My LP Goldtop Copy

[losergeek]

I picked this up back in Sept as a trade for a Jazz Bass that I wasn't using. The seller was asking 225$ (I think someone actually posted about the sale - it was listed with another tabacco sunburst model) which was technically a trade down for me, but I have a weakness for El Degases since my first guitar was a 80s EL D strat copy and I was about to list the bass for sale, so this saved me the effort. The bridge pickup is supposedly a Dimarzio aftermarket, but I haven't pulled it to check. I had to lower it to the ring to get it to play nice with my AC15 - it was just screaming at normal height. I've never been a fan of LPs, but this is surprisingly light and has a really nice thin neck. It also has a switch that's been added - it originally switch from parallel to serial on the bridge, but I've wired to it split the coils instead. There's no visible serial number and it just says 'made in japan' on the neck plate (it is bolt on). Anyone know anything more specific about it, or a way that I can date it? I'm guessing I have to pull the neck to find a serial but was not super motivated to do that.

[charles]

Don't bother pulling the neck - there is no surviving info on the serial numbers to help in dating.

This is likely a mid 70s model.

The Dimarzio pickups are likely stock - they shipped with stock Dimarzios for a good long period.
It looks like you might have the Super Distortion bridge / PAF neck combo... my personal favorite for guitars that come with Dimarzio's.

She's a beaut.

[losergeek]

Oh, I guess it's probably stock pickups - the guy selling just said that the bridge was a Dimarzio - i took that to mean it was after market, but I guess it probably isn't. Both pickups do look remarkably similar and old...but that bridge pickup sure is hot. I guess that's par for the course with LPs. The guitar is really nice, but it doesn't play well with my EHX Holy Stain which is my go-to for a lot of my bands so I may need to figure out an alternative for that.

[charles]

You might just have to dial your Holy Stain back a bit to account for the hotness of the Dimarzios.
Best of luck!

[Barry]

...that bridge pickup sure is hot...

Heck, they're so hot you don't even need an amp!
Gotta love the gold top. Sweet LP!

[losergeek]

You might just have to dial your Holy Stain back a bit to account for the hotness of the Dimarzios.
Best of luck!

The problem is that the holy stain doesn't have a gain control for the drive - it's either on or off - and the LP seems to be pushing the drive to clip really hard so it sounds like mush. The answer is probably to roll back the volume on the guitar but i prefer to run all my guitars at top volume

[Barry]

I can't tell from the pix but is there room to lower the pups? That can reduce the magnetic signal (volume) but it might also result in a thinner sound.

Volume controls are there for a reason eh?

[charles]

The Super Distortion was sorta built to drive an amp without the aid of any sort of pedals... it's a very hot pickup. You might want to bypass the Holy Stain and just let the guitar do the talkin'.

If that fails, you could drop in some new pickups and sell the Dimarzios - I would imagine clean 70s Dimarzios could fetch a decent price.

[losergeek]

The pickups are pretty much as low as they can go and the holy stain is sort of necessary for what I'm doing on my leads (boost+verb really fills things in for my 3 piece). I also have 4 other full time guitars that work fine with the setup so im not likely to mess with it for the LP which just started as a curiosity more than anything. It seems like sacrilege to swap pickups on a guitar this old but that's probably what I'll be up doing. I wouldn't sell the originals though because I'd want the option of returning t to stock.

[charles]

Sounds like a pickup swap and holding onto the originals is your best option.
I'd want to put something in where I can keep the coil split option with the mini toggle.

[losergeek]

Sounds like a pickup swap and holding onto the originals is your best option.
I'd want to put something in where I can keep the coil split option with the mini toggle.

Ya definitely - I'm really enjoying the split option since a lot of my other guitars are telecasters. I'll probably pick up something reasonably priced at guitarfetish.

Any idea what the PAF would sound like in the bridge position? I may just swap the two pickups in the meantime for fun

[charles]

Sounds like a pickup swap and holding onto the originals is your best option.
I'd want to put something in where I can keep the coil split option with the mini toggle.

Ya definitely - I'm really enjoying the split option since a lot of my other guitars are telecasters. I'll probably pick up something reasonably priced at guitarfetish.

Any idea what the PAF would sound like in the bridge position? I may just swap the two pickups in the meantime for fun

I really like the Dimarzio PAF, not sure how it would be in the bridge position though.

[sambonee]

That's a beauty guitar. My answer was to get wade from motor city pickups to make me a set of under wound BLACKBELTS with alnico 2 magnets and 5 wire setup (for spitting etc....).

Now any guitar I put those pickups in has no shame up against even 2-4000 dollar USA branded guitars. No joke. I've owned over 160 guitars in the past 25 yrs.

Ever since I bought a set of HB AND p90 from wade I have considerably les GAS!

I like your good top!

[losergeek]

Still enjoying my Goldtop - I've tamed the pickups by rolling the volume back considerably...I know it sounds simple, but I'm someone who's always had the mindset that if I'm not running my volume maxed out then I'm missing something from the pickups. These pickups are obviously different beasts. I keep saying that this isn't a daily player for me, but I always find myself wanting to play it, so I might need to re-evaluate that opinion. Here's a shot of me playing it at a recent punk rock cover show where it did a fine fuzzy job on our Husker Du set.

[charles]

Another El Degas success story - always brightens my day.

Glad you're enjoying it, Goldtops look great under stage lights!