Your stock pickups are probably fine

Damn. Remind me to buy you a beer sometime...

Some folks change pickups like I change socks...

If they would explore what all them screws and tish does, they just might surprise themselves...

Lot of variation available without hotting up a soldering iron...

Some folks order a guitar and order new pickups before they even get the guitar... Go figure...

I'll come clean, I buy guitars knowing full well that the first thing I'm going to do to them before I even plug them into an amplifier is gut the electronics and swap out the pickups, when I buy a guitar, even if its for work - I'll get to this later, I don't bother plugging it up to an amp to hear how it sounds through an amp, I'll play it acoustically to make sure that I like and am happy with how it sounds if it's an acoustic, and how it feels if it's an electric, but with out exception I almost never test out guitars in stores on their amps, there is two reasons for this, first I use a very specific amp and amp settings that no store can or will cater for, and secondly I run my guitars through two pedalboards, again the store is not going to cater for that either, so the amp test in the store will basically be just to make sure the pickups work, and not show me what the guitar will actually sound like through either my teaching or gigging rig.

I have four types of guitars in my house/collection:

The first type are those that are bought with the specific aim of being used for work, by this I mean either teaching classical nylon string or electric guitar, or for gigging, these guitars I know I'm going to strip out all the electronics and swap the pickups on before I've even bought the guitars, the steel string acoustics and nylon string classical's almost always get ivory nuts, saddles and bridge pins.

The second type are guitars that I've bought purely for the pleasure or desire of owning and wanting in my collection, these are left stock, and other than a quick test to make sure everything works, they don't get played, they simply hang on my walls.

The third type are guitars that I've been given, most of these get kept stock and unplayed and become wall hangers, occasionally I get given a guitar that I like the feel of and like in general, this doesn't happen often as my partner who can't play guitar loves the looks of PRS and I just don't and can't get along with PRS, if so and I want to add it to my stable of work guitars, it gets my standard upgrades that all my work guitars get, custom wound Bare Knuckle Pickups Humbuckers, linear pots, oil in paper caps....

The fourth type of guitar in my collection are my 'retired' guitars, these are guitars that I've either used at one point for gigging, and / or teaching, the electrics have been modified to my working guitar standards if they are electrics or if they are acoustics or classicals have had ivory nuts, saddle and bridge pins, these have been replaced with new 'work horses', they don't get put back to stock, if I've bought a guitar to use as a work guitar, then I've also bought a second identical one to keep stock to hang on my wall, these simply get added to my collection of wall hangers in the state that they are retired in, battle scarred and everything, they don't get refinished or bejazeled to make them look all brand new and pretty, and they are never played again.


Right now my working electric guitars are four 2015 Gibson Les Paul Maples, two in Vintage Sunburst, two in Transparent Ebony, all of them have had the pots changed to 500k linear CTS pots, oil in paper caps, custom wound Bare Knuckle Pickups humbuckers. I also use two Eric Clapton signature series strats, both are black, they both still have the active boost circuit, the pots have been changed to linear CTS, the caps have been changed to oil in paper, the pickups have been changed from the stock S,S,S, to H,S,S, again the pickups are a custom wound Bare Knuckle Pickups humbucker as well custom wound Bare Knuckle Pickups single coils.

Just like managing my strings, keeping track of, looking after and managing my guitars sometimes feels like a full time job.