Project - replacing pickups in a Heritage H-535 semi-hollowbody

High on the list of "not-incredibly-high-priority projects to do when I get a chance" was looking into new pickups for my Heritage H-535 semihollowbody... I'd never been blown away by the stock Schaller pickups (they felt a bit hot and muddy to me, at least for a semihollowbody). Given my general obsession with PRSi and more recently with Gibsons, I briefly considered putting in a set of McCarty Archtop pickups or '57 Classics. After doing a bit more research, I ended up going with a Seymour Duncan Jazz/Pearly Gates pair, which I first experienced in a Jackson Soloist Superlight a few years back.

Well, I managed to find the pickups pretty quickly, they arrived in record time, then when I sat down to re-wire the guitar I realized I also needed new mounting rings (the Schaller pickups mounted on 4 screws while the Duncans mounted on only 2), so that set me back a few days while I was waiting for the proper mounting rings to arrive. Last night I finally had the chance to sit down and do the work, and here's the end result...



One cool trick I picked up on the Seymour Duncan forums... Since hollowbodies typically don't have rear access panels to work on the electronics, it can be tricky to install new pickups. Basically you need to unscrew the pots, fish the pots out through the f-hole, do the soldering work, then get the pots back into place. Before unscrewing the pots, I put a piece of air tubing from my aquarium over the shaft... this gave me an easy way to "steer" the pot towards the f-hole on the way out of the guitar and pull the pot back into place once the soldering was complete. It was also a good opportunity to fix an annoyance I had with the H-535... the 2-vol/2-tone/3-way was upside-down from the standard Gibson Les Paul/SG/Firebird setup, so I was always going for the wrong knobs mid-song on the Heritage.

Overall, I really dig the tone of the new pickups... The Jazz in the neck sounds "fat", is warm but with incredible articulation. The Pearly Gates in the bridge is bright & crunchy, great for Texas-style blues and classic rock. Some pairs of humbuckers just don't sound all that great together, but the Jazz & Pearly Gates make a great pair--you get the best of both (warm + edgy) in the middle position--and the dual volume & tone pots allow for all sorts of tone shaping.

I forgot about how great Duncans generally sound plugged straight into the front of a tube amp... kinda makes me want to try swapping out the pickups in the Les Paul for a set of Alnico II's or try the 59/JB setup in the SG.

--B