Gibson R8 or Harley Benton with Pickup Upgrades?

thegummy

TTBZ said:

Interestingly I was doing a bit of recording with a few different guitars today. The Gibson LP traditional we had was absolutely awful. Dead, heavy, sounded dull, couldn't put it back on the rack quick enough. We all agreed the Epiphone LP Custom also there was by far the better guitar - not too heavy, sounded bright and resonant, nice and easy to play. That one got used for the LP tracks. Not a Harley Benton I know but still a cheapo Vs £1000+ guitar.

The real winner was the tele though which as a lifelong Gibson-style player surprised me the most. Loved it and made the LPs feel/sound really lacklustre - perhaps I'm finally over my LP phase!

Bright isn't something I look for from a Les Paul to be honest.

Given your preference for the Tele, which is definitely bright to say the least, maybe it's just that you're not personally a fan of the LP sound and you preferred the Epiphone because it sounded less "like a LP".

Just a theory.

TTBZ

Nah I definitely know and like a good LP sound, I've used them for most of the time I've been playing but this one sounded like a blanket over the speaker and felt awful. I didn't mean the Epiphone was bright in the same way that a fender, but good LPs have a certain clarity and cut about them I think. There's a good Johan segeborn video that shows this off well when he compares an LP to a humbucker strat.

thegummy

TTBZ said:

Nah I definitely know and like a good LP sound, I've used them for most of the time I've been playing but this one sounded like a blanket over the speaker and felt awful. I didn't mean the Epiphone was bright in the same way that a fender, but good LPs have a certain clarity and cut about them I think. There's a good Johan segeborn video that shows this off well when he compares an LP to a humbucker strat.

Cool man.

Will need to find that video tomorrow, sounds interesting to me.

I seem to go through cycles of really getting in to my Strat and thinking "I should just get another one and put humbuckers in it", window shopping for the one I want etc. only to then play my LP one day and fall back in love with that.

prowla

"As good as", or "better than" are very subjective.

What's the best car in the world? Easy - the Bugatti Veyron. Yes, but I need to take a family of 5 on a trip to Cornwall. Ah - the Veyron's no good for that! Right, so it's not the best car in the world then...

I've seen some bands live where the sound was so bad it wouldn't have mattered if they were playing planks of wood, so anything would have sufficed. If that's your domain, you can save the effort of buying a great guitar.

Some people have cloth ears and can't tell the difference, or are looking for different things in the sound. We've had the vinyl vs. CD vs. MP3 debate; most audiophiles think that vinyls sounds best, but iPod owners think they are obsessive dinosaurs.

Back on-topic; I've not contrasted an HP with a Gibson, so I can't comment specifically. However, I have played a number of Rickenbacker basses and various copies and I can say I've never come across a copy which is as good as the original, despite the "better than", "why spend more", and suchlike comments which some people make.

I suppose it's a question of a budget item being adequate/acceptable, and then you try something out which makes pause and go "crikey".

TTBZ

thegummy said:

TTBZ said:

Nah I definitely know and like a good LP sound, I've used them for most of the time I've been playing but this one sounded like a blanket over the speaker and felt awful. I didn't mean the Epiphone was bright in the same way that a fender, but good LPs have a certain clarity and cut about them I think. There's a good Johan segeborn video that shows this off well when he compares an LP to a humbucker strat.

Cool man.

Will need to find that video tomorrow, sounds interesting to me.

I seem to go through cycles of really getting in to my Strat and thinking "I should just get another one and put humbuckers in it", window shopping for the one I want etc. only to then play my LP one day and fall back in love with that.

Despite loving the tele I still reckon you can't beat a good LP the one I played yesterday must just be one of the really dodgy ones that slipped through. Just thought it was interesting that even though we all picked up the Gibson first, we all thought the Epiphone was superior. Just goes to show you have to try any guitar out first I guess 

Here's that video I mentioned.

