Please help identify this/these pickup(s) by ear

It's not necessarily the pickups, mostly it's his hands and energy field. I'll try and do some research anyways. Perhaps there are comments on some of his youtube videos. And I suppose you can reach out to Seymour Duncan and or Larry Dimarzio with that question.

 

I just contacted Larry Dimarzio via his email, see if he responds to the question on Lee Cooper's guitar and or pickups.

 

A lot of it is playing and a good bit is in the older amp & recording technology. A classic PAF through a tweed should get you close enough.

For a more exact sound from early 50s chess... you might be looking at CC pickup into some sort of octal and a chamber reverb. Might be best to stick with the PAF/tweed and just toss this pedal in-front that mimics octal amp & the chess reverb.



edit: also don't forget to use your tone knob! often times people can get damn close to the sound they want by adjust their tone, volume & amp settings.

 

Yeah that nocturne pescadoro does sound good! I'll guess but its just a guess p90's hollowbody

 

Custom pickups weren't even a thing back then. Dimarzio and Duncan didn't even exist.
Changing out pickups wasn't even a thing yet, by about 30 years.
Probably the pickups were whatever came in the guitar at the time, or a year or two before when the guitar was new.

 

Changing out in the modern sense, not really. But they were certainly adding, trading, and playing around.

https://www.fretboardjournal.com/co...olutely-know-you-are-looking-work-leo-fender/

 

I think it's widely held (and I agree) that his best recordings are the Tiffany Transcriptions with Bob Wills. Enjoy!

 

Sounds like a fat Gibson Hollowbody with P-90's Neck PU or both ( in phase)
With enough of an amp ( larger) - you could be this clear and crisp
Just my guess, beautiful sound!

 

My first thought was that it sounds like something like an ES-150 or maybe ES-125. Charlie Christian pickup in the former, P-90 in the latter, both at the neck position.

 

don't forget the things like curly guitar cable that eat brightness, the strings they used and maybe even the best than, you would not use at all now.

i think of BB King, he wound the complete length of the string on his tuning peg because when the string would break he maybe could use it again.
(from the book of Dan Erlewin)
think about the amps who would not be so sophisticated then as they are now.

the best of those times i think is that they used what was available and made the best of it, because there wasn't something else.
now we have millions of choices and still hunt the tone of hendrix, clapton and other great guitarists

 

I am only able to see the first and last video posted above. I don't think the pickup is the key but the amp is. I don't hear a high wattage tube amp, but the opposite. If this is from the 1950s, amps were not that sophisticated yet. If these first two vieos are getting the sound you like, you can look for an old amp, or maybe look into the Vintage 47 in the third video (or something like it). I also think the gold foil pickup Andy is playing in the last video is in the right ballpark.

 

Here is another Vintage47.
http://www.vintage47amps.com/The-Spectator/

and another
http://www.vintage47amps.com/The-Mini/