Replacing SD 59 pick ups on my 2014 H-150

[Andyv94]

Hello everyone, 

I did a search on this forum to see if this topic has been talked to in the forum but I didn’t see any new or old topics specifically talking about which new pick ups you kind folks would replace the originals with…
 

im not crazy about the 59’s or Seymour Duncan pick ups to be honest. To me they are too whiney and a bit on the scratchy, rough sound (if that makes sense) 

I would like to put in a set of humbuckers,  I’ve had good luck with Tom Brantley PAF Humbuckers, I also like the new Gibson Custombuckers Humbuckers, but  I am trying to stay away from Gibson. 
 

Any recommendations? I know it’s a very personal choice but it’s always good to hear other people’s opinions. 
 

Here’s my lovely guitar! 
Thank you in advance and my apologies if this subject has been talked to death and I missed the posting!  

 

[bolero]

Wolfetone Legends

[PunkKitty]

JS Moore humbuckers are the best pickups I've ever played. Wolfetones are also very good.

[tbonesullivan]

What kind of music do you play? Are you more of a clean player? The SD 59's are nice, but they are definitely a bit "rude" sounding, designed to sound good for rock and roll.

Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAF pickups aren't super expensive, and are really REALLY nice sounding. Not as crystal clear as say the Schaller Golden 50s that Heritage used for years, but very balanced and just really nice sounding pickups.

[Andyv94]

Thank you all for the recommendations, I’m more of a blues player, Eric Clapton type of music in general. Although I do love me some RUSH & The Police lol

[nuke]

Try this:

Roll the volumes down to 9 and your tone controls down to 7. This will take the hair off the SD59's.  

My '98 H150 came factory equipped with SD59's. Heritage back then was equipping them with 300k volume and 150k tone pots, which smoothed them down quite a bit. A little too much in my opinion. I had occasion to replace a bad jack and a slightly scratchy pot, so I replaced the pots with Dimarzio 500k volumes and 250k tones.  That's electrically, the equivalent of making 7.5 the top of the tone pots.  Seems about right to me.

The Dimarzio pots have a 30% audio taper, which allows smoother control of the volume as you turn down from full. The usual 10% audio taper pots are designed to give smooth control coming up from full off. 

I have a Gibson Custom Shop 1960 re-issue with the Custom Bucker III pickups. They're lower output, softer in the highs with a little upper high frequency shimmer. The Alnico 3 magnets are low flux, so the pickups can go closer to the strings, which they kind of need to. 

Had occasion to play a Collings I35-LC (ES-335 style) which was equipped with ThroBak SLE-101-plus pickups. Wow, match made in heaven. 

Clapton's ES335 was most likely "patent sticker" humbuckers. 

Lifeson's ES355 was most likely t-top humbuckers. 

Different tones, different eras. 

 

[Andyv94]

Wow thank you nuke, that’s some great info on your post! Much appreciated!! 🙏🏻

[tsp17]

I’ve also replaced the 59s in a lot of guitars, but they sound great in my H575 Custom.  

I usually end up with Lollar Imperials as the replacement.  

Edited November 3 by tsp17

[rwinking]

On 11/1/2024 at 6:59 PM, tbonesullivan said:

Dimarzio 36th Anniversary PAF pickups aren't super expensive, and are really REALLY nice sounding.

I have two H-150s, an H-170 and an old H-140 and I replaced the Schallers with the Dimarzio Anniversar PAFs. I had some Wagners and Wolftones and tried a few others but the Dimarzios hold their own. And the price is incredible. Once I AB'd and measured some Wagner Filmores and the Dimarzio Super Distortions and could not tell the difference. And they measured out exactly the same. I guess the difference was $180 per set vs $450 per set. I do have sme SD's in my H-535 and they are really nice and warm. 

[High Flying Bird]

12 hours ago, tsp17 said:

I’ve also replaced the 59s in a lot of guitars, but they sound great in my H575 Custom.  

I usually end up with Lollar Imperials as the replacement.  

My friends an I have found the '59s to be very muddy.  I have Imperials in my custom 137.  They are fantastic pickups. 