OilCityPickups

The problem is that Les Pauls vary in sound hugely ... ignoring wood for a moment ... I've repaired and rewound many original PAFs and there was practically no consistency in their magnets, winding level or resulting sound. I've experienced PAFs so bright they nearly loosen your fillings ... and muddy indistinct ones. They are the number one pickup for 'ill informed bullshit' from internet pundits, as well as craftily textured hype and snake oil from some makers.

Once one knows the way in which PAFs were wound and built up  it becomes a simple matter to replicate them ... and more reliably with modern equipment than was possible for Gibson back in the day. My own industry has been responsible (sadly) for perpetrating a whole pile of myths about the PAF that simply don't bear scrutiny when you open up a 50s PAF and check the indisputable facts.

Rewinding a 59 PAF bobbin ...

rossi

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

OilCityPickups

rossi said:

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

With Gibson all the winding was done with machine not by hand ... another internet myth. Fender hand wound till the 60s

But Gibson always used their Leesona machines. The issue was that those machines used fibre gear wheels to 'time' the winding, and they were hugely unreliable ... so the operators often resorted to timing the winding with any method to hand, or simply filling the bobbins till 'full'. Gibson 50s PAFs have a very consistent 'turns per layer' because the machines 'laid' the wire automatically but the coil shape and turn count varied a lot with the individual operator..

PolarityMan

OilCityPickups said:

rossi said:

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

With Gibson all the winding was done with machine not by hand ... another internet myth. Fender hand wound till the 60s

But Gibson always used their Leesona machines. The issue was that those machines used fibre gear wheels to 'time' the winding, and they were hugely unreliable ... so the operators often resorted to timing the winding with any method to hand, or simply filling the bobbins till 'full'. Gibson 50s PAFs have a very consistent 'turns per layer' because the machines 'laid' the wire automatically but the coil shape and turn count varied a lot with the individual operator..

bobbins!

thegummy

TTBZ said:

Here's that video I mentioned.

Appreciate you providing the link.

Disappointed in the video though, they use completely different pickups so it's a pointless exercise IMO.

Three-ColourSunburst

Looks like Gibson have decided to take on Harley Benton at their own game. Their latest 59/58 hybrid Les Paul is only $74.99, and they are doing an SG Junior for just $41.99 - at least that is what Mark Agnesi says.

rossi

OilCityPickups said:

rossi said:

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

With Gibson all the winding was done with machine not by hand ... another internet myth. Fender hand wound till the 60s

But Gibson always used their Leesona machines. The issue was that those machines used fibre gear wheels to 'time' the winding, and they were hugely unreliable ... so the operators often resorted to timing the winding with any method to hand, or simply filling the bobbins till 'full'. Gibson 50s PAFs have a very consistent 'turns per layer' because the machines 'laid' the wire automatically but the coil shape and turn count varied a lot with the individual operator..

We always got the number of winds right .that was a given .Its what happened in between  with tension ,layers ,pattern  etc tat varied .The Leesona is very large and exoctic .

Kittyfrisk

rossi said:

OilCityPickups said:

rossi said:

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

With Gibson all the winding was done with machine not by hand ... another internet myth. Fender hand wound till the 60s

But Gibson always used their Leesona machines. The issue was that those machines used fibre gear wheels to 'time' the winding, and they were hugely unreliable ... so the operators often resorted to timing the winding with any method to hand, or simply filling the bobbins till 'full'. Gibson 50s PAFs have a very consistent 'turns per layer' because the machines 'laid' the wire automatically but the coil shape and turn count varied a lot with the individual operator..

We always got the number of winds right .that was a given .Its what happened in between  with tension ,layers ,pattern  etc tat varied .The Leesona is very large and exoctic .

And walk away from the keyboard, revisit in the morning.
It's for the best 

OilCityPickups

Kittyfrisk said:

rossi said:

OilCityPickups said:

rossi said:

The  hand winding girls in my winding shop way back when would pour out any old shit all day and every day .Trying to pin them down to high consistency was near impossible and I have no doubt Gibson girls were the same.All we wanted was trays full of coils that matched a very tolerant spec .Same for  Blume and Redecker capstan  machine wind .Low tolerance was all that was asked for and all they got .

