Luke II w/ Passive Pups Anyone?

[guitardan]

Luke II w/ Passive Pups update w/ clips.

Hey all,

I have an 08' Luke and have been thinking about experimenting w/ some passive pickups.
Has anyone changed their out? If so...
Pros / cons?
Brand and model?
Will the new Luke III pups drop right in? Are they available from DiMarzio or direct from EBMM?

Also, I'm leaning towards some rail pups for the single slots to beef things up a bit.

My reasoning is that when I play my other guitars w/ passives, I just enjoy the tones more than the Luke.
But, the Luke simply plays much better than any other guitar I own, and the trem just kills anything I've ever tried. So I'm sticking w/ the Luke for playability, but want to make it sound as good or better than my others.

Thx - Dan

 

[ScoobySteve]

Deano (Teramaze) just popped in some passives into his BFR Luke 2, hit him up!

 

[luke2joey]

Hi,
I have had the same 'problem' as you have.
First, I replaced the bridge pickup for a Seymour Duncan TB11, my favourite by far!
It can be splitted by the tone control to obtain a nice 'single coil' sound.
Then, I put Lace Sensor Gold pickups in the space for the single coils. They fitted with no problem, but I was not satisfied with the sound.
I took the Luke to a famous Luthier here in Holland. They took out some wood under the surface and put two Seymour Duncans (again) APS2 pickups in. As you may know, these pickups have large 'wings' where the wires are attached.
The guys made the pickups fit exactly in the space that was made.
On the surface, you only see the upper part of the pickups. The result is beautiful, awesome job done!
Due to the direct contact, as the pickups are mounted directly into the wood, the sound is even better.
I use the same pickups in my Silo, which has a pickguard.
Now I have got a fabulous guitar, awesome sound and a playability...I do not need to explain, do I?
Do not forget to solder an earth lead to the bridge, when you are adjusting to a passive system.
I highly recommend this job. But, of course: sound is always hard to judge. For me, this is a killing sounding guitar, but that is for me. For me, the sound and the combination of pickups and guitar is perfect.
I can see if I can put a picture here.

 

[guitardan]

Thanks !
I'll read up on the Duncan's...
At this point, I'm not sure I would want to route the body for a larger pickup until I try a few that will drop in.

- Dan

 

[luke2joey]

Pictures

So, here are some pictures with the story above..

 

[Dcareaga]

Yep, swapped out for Kinman singles and a Suhr DSV about 6 years ago.
Sounds great!


-dc

 

[Stu_R]

FYI You can often custom order "flange-less" single coils, which would avoid routing. Dimarzio certainly offer this option.

 

[luke2joey]

You can custom order; indeed, Dimarzio has that option. There are some types of single coils that fit without trouble: Lace Sensor, even Seymour Duncan has some (e.g. SSL-5). Other brands can have some good solutions.
I just fell in love with Seymours Alnico II....

 

[guitardan]

FYI You can often custom order "flange-less" single coils, which would avoid routing. Dimarzio certainly offer this option.

Cool guys thanks.....
I just emailed DiMarzio to see what they suggest.

Luke2Joey: The Duncans look great !

 

[luke2joey]

Thanx, good luck! Don't forget to show the pictures......

 

[Stu_R]

I would also suggest getting in touch with Bare Knuckle Pickups here in the u.k. Amazing work and a wonderful range!

 

[M.A.K.S]

I put some Bare Knuckle Pickups in my Luke II, had no poblems whatsoever
BKP was the easiest solution for me, since getting hold of "flange-less" DiMarzios was a pain in the a.. where I'm living.

 

[guitardan]

After some research and suggestions from the cool guys at DiMarzio, I'd like to try the AT-1 in the bridge and a set of Cruisers in the mid and neck. The flange - less models are available from some on-line retailers.
But, they also informed me that I'll need to switch out the 250k pots for some 500k's if I want it to work as spec'd.

It's about $250.00 worth of parts.....Guess I'll need to save up a little more....

Thanks all for the suggestions.

 

[ScoobySteve]

Ernie Ball musicman LUKE BFR-Passive SH10 Seymour Duncan demo by [email protected] on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

There's a link to Dean's sound demo for his BFR Luke with Duncans. The tone is unbelievable!

 

[guitardan]

Ernie Ball musicman LUKE BFR-Passive SH10 Seymour Duncan demo by [email][email protected][/email] on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

There's a link to Dean's sound demo for his BFR Luke with Duncans. The tone is unbelievable!

Pretty sweet tone and playing.....
That example has way more gain than I would ever use. It's perfect for progressive rock and I'm a more of a classic rock and blues player. Not to say Duncan's wouldn't work for me.
After listening to the clips of Andy Timmons on the DiMarzio site, I feel that's the tone and sound I'm after.

Cheers - Dan

 

[guitardan]

Update....
Finally got around to installing some passives.
Found a great deal on a set of new/ barely used Carvin C22, TB60's (twin blade)
I've had these pups before on a Carvin Bolt and they rocked! So far so good on the Luke as well.
Nice balance and full body tones.
Originally, I was looking at spending ~ $225- $250 on averything..
I was able to keep the 5 way switch, changed out the pots to 500K's.
Total cost w/ everything ~$80.00 : ) -
Some Pix:

 

[Jorge ven]

We need a video demo

 

[guitardan]

We need a video demo

Errr.....I don't have a decent video cam, but I can record some sound clips and link them in. I'll have to work on that....

 

[Tim O'Sullivan]

That is now one unique looking axe!

 

[guitardan]

I recorded 3 quick clips of the new pups. Not the optimum recording setup as these are just for grins...
Used my Tascam DR-07 handheld recorder - direct to mp3. @ ~ 6ft in front of the amp.
The amp is my GDS 18 watt Marshall clone and I kicked in a Crunch Box, Corona, and Flashback pedals for the Limelight clip.
2 of the 3 clips, I rolled through the 5 positions and there is no coil tapping so pos. 2&4 are parallel sounds.
For comparison, there are other clips on my page w/ the same pups on a Carvin Bolt and various recording setups....

Funny thing here is initially I thought it was going to be an improvement over the stock EMGs, probably because the Twin Blade pups have more output than the EMG singles that match the output of the bridge pup better. But now that I've recorded some clips and had some time w/ the guitar in various settings, I think the EMG's are a better match, so I'm going to put them back in this weekend. Perhaps when I have some more $$, I'll spring for a set of Dimarzio's or Duncans and give it another go....
All in the name of experimentation I guess : ) -

Here's the link to my soundcloud page:
https://soundcloud.com/dan-medawar

Cheers