[TalismanRich]

I've got Alnico Pro IIs in my H-140 and they sound fine.   I put Sheptone Tributes in my H-535, and my Mille 2000 has Seth Lovers.  The 157 still has the Schallers in them.  Nobody complained about the tone at PSP when I played it.

I get more differences from my amps than I do from the pickup changes. 

[Andyv94]

Good morning

 

I ended up going with Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates humbuckers! 
I just got them, now I have to put them in my guitar! 👍🏻

[MartyGrass]

You're on a tonequest!  This may be incurable.

SD 59s are decent pickups.  Schallers are as well.  If I could only have one pickup, it would be Fralin P-92s.  That is not to say they are the best.  I just like the single coil-like sound.  The same is true with the Z-coils from G&L.

There are innumerable variables in the signal chain and output.  Strings, picks, technique, harness, control settings, cable (maybe), amp and its settings, speakers, position of speakers to the ears, and room or hall environment.  Then there are pedals.

The electric guitar has been around close to a century.  It is funny that one of the great choices in pickups with jazz players is the very old Dearmonds.  https://dearmondpickups.com/

If pickups were cheap, I'd like the idea of popping in a different set with string changes.  There could be mini-toggle switches to change the circuits internally.

Heritage semi-hollows are not so easy to change harnesses on.  And pickups are not cheap.  And your ears and brain are different than mine.  So this could be a terminal journey, worth every step.  Enjoy it.

 

[bolero]

I had a great sounding Pearly Gates bridge pup in an H150 once. Maybe the blue one I sold to Detroit Blues?

[Doug]

Just got an H-150 with the SD 59's and I really love the deep tones I get with that guitar. My 535 has the Shaller's and those are really nice and especially versatile on that guitar. I really wanted the SD 59's with that new Heritage to go after the classic LP sound I was after.

[hopkinwfg]

I like my 80s era duncan JB on the bridge of my H150 so far... didnt like the gibson 495T and R i put in... regretted buying that set imo these are way overdone compresses way more but the 495R is pretty fat and sweet !! Yet i would wanna slap in an old 80s 59s see how it goes.... 

 

I do have a H150 CC too which comes in with their 225 parson pickups which is low output, i pretty much getta hang of it too.... am weary that these humbuckers are relative of what the gibson Custombuckers are offering, but i have not tried side by side comparing the 225 parson pickups vs gibson custombuckers..... are they really same? Or have their each character?

[ElChoad]

I am a fan of Wolfetone. All my electrics have them in them. 

[nuke]

FWIW, I'm absolutely loving the HRW's in my 2001 H535 that I bought about 6 months ago.

The Faber locking hardware, and surprisingly, the Faber bushing inserts for the tail and the bridge made an absolutely enormous difference in tone. I just refretted it with Dunlop 6100, as it had possibly the worst frets and fretboard I've seen on a Heritage. 

But those HRW's are fantastic for the blues/rock tones I like. They really complement the excellent tone of this 535. 

I don't mind the SD59's that came original in my 1998 H150, they're a little "harsh". Slightly rolling off the volume and tone just a little bit makes them better. My H150 is definitely one of the more resonant ones, and lighter at around 8.75lbs. 

[Andyv94]

I installed the Pearly Gates pick ups and I absolutely love them, they sound fantastic!! So much better than the 59’s in my humble opinion! Just a better, more mature sound…..if that makes sense! 
 

I went a bit nuts on Friday (black Friday, damn you Sweetwater😅) and ended up also buying Seymour Duncan’s “The Blonde Dot” 1960 ES-335 Joe Bonamassa signature humbucker set. 
 

I should be getting those on Wednesday and I’ll put them on my other brand new H-150 and I’ll report back!! 😬👍🏻

[SpnkyMcGee]

I have two H150’s and also haven’t loved the 59’s. I replaced them in my 2018 with Seymour Duncan Antiquities. So far so good. 
 

A few weeks ago I saw a new H150 on Reverb with a top that I just couldn’t get out of my mind. After weeks of fighting it I finally made an offer and they accepted. These 59’s sound a bit better than I remember the other set sounding but I can’t help but play around a bit. !;)$$,&@ Reverb again. I found a set of Custombuckers and made a silly offer. They arrived a couple of days ago and will be installed some time this week. I’m super curious how they will compare to the Antiquities. 

