Changing Humbucker in Eastman T145

[NotWes]

Hi,

I have an Eastman T-145, wich I like a lot. It's light and confortable. Bought it last year, used. The previous owner took out the KA pickups and put some SD 59. He said he wanted something more versatile, to play other stuff than jazz.

Now, I do like the guitar but the tone is a not quite what I want. I would like to generate more traditional archtop jazz tone, deeper and stronger in bass. Now it's articulated but kind of more clear and with treble predominating. It's kind of a sterile sound (to me, at least).

So I was thinking, What if I changed humbuckers? Would I be able to generate a more "traditional" jazz. Will I be limited anyway by the fact that it's a semi-hollow?

Other option is to sell it and buy a 371 or something else, but If I can, I would try to keep it.

And If I was to switch, what pickups would get me closer? Gibson 57, Kent Armstrong?

Thanks

[sgosnell]

The T145 is not a semi-hollow guitar, it's fully hollow, no center block. I have one, and I've tried several pickups in it. I like the stock Armstrong pickup better than any others I've tried. The T145 is on the bright side, and that's unavoidable, I think, because of the lack of body depth. Deeper bodies tend, in general, to give deeper bass, and 1.75" at the rims isn't much depth. Mine is surprisingly loud acoustically, but there isn't much bass in the acoustic tone, and thus not much in the amplified tone. I don't think that's fixable with any pickup change. For me, having such a light and comfortable body trumps bass, and that's why I don't play my 18"x 3.75" archtop all that often. It's just too big. For more bass, try using an amp with lots of bass, and turn the treble down and the bass up. I get plenty from my T145 with my DV Mark Little Jazz flat on the floor, and the bass flat.

[NotWes]

Thanks for your answer, sgosnell.
True that it is not semi-hollow (I tend to confuse low body dept and semi-hollow). My wrong.
That's a bit what I thought. Well, I might as well appreciate it for what it is, and not try to make it something else. I will probably anyhow put back some Kent Armstrong. Did you try the hand wound KA humbucker, on such guitar? Any idea if it's worth the extra expense? In the pickups you tried, are there any other that seemed to fit decently?

[arielcee]

I think brightness is just inherent in Eastman's. I just traded my 371. Even after swapping the KA for a 59, using 12 flats, adjusting amp it was still too bright and trebly for me. In my memory of playing a t146 some years ago, it was darker than the 371 by a pretty good amount.

[sgosnell]

I did not try a hand-wound Armstrong, only the stock pickup which came in it. All humbuckers that I've seen are the same size, so fit should not be an issue. They should all fit in the mounting ring. As for sound, it's a matter of taste. Probably the best of the other pickups I tried was the Vintage Vibe HCC, which is a single-coil Charlie Christian type pickup in humbucker size. It may be brighter in that guitar than some people like, but I liked it, and might put it back in at some point in time. You will not get a dark sound from a T145 regardless of the pickup, it's going to be on the brighter side no matter what you put in it.

[Little Jay]

The SD 59 is a fine pickup but it’s very scooped. I think SD developed this pu to bring more clarity to heavy Les Paul guitars. It did not work at all in my all maple Epiphone Sheraton II. I replaced it with a StewMac Golden Age that has much more mids and worked much better in that guitar. I suspect a Gibson Classic 57 would do better as well.

[Cunamara]

First, did you try raising the pickup closer to the strings? As the pickup gets lowered into the body, the bass response rolls off more than the treble IME. You can bring the pickup as close to about 1/8" from the strings when they are fretted at the highest fret (you can use a nickel as a depth gauge), if you need to. That should bring the bass up quite a bit. And of course playing with the EQ on the amp may also be helpful with this. I am finding as I experiment with this more that rolling off the tone knob on the guitar does not necessarily provide the results I would be looking for in terms of getting a darker, richer sound with most pickups. The tone controls on the amp actually seem to be more helpful in sculpting a sound. Being a cheapskate, I think that adjustments cost less than new equipment.

My experience with the Kent Armstrong 12 pole PAF is that it is a bright and articulate pickup, not a dark and smoky one, but that may also just be my particular pickup (a floater, which also has an effect on the sound). Currently I am having a lot of positive experiences with Bill Lawrence Wilde pickups including the L-90 4.0H pick up which manages to be both fat and articulate. With 500 K pots and a .022 cap, I find that pick up very versatile in terms of tones albeit that this is in a solidbody, not a hollowbody.