With Gibson all the winding was done with machine not by hand ... another internet myth. Fender hand wound till the 60s

But Gibson always used their Leesona machines. The issue was that those machines used fibre gear wheels to 'time' the winding, and they were hugely unreliable ... so the operators often resorted to timing the winding with any method to hand, or simply filling the bobbins till 'full'. Gibson 50s PAFs have a very consistent 'turns per layer' because the machines 'laid' the wire automatically but the coil shape and turn count varied a lot with the individual operator..

We always got the number of winds right .that was a given .Its what happened in between  with tension ,layers ,pattern  etc tat varied .The Leesona is very large and exoctic .

And walk away from the keyboard, revisit in the morning.
It's for the best 

The beast itself: a 1948 Leesona.
Between the wire reels and the winding chucks you can see the 'common traverse' rail, with its wire tensioner and feed head. 
Basically this was a machine built for mass production, three coils being wound at the same time. I believe Gibson had at least two of these, one for slug coils, one for screw coils. 

ICBM

OilCityPickups said:

The beast itself: a 1948 Leesona.
Between the wire reels and the winding chucks you can see the 'common traverse' rail, with its wire tensioner and feed head. 
Basically this was a machine built for mass production, three coils being wound at the same time. I believe Gibson had at least two of these, one for slug coils, one for screw coils. 

The irony being that if you used a machine like this to create two perfectly matched coils at the same time with identical numbers of turns and wire tension, the resulting pickup probably wouldn’t sound great - humbuckers generally sounding best with slightly mismatched coils.

Kittyfrisk

So (bear with) unless the early machines were deliberately set to produce more uneven or unbalanced windings,or sloppily wound they would not sound good?

mbe

Three-ColourSunburst said:

Looks like Gibson have decided to take on Harley Benton at their own game. Their latest 59/58 hybrid Les Paul is only $74.99, and they are doing an SG Junior for just $41.99 - at least that is what Mark Agnesi says.

I'd really like one of them SGs, where do I send my $41.99 to ?

ICBM

Kittyfrisk said:

So (bear with) unless the early machines were deliberately set to produce more uneven or unbalanced windings,or sloppily wound they would not sound good?

They weren't deliberately set, they were just too primitive to produce accurate results, and operated by workers who had no interest in perfection. You might cynically say that Gibson is in fact still making new guitars just like they did in their Golden Age...

OilCityPickups

ICBM said:

Kittyfrisk said:

So (bear with) unless the early machines were deliberately set to produce more uneven or unbalanced windings,or sloppily wound they would not sound good?

They weren't deliberately set, they were just too primitive to produce accurate results, and operated by workers who had no interest in perfection. You might cynically say that Gibson is in fact still making new guitars just like they did in their Golden Age...

Absolutely correct ... with modern CNC winding machines however it's possible to duplicate the 'mistakes' of the old winding machines in a consistent and repeatable manner. :-) 

ToneControl

randella said:

Simon_M said:

Fret dress? New tuners? New nut? Bridge? Would any of these actually be worth bothering?

The human labour costs are the first to be cut on a budget guitar - anything that involves hand/eye co-ordination, basically.  I'd say the two of the four on your list would be worthwhile, frets and nut. 

The bridge - depends if the unit fitted to the Harley Benton guitar is that bad.  I'd imagine it'd be OK.  Still, the bridge could be one of the easier upgrades, depending on the post widths (centres between the two) and individual diameters fitted to the HB guitar. 

Same for the tuners - if you could get replacements in the headstock with no drilling then you might notice an improvement depending on the quality of the originals.  Given it's possible to get decent tuners for not very much, they might be fine.

It's not certain that human labour would be as much of an issue:
we're into "do you want something partly hand made by someone in the USA being paid $1000 a week, or someone in Vietnam being paid $100 a week (not accurate figures, but you get the idea, it's a huge difference)
I've seen excellent guitars from S.Korea, and more recently China, Indonesia, Vietnam

Who would pay £10k for an iphone hand-built in the UK?
How would it be better than one made in China?