Gibson Historic pickup rings, am i the only one that hates them?

R

RyeDaddy

Member
Bought a LOVELY R0 from 2006. It’s gorgeous and the best playing and sounding Les Paul I’ve ever laid hands on. HOWEVER, the height on the pickup rings on the Historics (I’ve never owned one before this) is problematic for me.

The action is so low that the strings like to chirp out on the back of the bridge pickup ring If I wanna palm mute, etc. I’m kinda heavy handed sometimes, but am I an asshole for wanting to change out the rings to the lower ones on Standard Gibsons? Anyone else do this? Feel like it’s sacrilege or something. ?

It’s either that or raise the action some which I wouldn’t want to do, or I guess I could sand the Historic rings down a little lower. I’d buy a new set to sand and save the originals in that case.

Anyway, here’s a pic just for kicks. Thoughts appreciated.

1B5D1AF5-CD00-4224-8F44-5988252B2F3F.jpeg
 
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Is this seriously a dilemma?
For a guitarist, the priority is playability.
If you're a collector, leave as is.
Figure out which you are and act accordingly.
 
Swap them out and hang onto the originals. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes. If Terry Morgan were still alive, I'd say to get a set of his rings...right height and color.

The other obvious option is to modify the rings you have.
 
xzyryabx said:
Is this seriously a dilemma?
For a guitarist, the priority is playability.
If you're a collector, leave as is.
Figure out which you are and act accordingly.
Click to expand...
No, not really. Changed them out this morning with standard rings and all is well. It just felt weird to me that they’d be that much a problem playability-wise.
 
LP Freak said:
It is but not much clearance. If you run your action particularly low there could be an issue buzzing on the ringView attachment 65983
Click to expand...
this is stock fare for any Gibson RI, and even more contemporary fiddles from them. It's the headstock - nut - fingerboard - joinery - pups - to saddle angle. If you want more clearance, thinner rings for the bridge could work, but given that the rings are also the carriage that holds the pups, you'll wanna make sure the leg-length of the pups and the springs used are gonna work with thinner rings (all things staying equal, the thinner ring will mean even more pressure on the already squirrelly springs on either side). I set Lesters up, for myself, for others, usual complaints are great action but buzzing on "this string at these 2 frets" or what not; I can't say for sure for sure, but the ABR ring low E side looks pretty low in the above taken pic - hard to decipher with clarity - but "usually" on RIs the low E ring on the ToM counts around 6 full threads (give or take) by the time I'm done with a full set up (which includes proper nut cut, neck relief, intonation, yada yada).

Beautiful guitar man - she's a stunner!!:p:love:
 
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