[NotWes]

Thanks for all your answers. It was my first post and it really helped.
Just wanted to add that I did change the SD 59 for Kent armstrong vintage '57 (I found them used). It did a lot of difference. I would not say it brings it to the darker smoother jazz tone, but it's much more pleasant, now. I can't put it down.

[Little Jay]

Happy to hear you managed to change it for the better! I have no experience with the KA ‘57 but I suspect it has more mids than the SD59, which is a good thing in a bright guitar!

Enjoy!

[jads57]

So a side comparison perhaps. I use a Mini Humbucker in the neck position of my Tele . I found by using Seymour Duncan Vintage Bridge version in the neck position gave me a fuller Jazz sound I was looking for.

Not sure if all frequencies are enhanced do to having more windings. But I've always found this to work in my Teles.

[ooglybong]

I think brightness is just inherent in Eastman's. I just traded my 371. Even after swapping the KA for a 59, using 12 flats, adjusting amp it was still too bright and trebly for me. In my memory of playing a t146 some years ago, it was darker than the 371 by a pretty good amount.

Interesting. My experience is quite different from yours regarding AR371s. I must've tried 6-8 various 371s over a few years, at various dealers, as I waited in vain (at the time) for a non-"greenburst" sample to show up. I liked the AR371s—a LOT—sometimes comparing them, if possible, to rarely on-hand ES-175s... and I actually preferred the 371's overall "acoustic" component, weight, and liveliness over the five ES-175s I'd managed to come across. I know... surprising, right? (Not a matter of money because I was also hoping all along to eventually find my "ideal" ES175, too. And, yes, I did eventually find a really nice ES-175 a few years later!) Anyway, I finally ended up buying an AR380 (the John Pisano signature laminate model), essentially the wonderfully upgraded relative of the AR371. Very highly recommended, and also *not* an ES-175 clone tonally at all. IMO and IME. It still has stock KA signature Pisano pickups installed, by the way. No plans to change them either.

Honestly, over the years, I've come to think of the Eastman "brightness" as actually more of a rather surprising *acoustic* component—not quite so much "brightness" (although you can certainly tune them in like that if you want!)—a quality that always seems to come through, even with the Tone control rolled off quite a bit. (Years ago, I was also initially taken by surprise by the lively Eastman acoustic quality, also thinking it was more like brightness. Semantics, eh?) By the way, I also happen to be fortunate enough to own the other Pisano carved models, the maple AR880 and the mahogany AR680, as well as a sweet AR580, laminate body with a carved spruce top, and my opinion of the Eastman "acoustic" tone holds with those guitars as well. (BTW, all are strung with Chrome 12s.)

To the OP: I also owned a T145 for a few years, also not fully enjoying the stock KA—or so I thought at the time—but I think it really was more of the *thin-body* affecting the tone more than the pickup. Eventually, I swapped it out for an Ibanez Pat Metheny PU (Artstar etc) for a comparison, but didn't find it much or any actual "improvement". That, plus I guess that I simply prefer playing my larger bodied guitars, and so I eventually sold the T145. IMO, the T145 was also a "brighter" guitar than the several AR371s I had tried over the years. That said, I have a friend who must've tried at least 5-6 various PUs in his AR371, and he was never happy with the results either. Sold. ? (Ears: Viva la difference!)

Hopefully, the OP will come to find a good solution to his pickup "problem", but I would offer that the T145/T146 is, simply, always likely to sound at least somewhat thinner, no matter what, at least especially when compared with a "traditional" darker/fatter/thunkier jazz tone. That said, it has a great build, wonderful neck, it's a feather-weight, and I'm also sure that that tone would always have some wonderful applications, given the player's preferences, of course.

All this is in my experience and in my opinion, of course. Peace.

[Cunamara]

Hopefully, the OP will come to find a good solution to his pickup "problem", but I would offer that the T145/T146 is, simply, always likely to sound at least somewhat thinner, no matter what, at least especially when compared with a "traditional" darker/fatter/thunkier jazz tone.

Also true of the ES-335 and its siblings. The nature of the beast.