We are Project Music, and we love guitars! On this channel we will test gear, talk about gear and music and have fun with guitars! We are a Main UK Dealer for Gibson, Suhr, Fender, Collings, Taylor, Lowden, Maybach, Mayones, Furch, Eastman, Atkin, Gretsch and many More.
I bought a new Pro II the other day and I'm in love with it. That said, I love the American Vintage and the colors and some of the features of the Ultra, so this was a good video to get an idea of their differences. Thanks!
Nice video. And yes all three of these are great options depending on your taste. I've had several telecasters...squire affinity, squire 50's classic vibe, fender American performer, American professional II, and an ultra. All three of my American teles were perfect...I really didn't notice much difference at all between my performer and my pro II other than a slight difference in pickup tone. I actually preferred the performer... the pickups fit my playing style more for some reason...but both were exceptional guitars. I then bought an ultra... and in my mind the Ulta is in a different league. I noticed that I lost a bit of the magic sparkle in the neck pickup from my others but gained much more everywhere else... especially when in overdrive the Ulta sounds hands down better. In a blind test I'm not sure you could tell the difference between the pickup tone between the noiseless and non-noiseless... except that the noiseless gets rid of unwanted feedback. I played mine regularly against my other American telecasters and my fender American professional strat and the noiseless pickups sounded just as good in every way... so at the end of the day I sold my other telecaster old style canoe paddles and kept the Ulta... I didn't miss the others at all... the Ulta again is a sleek, beautiful machine...on a whole new, higher level. But you get the same old school mentality with Gibson where the purists want to think the first guitar made in the 50's is better than 70 plus years of innovation. All sound great though...if focused purely on tone... but tone isn't the only thing to consider...
I'm a Fender guy looking at a telecaster, I thought I would get a professional 2 telecaster.....then I checked out a G&L Fullerton ASAT CLASSIC and I'm saying goodbye to Fender ‼️ The G&L is a much better built guitar than fender for the money and with MFD , its a telecaster on steroids ‼️👍
I like your channel very much！I would like to ask you what is the appropriate height of the pickup for El Diablo? My El Diablo Strat always sounds weird!
In what way does it sound weird? We have sold this guitar now so I can’t take any measurements, but pickup height was as it was from fender. Maybe worth looking at fenders Strat setup info as a starting point. There will be pickup height info there. Then adjust accordingly to your style/playing.
Best way I heard Black Top and FT5-E Filtertrons described is a more modern Filtertron tone. with a Baldwin era look. They are still very much Gretsch for sure. By the way, Gretrsch is not owned by Fender. Gretsch is it's own company in partnership with Fender. Fender takes care of Marketing and customer Service and production. Can see why so many make the mistake.
I bought the Pro II today and love it. I was considering the Ultra as I have a Strat Ultra, but prefered the neck on the Pro and got it on special $1200 cheaper than the Ultra. Thanks for the video comparison.
You two have the personalities of undertakers or morgue attendents. Your videos feel like you are being paid off and are afraid to speak honestly. Give us more variance in the playing style as well, thaf self-indulgent jazz wankering is only what a very small percentage of players will use these guitars for. You feel and play like paid shlls. A few rock and rockabilly riffs must be out of your wheelhouse.
Both sounded good. I would struggle to chooses between the two. The new pickups were surprisingly hotter considering how little more impedance there is. Much prefer covered pickups though. Just personal taste.
I have never ever thought about fretboard radius. I didn't even know it was a thing until relatively recently; I have several guitars that are all vastly different, they feel different, play different, have different neck profiles and different finishes and I find that the one I have most difficulty playing, or feels most noticeably different is the super thin wizard neck on my Ibanez RG550. I feel like my fingers slip off the neck on the top E string sometimes. I started out playing acoustic guitar so I think I feel naturally more comfortable on a guitar with a chunkier C shaped neck. I'm pretty sure my home-made guitar has a totally flat fingerboard because I wouldn't have known how to do a radiused fretboard but it feels pretty comfortable to me.
I have a R8 with Custombuckers and a 95 Std with BK Mules. Although the Std sounds much better than most Stds I've tried, I do prefer my R8, which sounds much more open and clear, with sharp trebles. Better dynamics, better sustain, better tonal diversity. (It actually sounds more like the one in the video when equipped with the BK pair). One of the reasons is probably that the wiring is better on the R8 and has that clarity whatever the volume knob level. I have never tried swapping respective pickups. Could be interesting. Obviously in this video here there's no difference in wiring between before/after I think the difference is subtle, at least in part attributable to higher output, maybe pickup height and absence of cover. Overall I prefer the BK in theses clips.
Absolutely. All these seemingly small elements will make a difference for sure. It was more clear in the room when we shot the video that the BKs hit the sweet spot for what Ben was after. I know he has since run it at Gig level through his rig and is even happier!
Does this gentleman understand that uncovered humbuckers will sound sharper, brighter And as he put it angrier Then covered humbuckers? The covers mellow the tone and output slightly.
Yup. It was considered for sure. The question then is, do you take the covers off? If you do and it still doesn't do the thing you want, it's a process. Also, Ben wanted double whites.
I have an R8 from 2007. Biggest tonal improvement for me was using VIPots, wired 50s style (my LP is a VOS but Gibson weren't doing 50's wiring at the time!!!!). Add some Monty's PAFs and it now sounds just like you would expect an old Les Paul to sounds like!
