Following the cork sniffing tone off (link here), I decided to upgrade the Epiphone pickups. In my opinion, the Epiphone had the muddiest tone of the three, by a good margin. So, I removed the pickups from the Epiphone Les Paul Standard and replaced them with Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pros. These made in America pickups are popular but run of the mill. I happen to think they are great pickups, that's why I had a set around. Was the upgrade worth it?

Here's the operation.


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Here are the sound samples.

The samples include the stock Epiphone, the modified Epiphone, and the Gibson Custom Shop 1958 Reissue (for specs see the tone off here).

The recordings, such as they are, were done through a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue, connected by a Mogami Platinum cable, into Apple Logic and then bounced to mp3.

The first sample is of all three guitars. The first sample is the modified Epi, then the stock Epi, then the R8. I play some clean notes on neck, then both, then bridge, then both with the neck tone dialed to 5, then the guitars switch.

All Guitars











The next set of samples are of one guitar each. First I play some notes, amp turned up to 3, on the neck pickup, then both, then bridge, then both with the neck tone dialed to 5, then I play some chords starting with the neck pickup, then both, then bridge.


Stock Epi










Modified Epi










1958 Reissue












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