[DetroitBlues]

On 11/21/2024 at 8:13 PM, bolero said:

I had a great sounding Pearly Gates bridge pup in an H150 once. Maybe the blue one I sold to Detroit Blues?

I really don't remember.  I did put one in a Gibson Les Paul I bought from Brent, sounded pretty good, best when uncovered.

[DetroitBlues]

On 11/28/2024 at 2:30 PM, nuke said:

Slightly rolling off the volume and tone just a little bit makes them better. My H150 is definitely one of the more resonant ones, and lighter at around 8.75lbs. 

Slowly, I've come to realize so much of my tone quest can be resolved with this very idea, especially when using the middle position and adjusting the controls.

Haven't changed the pickups in a Heritage in years because of this.  Last pickup swap with removing Seth Lovers in favor of high-gain clarity Railhammers in my H535.  Hindsight was to leave best alone.  Railhammers didn't solve my problem between the ears.

[nuke]

2 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

Slowly, I've come to realize so much of my tone quest can be resolved with this very idea, especially when using the middle position and adjusting the controls.

Haven't changed the pickups in a Heritage in years because of this.  Last pickup swap with removing Seth Lovers in favor of high-gain clarity Railhammers in my H535.  Hindsight was to leave best alone.  Railhammers didn't solve my problem between the ears.

 

Yeah, the thing is, humbuckers that follow the classic, "PAF" pattern (basically all Gibson styled humbuckers) have quite similar response curves. They're pretty flat in the lower frequency range and the differences are the resonant-peak center frequency and acuity (called "Q-factor" in electronics.)  There are some things that affect them in non-obvious ways, such as the cover materials, even how they are plated. 

The guitarnutz2 message board has a sub-board for pickup testing and modeling, which gets quite deeply nerdy in an electrical engineering direction. I'm an EE in real life, and I have the lab equipment to measure magnetic fields, inductance, capacitance, even make Bode plots of the pickup response curves. 

The response curves are easily manipulated externally with simple electronics such as the guitar tone controls, or even better, an EQ pedal, like a 7 or 10 band, especially if your subtle with it. The Gibson Varitone switch is just a bunch of inductors and capacitors that are switched in order to alter the frequency response and resonant peaks of the pickups. 

The SD59's have a rather sharp peak in the 2.5k-2.7k range, so they're kind of bright and a bit harsh wide open. But that's ok - because rolling down the volume slightly and slightly reducing the tone knob, it shaves that peak down quite a bit. Similar effects can be achieved by using different values of tone and volume potentiometers and tone capacitors.  

[DetroitBlues]

On 12/3/2024 at 3:12 PM, nuke said:

The SD59's have a rather sharp peak in the 2.5k-2.7k range, so they're kind of bright and a bit harsh wide open. But that's ok - because rolling down the volume slightly and slightly reducing the tone knob, it shaves that peak down quite a bit. Similar effects can be achieved by using different values of tone and volume potentiometers and tone capacitors.  

Funny you mention that, I typically roll back the tone controls just a hair on both the bridge and neck pickups.  Then roll the volume back on either or depending on what the song calls for.

[nuke]

4 hours ago, DetroitBlues said:

Funny you mention that, I typically roll back the tone controls just a hair on both the bridge and neck pickups.  Then roll the volume back on either or depending on what the song calls for.

Yeah, when I re-did my H150 pots (a 1998 that was factory SD59's) I picked values to dial in a good sound. Heritage had used the Gibson "Norlin Era" potentiometer values of 100k tone and 300k volume.  That loaded it down a bit too much, and was kind of dark. The output jack was getting funky, so decided to get the pots at the same time.  I experimented with the classic 500k/500k and it was a bit too brite, so went with 250k tone pots and the 500k volumes.  Curiously, the same factory values used in my Heritage H535 with the HRW pickups.  So Heritage was picking values in the late 90's and early 2001 era. 

Since the tone pots are log taper, a 250k at max is the same as a 500k dialed down to about '8' on the knob. Which for me on this guitar, was about perfect. It has the right amount of brightness opened up all the way, without getting harsh. I did 50's wiring, so rolling off the volume doesn't roll out the highs quite as much. 

Works pretty well on my '98 H150, as it is one of the lighter ones and very resonant.