Metropoulos Forum

Hey all,

As i said in a previous post, i did order my Seth Lover w/4-conductor wiring for my LP, and they have finally arrived. I installed them and the 2 push/pull pots on Monday afternoon and was totally amazed.

Gotta mention my setup...

1.) 2000 Marshall SuperLead w/'69 MetroAMP board (SoZo caps included), Mercury Magnetics Output Transformer, JJ E34L's and JJ 12AX7S tubes

2.) Marshall 1960AX cab w/Celestion G12H-30watters + Marshall 1960B cab w/Celestion G12H-30watters.

3.) 2002 Gibson LP5 (Les Paul 50's Neck). Standard factory specs for neck relief, string height, and pickup height. Set up with GHS 12's (58 40 30 19 16 12) Boomer's.

4.) Some shitty CBL 20ft cables from Guitar Center

5.) Vox Wah

6.) Fulltone Fat Boost. Extra beef when using solo's. Use it sparingly.

First of all, the Seth Lover's are considerably smoother than my old stock BurstBucker Pro's. The output was a smidgen lower, but that's a good thing because my BurstBucker's did have a great tendency to get muddy when going into a cranked plexi.

Very well balanced. This is pretty self-explanitory. The BurstBuckers had a lot of low end, and this really troubled them in the neck position. With the Seth Lover's, the neck is a lot more balanced and still has a warm quality. With both pickups engaged i got the great funky quack sound that i expected, but nothing really surprising. Now the bridge... awesome! Perfect balance on this pickup as well. Great bass/mid punch, and smoothed out treble. Before with the BurstBuckers, i had to keep my bass around 7 on my SuperLead, but now that it's more balanced i can dime that sucker and have it sound absolutely huge without flubbing out.

Now the coolest thing ever. The coil tapping! I wanted Strat sounds on my Les Paul and i got nothing less! When i want a great single-coil neck sound, it's as easy as pulling out my neck volume knob. Same thing over all settings on the LP. The jangle/blues/country swagger is all there. I'm unbelievably happy that i did this mod to my LP. This add's an incredible amount of versatility to an already versetile guitar. PRS better watch out because now my guitar does the same thing as their McCarty's, but with much more bawls! Adding my FatBoost to the single-coil setting is fucking sweet. If gives it a tad more beef and a great pounding to the front end of the amp.


So all in all, i don't think you should limit your LP to having the truest PAF in the world. The Seth Lover has a great and authentic vintage voice which will compete with many other brands. However, adding a 4-conductor setup will cover more ground in the long run, and save ya money.

Shane,
You are a Led Zeppelin nerd aren't you, you basicly have a Jimmy Page Les Paul now. COOL!!!
Did you install them?

Jeff

Well to be technically speaking, Jimmy Page had phase parallel/series and some phase thing. I've never head him use coil tapping ever. His system is a lot more complex and i recall seeing in an interview that he at one time had all knobs being push pull and even some buttons under the pickguard! Now that's a little more than i could handle.

I did do the job myself by had some really gay things happen to me. First of all, my wire cutters didn't fuckin' work so i had to use a razor blade to strip the fragile wire. Second, the soldering gun decided to not ever get hot enough, and i had to bust out the Butane powered soldering iron... ha ha! Brute force. It was a good project and wasn't that hard to figure out.

By the way, i love Led Zeppelin! However, i really dig Hendrix, Trower, SRV and lot of other bluesy stuff. That's the major reason i did this mod, so i could achieve awesome single-coil voicings.

I seem to recall reading that Jimmy had coil taps on his Les Pauls, HMMMMMM that probably was in my FUZZY years. Anyway, it sounds like a cool mod to do. Keep us informed on how you like it.
By the way I read an article on Robin Trower where he described his tone as all mids. He only used the Mid on his amps, no treble or bass at all. Interesting.

Jeff

Hmm well that clears stuff up. On Robin Trower, well i guess you have to notice that the guitar is mostly a "middy" instrument and it only makes sense what he's trying to do. Pretty good facts here though...

Here are some diagrams of a few Jimmy Page wiring configurations. not really sure what they all are supposed to do but thought I'de post them for reference.
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2203
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2204
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2205

I've really been getting back into Zep lately. Page is a killer songwriter as well as guitarist. The guy might not be the cleanest player by any means but the emotions that he could pull out of his guitar is amazing.

