Pickups suggestions for Greco Trini Lopez/Barney Kessel?

[archtopeddy]

I have a 68 Greco "Barney Lopez" (copies features of both the Gibson Barney Kessel and Trini Lopez) and I want to replace the humbucker-size pickups. I'm thinking Seymour Duncan Seth Lover... Any of you like/dislike this pickup? Any other suggestions? ( I know Jack uses Gibson Burstbuckers in his real Gibson Barney Kessel and really like 'em...)

[mr. beaumont]

I think the Seth Lover's would be a fine choice.

"Barney Lopez." Lol. My grandma's neighbor across the alley when I was growing up was named Bernie Lopez. Just made me think of that.

[jzucker]

i hate seth lovers. My '63 BK has burstbucker pros in it and sounds like a 60 year old instrument.

[FredC]

i hate seth lovers. My '63 BK has burstbucker pros in it and sounds like a 60 year old instrument.

WOW! First negative opinion on the SL's I've ever heard or read. Well, different strokes.

[archtopeddy]

Thanks all for your thoughts. I chew on this a bit... Meanwhile, if anyone else has an opinion or suggestion, please post!

[rio]

I don’t currently have a guitar with them but I have put burstbuckers in preciously owned guitars and think they are great pickups and very well suited towards jazz and recommend them. Lollar has some good options too.


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[LtKojak]

My '63 BK has burstbucker pros in it and sounds like a 60 year old instrument.

Jack, what happened to the original p'ups of the BK? Being a '63, I think they may've been PAFs, am I wrong?

[GNAPPI]

i hate seth lovers. My '63 BK has burstbucker pros in it and sounds like a 60 year old instrument.

Funny, I R-E-A-L-L-Y don't care for BB's (or SD "Jazz") most anything else even Ibanez S-58's I'd stick with, go figure :-)

[wintermoon]

Jack, what happened to the original p'ups of the BK? Being a '63, I think they may've been PAFs, am I wrong?

Probably not, maybe 1is a PAF if lucky
Nickel PAFS usually gone by '63.

[LtKojak]

Probably not, maybe 1is a PAF if lucky
Nickel PAFS usually gone by '63.

Well, I didn't remember the BK was nickel, I was under the impression it was gold, and I've records of PAFs on archtops as late as a '65 ES-355. So, they most probably were early sticker Pat#, which at the time were PAFs wound with a winding machine upgraded with a stop counter set @ precisely 5,000 turns.
All the PAF tone with a much smaller price tag.

[archtopeddy]

Just thought I'd give you a quick update on my Greco Barney Lopez...

I sent a request to 902D (which makes wiring harness) for a price to get pots, switches, etc., to re-gut my guitar. The current wiring is from 1968 Greco-Japan and I think it can be improved with a new setup. I'm not quite sure which pickups yet. Being that this a just-for-fun guitar project, I'm not looking at spending too much moola on the PUs.

Meanwhile, having some time today, I pulled out the soldering gun and dug up and installed a couple of old Gibson PUs I had laying around the house. The neck PU is an original PAF, and the bridge PU is a mid-70s T-top. As might be expected, the PAF sounds great -- the T-Top not so good. I might consider keeping the PAF in the guitar and just adding a different bridge PU. (Any ideas, anyone?)

I also changed out the original machine heads which, while looking very cool, were long in the tooth. Again, I had some Klusons laying around so I used 'em and they worked out fine. Down the road, I'll probably change them out for a gold set of maybe waffle-backs but for now I'm cool.

It funny because what got me going on this project was -- are you ready? A pair of shoes!
I found these funky cool 70's disco shoes and I thought they would look great with the Barney Lopez, so I had to get the guitar to gig-playing condition. And here we thought a fedora and Django moustache was going over the top...

[rio]

What is the second pickup selector for? A kill switch? Non functional for symmetry?


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[archtopeddy]

Both switches are 3-selector types. One for pickup selection: front, front/back, and back pickup. The other is like a 3-selector varitone eq to to select/empahsize low, normal and high. Doesn't really make much difference. Like you said, -- mostly for looks!