncan 59N seems a bit "punchier" to me. That could be the Alnico 5 vs. Alnico 2 thing. Originally Posted by DawgBone
I never had a guitar with an original Guild bucker. I hear that those were fine jazz pickups, so much so that Jimmy D'Aquisto put them in his laminate guitars.
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I've owned 3 Guilds. A Studio II in the 60's - 70's with their smallish h/ber's. No guts.
A Nitebird in the 80's, nice but too polite. A 170 in the 90's, terrible pickups.
In each scenario, guys in the bands I was in at the time asked for something else - soundwise.
So when people post about the Guilds, I always wonder.
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There were few different sets of pickups in the 170 series guitars IIRC. The original Guild manufactured models, which command pretty serious money now and are highly touted. The Duncan designed models in starting in the early or mid 90's. I think Guild might've copped their design for a minute in there, I can't recall, but then switched to an in house design which are notoriously bad. I gotta hand Guild credit, the pickups had two adjustment screws, at least on the bass side, so there was no annoying 'bucker tilt when you adjusted them. Precision. Long run it's proprietary, and a nuisance if you are swapping but in terms practical player friendly design it was good. If you google around someone has all the different models detailed on a website out there. Originally Posted by Jimmy Mack
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I love poly finishes. Gig durability trumps how it feels against my skin every time. It's not a sweater. Lacquer is great but turns into shit, disappears actually, on a serious gig machine The Guild's were, and are still beautiful today as a result. I haven't seen any cloudy finishes on the X line. They were high quality guitar they just didn't say Gibson on them. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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That’s an awesome mod! The Guild X-175 NS already has a great natural resonance, and adding a Classic 57 to the neck position makes a lot of sense. Those pickups have a warm, dynamic response that complements hollow-body guitars really well. Keeping the P90 in the bridge adds a nice contrast, giving you both smooth and punchy tones in one setup.
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Hey, I have one of those Humbucker’s. Maybe I should consider putting it into an Ibanez LGB30 laying around?
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Wow! High praise indeed. I have a pair of real PAF's on a Lester, and all of my attempts at replacements have failed, the PAF's always go back in. Including several big name boutique brands. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
Are the 57's as good on an LP?
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IME....NO. Save your time and enjoy the PAF's. I, and many others, wish we could.
I bought a 57 RI LP Custom with 57's. Meh.
I bought a Lucille ES 345, and put 57's in. The neck 57 came out real quick, and I left the bridge 57 in. I don't play the bridge p/up much so it didn't matter, but it was OK. The funny part is that for the next neck p/up experiment, I put in a (Guild) DeArmond GoldTone p/up. Man was that a nice sound!
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Of course, it depends on what you like. I have a Lester with 57's and I like it a lot, but I admit that the real thing can be better, partly because they are un-potted. OTOH, 57's mostly sound alike whereas real PAF's all sound a bit different. IIRC, every PAF has a different number of windings as it wasn't until the patent sticker era that Gibson got a machine that could do a uniform number of winds. Originally Posted by bluejaybill
There is a lot of myth surrounding real PAF's, but a good set dispels the myth.
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Until last year I had never owned a Guild, but I now have a lovely old blonde 1977 CE100-D. I must say that I absolutely love the sound of the pickups. I don't know a lot about all the models, but I think the pu's on mine are Guild HB-1. I've also just bought another Guild; this time a Starfire (made in Korea), and the pu's are totally different. They are a little smaller than the normal humbucker size, and are very bright, quite unlike anything else I've played. I have quite a range of sounds between the two of them!
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