I replaced my GB10 neck pickup, here's a clip (not happy)

[jzucker]

A friend of mine has a Lollar Johnny Smith on his G40thII. It sounds great. Fatter sounding than the original, but manages to retain the percussive brightness of the Benson sound.

The lollar is brighter than the gibson IMO. There are a couple of clips of a GB10 with the lollar in the neck and they sound very bright. I like the sound of mine better I think.

Johnny Smith Style Humbucker | Lollar Pickups (lollarguitars.com)

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Percussive brightness is a great description of the Benson sound.

I don’t know why this isn’t more widely known, but Benson uses Lace Alumitones in some of his guitars.

[jzucker]

I don’t know why this isn’t more widely known, but Benson uses Lace Alumitones in some of his guitars.

I haven't seen that. A friend of mine studied with Benson for 15 years and told me a lot about benson's gear. For example, on his personal GB10, he installed set of PAF humbuckers (into the top) and that's what he plays mostly around the house. He's also the one who told me george gets dimarzio to rewind his GB10 pickups to vintage specs. I'll have to ask him about the alumitones. You have any photos or videos demonstrating that?

[GuyBoden]

For the neck pup, you could mix 500k vol pot and 250k tone pot. Then you would have a combined value of about 375k. A brighter tone than two 250k pots, but darker than two 500k pots.

Easy, if you can use a soldering iron and buy a few pots for experiments.

[jzucker]

For the neck pup, you could mix 500k vol pot and 250k tone pot. Then you would have a combined value of about 375k. A brighter tone than two 250k pots, but darker than two 500k pots.

Easy, if you can use a soldering iron and buy a few pots for experiments.

Thanks, stick with .02 tone cap?

The problem isn't the soldering iron, it's having to get the pots out through the F holes and needing to remove the jack too. Last time I did that on a 175, it took 2 hours to get them back in!

[GuyBoden]

Thanks, stick with .02 tone cap?

The problem isn't the soldering iron, it's having to get the pots out through the F holes and needing to remove the jack too. Last time I did that on a 175, it took 2 hours to get them back in!

Did you tie a piece of cotton onto each pot, before you removed the nuts, so you could pull the pots easily back into the hole?

[jzucker]

Did you tie a piece of cotton onto each pot, before you removed the nuts, so you could pull the pots easily back into the hole?

I used surgical tubing on the pots and a 1/4 male plug in the jack. The problem is that the wiring quite often causes one of the pots to slip upside down and I ended up taking the pickups out to use the hole and forceps to keep it from happening. This guitar doesn't have pickup holes.

What about the cap value? .02?

[GuyBoden]

I used surgical tubing on the pots and a 1/4 male plug in the jack. The problem is that the wiring quite often causes one of the pots to slip upside down and I ended up taking the pickups out to use the hole and forceps to keep it from happening. This guitar doesn't have pickup holes.

What about the cap value? .02?

Obviously, change it to something bigger and then listen to the sound, theoretically it should be darker, but the frequency centre might be different.

Experiment with different cap values and crocodile wiring clips.

[Cunamara]

It should have 500k pots already. 250k pots will darken the tone further and change the feel of the sweep a lot. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, I thought you were finding the tone of the new pickup too dark and lifeless.

Purely in terms of the videos, also, the video with the original pickups is just much louder than the video with the new pickup. That by itself makes the first video sound perhaps "better" for reasons of psychoacoustics. I thought both sounded good although the second video seemed like you were trying to get the GB10 to sound like the Methenyesque ES-175, which is a hard hill to climb since George and Ibanez intended it to to sound like a Johnny Smith.

[jzucker]

you are misunderstanding. The new pickup is bright and the tone cap/pot is not working to take down the high frequencies. With the original pickup, pot, cap, I was able to get it into metheny territory which is not necessarily what I'm looking for but I would definitely like a working tone control.

OTOH, after playing the guitar for a couple hours with the tone pot all the way up, I think i've concluded that I don't like this pickup at all. It's very peaky somewhere in the upper midrange which creates an uncomfortable ear spike. So, I'm just going to go back to the stock pickup.

It should have 500k pots already. 250k pots will darken the tone further and change the feel of the sweep a lot. Correct me if I'm misunderstanding, I thought you were finding the tone of the new pickup too dark and lifeless.

Purely in terms of the videos, also, the video with the original pickups is just much louder than the video with the new pickup. That by itself makes the first video sound perhaps "better" for reasons of psychoacoustics. I thought both sounded good although the second video seemed like you were trying to get the GB10 to sound like the Methenyesque ES-175, which is a hard hill to climb since George and Ibanez intended it to to sound like a Johnny Smith.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I haven't seen that. A friend of mine studied with Benson for 15 years and told me a lot about benson's gear. For example, on his personal GB10, he installed set of PAF humbuckers (into the top) and that's what he plays mostly around the house. He's also the one who told me george gets dimarzio to rewind his GB10 pickups to vintage specs. I'll have to ask him about the alumitones. You have any photos or videos demonstrating that?

Gabriel (mgr at Lace) told me they provide GB with Alumitones, and there are several references to his using them on the web. At Gabriel’s suggestion, Lace built me a pair of them with GB’s specs (but for a 7), and they’re great in my 7 string Tele.

[John A.]

The lollar is brighter than the gibson IMO. There are a couple of clips of a GB10 with the lollar in the neck and they sound very bright. I like the sound of mine better I think.

Johnny Smith Style Humbucker | Lollar Pickups (lollarguitars.com)

All I can say is that it sounds better with the Lollar JS than with the original Ibanez pickup. It’s got a sweetness to it that the original lacks, but I haven’t heard a Gibson mini humbucker in that guitar.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I used surgical tubing on the pots and a 1/4 male plug in the jack. The problem is that the wiring quite often causes one of the pots to slip upside down and I ended up taking the pickups out to use the hole and forceps to keep it from happening. This guitar doesn't have pickup holes.

I tie a long length of dental floss around the shaft of each pot with a slip knot loop in the groove at the base of the shaft. Then I put a piece of electrical tape around the shaft to hold the floss against it. When you pull the floss to reseat the pot, the shaft pops right out of the hole. You have to remember to secure the free end of the floss to prevent it from slipping into the hole - I usually tie each one to the endpin.

[Cunamara]

Well, I have seen two videos of you playing this guitar with the replacement pickup and they sound quite different. The video in this thread sounds Gibson-y and Metheneyesque, the Secret Love one was thinner and more acoustic. Both are good sounds, although of course we can't hear the sound in your mind you're trying to get. And it's sure frustrating to not be able to get there! Was the stock pickup closer?

[GuyBoden]

I tie a long length of dental floss around the shaft of each pot with a slip knot loop in the groove at the base of the shaft. Then I put a piece of electrical tape around the shaft to hold the floss against it. When you pull the floss to reseat the pot, the shaft pops right out of the hole. You have to remember to secure the free end of the floss to prevent it from slipping into the hole - I usually tie each one to the endpin.

What ever method I've ever used, example string, cotton, fishing line with tape etc, it's a frustrating job compared to a solid body.