@@ProjectMusicSW I put them in a 2008 spec chambered les Paul so they are hard to handle sometimes being the mules I got are un-potted but love them. The double creams are just the best looking pups
Definitely preferred the original Gibson pickups.. try a set of Amber spirit of 59's .. check out the Doug & Pat show .. there's also a big difference with and without the pickup covers which might have been an idea to try on he original Gibson pickups !! ??
Your R8 looks remarkably like mine! Bourbon Burst? I also swapped the Custombuckers out, but I went for a set of Wolfetone Dr. Vintage; covered neck and zebra coil bridge. Love it even more now!
One thing I would say is think about trying an EQ pedal before changing your pickups, it can make a world of difference! I was going to swap out the pickups in the guitar I made, until I recently got a relatively cheap Joyo EQ pedal and it's opened up a whole new world of tones and sounds on all of my guitars, in fact I'm making a video about it because it was such an eye-opener for me!
I have an R9 from 2017 which unsurprisingly sounds identical to the R8 with the custombuckers fitted. That said, the guitar I gig with is a late ‘90’s japanese Epiphone les paul from the Fujigen factory with Bare Knuckle mules fitted, great guitar at a fraction of the price of the Gibson much as I love it.
I love those too, but the Greeny pickups stole my heart, they are a little hotter with AlNiCo 2 instead, that makes the bridge pickup sound fuller, and the flipped neck pickup has something magical going on too, plus the Greeny wiring is a trip to play with - it's addictive!
Before you change your pickups , have a look at your pots. Many gibson pots are of the wrong values. I have even swapped the harness in a cheap epi and got night and day differences , even with the garbage stock puckups. Try 550k or higher. And lower your neck pickup below the plastic.
@ProjectMusicSW I modded my traditional with VIpots ( supposedly exact 50s centralab taper ) , brandonwound a4 PAFs and 50s wiring with a .01uf in the neck ( Clapton used .015) and a .022uf in the bridge. Now, to get any mud in the neck position, I have to roll the tone knob way back. Most of the range in the neck position is quite sparkly. Definitely a tele on steroids vibe. The difference is still unbelievable after a few years.
@@soapboxearth2 oh nice. I recently changed the wiring in my LP custom and put Bareknuckle Mineral Oil 22 caps and 50s wiring and it has opened it right up. They really do make a difference! PM
Wrong values? Lol. It’s a fuckjng R8 custom shop. 4700. They made it like a 1958 only more consistent. The harness & pots are made to replicate the tone. But if you change the pick ups then by all means but what’s the point? Oh Epiphone I get it
Hi Norm. Ben actually has a wonderful Marshall JTM studio 20 combo which is his main amp. He has said the new pickups have bought out exactly what he was looking for from his rig. PM
I thought the originals sounded best, but I see why you might prefer the BN's. The look of the guitar is best with the chrome covers. Just my preferences. Your demo and playing were great.
I prefer Burstbucker 2&3 in LP standards, and Custombuckers in LP customs. But every set of pickups and every guitar are gonna be slightly different. Finding what works best for you is the most important thing.
The '53 has more chambering than the "Filtertron guitar as well as more body depth so this changes the tone. The T-Armond pickups are much more sensitive to height adjustment too.
I think if you are going to shoot out two strats you have to compare neck pu to neck pu, bridge pu to bridge pu, etc. Going thru all three pickups then switching guitars does not make for a good direct comparison.
Thank you guys for diving so deeply into the Gretsch world (and thanks Ben for making me pick my guitar up once again this morning!). I was an ES335/Sheraton snob for years - until I got to play a Chet Atkins model. That deep body just felt so much more "real" in my hands. Finally I got my hands on one in the form of the G6120CMHOF 1954 Prototype units from the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville. In my case, it has the T.V. Jones T'Armond Dynasonic pickups and I love the tonal image that I can create. One of these days, I will try to connect with a G5422T (in Cadillac Green, of course). But I will have to admit that the Azure Metallic is very, very gorgeous. I started on a Sears Silvertone $69 parlor acoustic. My first electric was a 1971 SG (back when we thought that SG meant Student Guitar because of the price). My next was a 1971 Ovation Breadwinner. Since then - well, I'm an original victim of GAS!
Glad you are enjoying the videos. The Gretsch world is an interesting one that doesn't get as much 'airtime' as the Gibson and Fender world, so we thought (as much for our own discoveries) we should explore it more. That Proto You have sounds cool. From cheap to expensive, they all have a voice and are looking for the right player to help release it. Also, Bens playing always inspires me to pick the guitar up too. Conan. PM
After listening, boy am I glad that there's no law preventing us from having more than one guitar! Those are both amazing in their own ways. I was seriously surprised by the tonal breadth of the Dynasonics when I first played them on my G6120, but they're even more surprising on that Jet. That Penguin is distinctive in both looks (yumm) and sounds. 🎸🎶
@@ProjectMusicSW I like the way it works your tone. I can get a kind of cocked-wah from it. The switch is not the same as a rotary control, and it does more than simply subtract treble. It's hard to describe, but experiment with fuzz and the tone switch, for example, to get some cool sounds.
I have a Jet with the FilterTrons and a G6120 54 Chet Atkins prototype with the T'Armonds. I love them both and they are in my "forever" guitars collection of 5. They both bring separate harmonic stories to whatever I play,but the Dynatrons get dirty really, really well using a MXR Timmy into a 59 Fender Twin.
