What PUs for a 335?

To be clear it's a Hamer Echotone, a 335 style, Korean-made axe. It has Duncan-designed HBs now which are OK but sound sort of one dimensional. I'm looking for suggestions for replacements.

If you want PAF types, I put Wagner Crossroads in my Historic 335. They're really good, a significant upgrade from the Gibson 57 Classics that came stock in it. If you want a dirtier, midrangier core sound, I'd suggest the Wagner Darkburst set.

http://crcoils.com/New_PIckups/Crossroads_Set/crossroads_set.html

http://crcoils.com/New_PIckups/DarkBurst/darkburst.html

I just ended a long pup tone quest for an AS73 335 style, and after going through at least many different types of pups besides the stock Ibanez ACH's: Duncan '59, Jazz, Pearly Gates, JB ... Rio TX &BBQ ... Anderson ... Van Zandt ... Armstrong PAF ... and some brands/models I've already forgotten ... I took a chance on a set of inexpensive $43 GFS Liverpool Vintage Retrotrons (Filtertrons) - holy moly, these suckers are the ***** for me! Played with 'em at band practice tonight and they've got great, thick treble tone and presence for both picked rockin' tunes and fingerstyle jazz numbers.

There's good sound bytes on the GFS eBay page, and there's essentially two styles of humbucker sized Retrotrons to choose from: Nashville ceramic or Liverpool AlNiCo, and each comes as Vintage (35% overwound) or Hot Overwound (50% overwound). The Liverpool Vintage clips sounded the best to me, and in the flesh they sure do match up.

They're sized both in pole spacing and volume for neck and bridge positions. The neck version would be killer for a Tele!

GFS (http://stores.ebay.com/Guitarfetish-Store_Pickups_W0QQcolZ2QQdirZQ2d1QQftidZ2QQtZkm)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v82/rfdee/as73gfs.jpg

http://www.guitarfetish.com/Nashville_Chrome_SILO.jpg

Are these in the PAF range in terms of how hard they hit you preamp? Through my SFPR I find that a lot of HBs are just too much for the front end. I usually plug into the second jack a watch how much boost I'm using on the pedalboard. Otherwise there's no clean headroom. I wonder how their PAF HBs are...

Who is this company? Some of the guitars on their EBay store look amazing. Asian manufacturing once again. Anyone ever played any of these things?

Are these in the PAF range in terms of how hard they hit you preamp? Through my SFPR I find that a lot of HBs are just too much for the front end. I usually plug into the second jack a watch how much boost I'm using on the pedalboard. Otherwise there's no clean headroom. I wonder how their PAF HBs are...

All I can say is that these LP Rectotrons are a higher output version of the low low output Filtertrons (and they're in a standard HB footprint). I'd compare the LPR output to that of a fairly hot true single coil pup - no more - and not like a PAF that'd push the front end early and hard. But you'll need to be the judge of all this using yer own gear and playing style.

Who is this company? Some of the guitars on their EBay store look amazing. Asian manufacturing once again. Anyone ever played any of these things?

Dunno about the gits. All I want from GFS right now are those GREAT LPR pups - I need more!

Lots of great pickups out there. The GFS are certainly a good cost effective choice. Dimarzio PAF Classic, Bluebuckers or Virtual Vintager PAFS are great sounding pickups. Duncan Seth Lovers would kill in that guitar. Wagners are great, but expensive. I'd go with the Darkbursts...but thats just me.

For low cost, handwound to your specs, pickups, email Jon Moore at rhonjon@sympatic.ca Beautiful pickups at incredible prices. Jeff at high order pickups also winds a wonderful sounding, low cost pickup.

I replaced the stockers in my Gibson ES-333 with nickel-covered Duncan 59s (Alnico V) and it sounds fine. (Also replaced the 300K ohm Gibson pots with 500K ohm CTS and the ceramic caps with .022 mfd Mallory 150s.) I had a Hamer Echotone for a while and the pickups didn't sound bad. I think the Duncan Designed pickups are Alnico V; you might also consider Alnico II pickups such as Duncan Seth Lovers or Antiquities or Gibson 57 Classics.

Duncan Seth Lovers sound great in a 335 style guitar. I used them in a '67 335 I have for a couple of years before I started using Tim White's pickups.

been wondering about this, myself!

The Gibson Classic 57's actually sound pretty good in a 335. I have them in an Orville by Gibson 335, they were stock in those. Of course it really comes down to taste, and it's so hard to try them out. I'm sure I would like many of the choices.

I have Fralin's 8-9K humbucker set in an Epi Dot and feel no need to look further, Rolph and Voodoo (I have Voodoo Strat PUs and think they are great) notwithstanding.

Lawrence XL-500's rock in my D'Augustino 335. Thing I love about them is that they are almost single coil sounding with the tone all the way up and get very 'benson, bloopy' with a slight roll off. Extremely versatile pickup and very, very quiet. I love 'em. The only drawback I see is the wait.