Humbucking my Tribute Legacy

I have pretty diverse musical taste and I (try to) play all kinds of stuff: Muddy Waters, Albert King, SRV, Jimi H, Led Zep, Gary Clark, Black Keys, Nirvana, STP, Alice in Chains

I'd like to be a one-guitar kinda guy but sometimes when playing my new love (see avatar) I miss a little of the power & crunch I can get from my LP - but I don't want to give up the clean articulation of my legacy either.

So I'm thinking of putting a humbucker in the bridge. There are a bunch of ways to go about this of course, but here are the options I am considering:

1. Full sized humbucker - I'm going to be picky and say it has to be cream, because the other plastics are cream. So that means some DiMarzio. I think one of their hotter PAF pickups would do ok.

2. Single coil size humbucker. I'm thinking of a Seymour Duncan '59 in the bridge of my Legacy and maybe having coil splitting on a push-pull too. What I read and hear the JB jr might be too much for my tastes but the lil 59 seems perfect.

In either implementation I'd like to still split the bridge, but I may wait to try that until I've had the humbucker in for a while.

I'm hoping for comments and advice on my ideas.

Thanks

why dimarzio? if you want a good humbucker that splits well, the fralin unbucker is your pup. a vintage output humbucker would be plenty, a hotter one won't balance as well with the other pups. d allen alleycat humbucker in cream would be very nice as well. as far as single coil sized humbuckers, i'd go with tom anderson.

I thought DiMarzio had some blocking patent on double-cream bobbin pickups?

You seem to have some pretty refined tastes. A quick search turns up your recommendations are all over $100 per pickup.

The SD or DiMarzio can be found for much less, which is more suited to my guitar budget.

I thought DiMarzio had some blocking patent on double-cream bobbin pickups?

You seem to have some pretty refined tastes. A quick search turns up your recommendations are all over $100 per pickup.

The SD or DiMarzio can be found for much less, which is more suited to my guitar budget.

the d allen alleycat humbucker is definitely a lot less than a 100 bucks, and he'll make you double cream.

I'm looking here: http://www.dallenpickups.com/category_s ... =10&page=1

I the alleycats are listed as 220 for the set.

My Google-fu fails to find any other D Allen retailers..

I'm now leaning heavily towards trying a single-sized. That way I don't have to mod my pickguard.

I looked but didn't see any on Tom Anderson's page - are they the 'M-series' pups? They look bigger than a single coil.

tom anderson single sized are stacked. look like singles.

atually, the dallen johnny blades bridge would probably be just what the doctor ordered for you.

I'd go for a full sized humbucker - the single coil sized ones never sound as good, and splitting them results in a pretty wimpy sound IMO. I tried the SD Lil '59 in my Bluesboy and HATED it - I found it muddy and while the dirty sound was passable it was unusable for clean sounds, it was like the amp was under a blanket in another room with the door closed

I don't think there's anything wrong with DiMarzio pickups at all - I used to have a Tone Zone in a strat and loved it. I've always wanted to try Bill Lawrence's L500s, the man makes fantastic stuff for very little money.

Funny how we can all have such varied tastes and experiences. I have a lil 59 in the bridge position of a Legacy Tribute and I like it a lot. I also have a JB single not currently installed and a Jb HB in a PRS 245 LP like guitar. The JB is more of an in your face, strong mids pickup which I like but in the Legacy with the stock singles it may be too much. I find the lil 59 to work friendly with the other singles. I have it lowered a little bit more to balance it out.

I have no blanketed sound with the 59 at all but most my playing is in the clean to crunch styles with the highest gain being along the lines of a JCM 800 driven hard and a Mesa. If you run the 59 off the stock 250k pot it will probably seem muddy to you. Of course what you're playing through makes a tremendous difference too. I don't split the pickup though because I already have two single coils I can go to.

If you decide to put a HB pickup in, full or single size, you should consider how you want to wire your guitar and what value pot for the volume. For me, the stock 250k was too muddy for the 59 and I didn't want a 500k for the singles because they're bright enough as it is. My solution was to use a 500k pot and have a 470k resistor in the circuit so when the bridge pickup is selected the resistor makes the 500k pot act more like a 250k, or in that range.

MJ - I did have the stock 250k pots in there with the Lil '59. Maybe I should have tried it with 500k ones.

Great input everyone, I really appreciate it. I hadn't even thought about the 250 vs 500k pots.

Most HB guitars use 500k and so that makes sense. I'm not sure how the value will affect the PTB system...

Tonight I pulled my LP off the wall, for the first time in a week, and played some stuff then the same stuff on the legacy.

Now I think there is just no duplicating the LP sounds (I have an Seymour Duncans, SH2N in the neck and a Custom 5 in the bridge)

Maybe I'll just keep the legacy as is, because it sounds so nice already and I don't want to screw it up.

Another thought/question - how tough is it to get a replacement PG for these tributes? I don't see them anywhere, do they just come from pickguard heaven (http://pickguards.us/pricegandl.html) ?

They list the tribute ASATs but no tribute legacy. If I got another PG I could cut if for the H and keep the stock one too.

Maybe I'll just keep the legacy as is, because it sounds so nice already and I don't want to screw it up.

Now that sounds like a plan to me! -- Darwin

Maybe I'll just keep the legacy as is, because it sounds so nice already and I don't want to screw it up.

Now that sounds like a plan to me! -- Darwin

haha.. yeah, "don't fix what isn't broke"

I'll wait on doing the swap I guess. I really appreciate everyone's ideas.

Maybe next year when I get my USA made G&L I will mod this tribute a little.

All the mods I've done to my LP were obvious upgrades - but this would not necessarily net me something I like better. So I'll just leave it as is if the itch resurfaces I'll have everyone's good advice to start with.