That second diagram is insane! That must look like a cobweb of wire inside the control cavity!

Necrovore wrote:Here are some diagrams of a few Jimmy Page wiring configurations. not really sure what they all are supposed to do but thought I'de post them for reference.
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2203
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2204
http://guitarelectronics.zoovy.com/product/WDUHH3T2205

I've really been getting back into Zep lately. Page is a killer songwriter as well as guitarist. The guy might not be the cleanest player by any means but the emotions that he could pull out of his guitar is amazing.

I don't think Page is revered as one of the top 5 guitarists of all time because of only his playing, his songwriting is top notch. He invented the heavy attitude. Page did have his great years of playing and in my opinion those were from 68-73. Looking at the Royal Albert Hall '70 footage shows great playing on "Black Mountain Side" that a lot of people fail to look at.

Page was my very first idol.....he is not the natural technical type of player like EVH is or whoever, he had to work it out all the time (practice a lot...) but when he had one of those night it was magic...........

It makes you wonder what players actually "practice". I know i'm only inspired to really sit my ass down when i hear something that blows my mind, which has been a lot of Jimi Hendrix bootlegs lately. It just opens my mind up a lot and adds to my expansion of playing.

5150loveeddie wrote:Page was my very first idol.....he is not the natural technical type of player like EVH is or whoever, he had to work it out all the time (practice a lot...) but when he had one of those night it was magic...........

I'm not so sure about that. His whole thing was blues and early Rock. Before he was in the Yardbirds he was Englands most sought after session guitarist. Ive heard a few things that he played on without having him credited as the player and the stuff was pretty cool for what it was.
Watching live Page from Montreux, Australia, and a few other places it seemed like sometimes the "bad" notes were meant to be there. They never really fit but did at the same time.

Shane Ide really like to check out some of the Hendrix boots you have. I have a few Zep boots Ill trade you for.

Anyways I apoligise for hi-jacking this thread. I think Ill have a go at one of those Seth Lovers myself. Need to get away from the high output pups. Im scaling back my rig a bunch. For my high gain metal band Im gonna go out and pick up a DSL and keep the SL for older sounding stuff.

Well in one of is interwiew he sayed this himseft,. he is one of the king but if He for a relative long time without playing he could be little under is standard. I eard some bootleg and oups not there really.

But when it had that magic night I could play like a genius

Watching live Page from Montreux, Australia, and a few other places it seemed like sometimes the "bad" notes were meant to be there. They never really fit but did at the same time.

Funny, I've often thought this very thing about Robert Plant's singing. Listen close and he uses pitches that aren't diatonic to Western twelve tone music all the time, but IT FITS.

This thread just reminded me that I've got a Seth Lover neck pickup lying around that I got for $19 a few years ago and I had completely forgotten about it. My Epiphone Dot has Gibson 57 Classic Plus pickups in both positions and while I like 'em, they're too hot - especially the neck position. I've been thinking that I'd like more clarity and less output in the neck spot and I bet the Seth Lover would fit the bill.

I think the only thing holding me back is the pain of trying to change pickups in the semi-hollow body. I assume you have to bring the pots and switch etc out through the f-hole in order to get at 'em. Maybe use a string through the hole tied to the pot/switch so you can fish it back... I suppose I could just pay a professional to do it but where's the fun in that?

Eamon

Necrovore wrote:

5150loveeddie wrote:Page was my very first idol.....he is not the natural technical type of player like EVH is or whoever, he had to work it out all the time (practice a lot...) but when he had one of those night it was magic...........

I'm not so sure about that. His whole thing was blues and early Rock. Before he was in the Yardbirds he was Englands most sought after session guitarist. Ive heard a few things that he played on without having him credited as the player and the stuff was pretty cool for what it was.
Watching live Page from Montreux, Australia, and a few other places it seemed like sometimes the "bad" notes were meant to be there. They never really fit but did at the same time.

Shane Ide really like to check out some of the Hendrix boots you have. I have a few Zep boots Ill trade you for.

Anyways I apoligise for hi-jacking this thread. I think Ill have a go at one of those Seth Lovers myself. Need to get away from the high output pups. Im scaling back my rig a bunch. For my high gain metal band Im gonna go out and pick up a DSL and keep the SL for older sounding stuff.

You are right on with your amp choice. High output pickups sound great through modern amps and low output (Seth Lovers) sound great through vintage amps. It's all about using the right tool for the job.