Hello and welcome back to Beckler Guitars and Repair, and let's get right into it. Today we're asking the question:

Should you upgrade the pickups on your Gibson SG? So this is my 2008 Gibson SG Standard,

and uh, I recently did a review on this guitar, so if you want to check that out, I'll have the link in the description.

And I love everything about this guitar. So it's nice and light, I really like the neck; it's got the '50s neck, it's nice and

chunky. It plays great, low action, super easy to bend, and uh, no neck dive at all on this guitar. And it's great, but it's

got the 490R/498T pickup set. Now I'm a little bit divided on this pickup set. This set

comes in a lot of SGs. I've just had a lot of mixed experiences with these pickups. Uh, for me, they've been really

hit or miss, depending on the year of the guitar, depending on the guitar itself. Uh, I've played ones that I've really liked,

I've played ones that I've really not liked, and I've played some that are just kind of in the middle. I have played SGs

like the '61 reissues; usually come with the '57 Classics, and I really like those pickups. Every time I've used those,

they've been great. Some criticisms on this pickup set is, uh, it's a little bit too trebly, um, it's got a little bit too

much output, so you can't really play proper, like classic rock kind of stuff on there, and uh, just that they're a

little shrill-sounding. So these are all ceramic magnets for this set. Um, some people also swear by them. This is the

same set that's in a lot of uh, Custom Shop guitars. Uh, for some reason they put these in the Custom Shops, and you know,

some people swear by them and say that they can do anything. Um, my experiences have been mixed. Uh, I've played good ones,

Bad ones. I don't know if it's just the individual variations between the good pickups. So what I want to do

today is, uh, I picked up some '57 Classics off Reverb for a decent price, and I

want to do a direct A/B comparison between these 490R/498T pickups and the '57 Classics. And I'm going to do clean

I'm going to do a little distortion, and it's just going to be back-to-back so we

can directly hear exactly how each pickup sounds. Um, the amps are going to be set the same, the same pedal settings,

everything's going to be the same except for the pickups. Um, the microphone's going to be the same distance from the

amp. I'm going to try to eliminate as many variables as possible to hear just the difference in the pickup sound, and

of course, this is all very subjective. You might love this pickup set, the 490R/498T pickups; you might hate the '57

Classics. Um, you might only think that you should keep Gibson's or any guitar stock original; you shouldn't be messing

with them, modding them. But, uh, pickups are very easy to swap and swap back. I'm going to go through a quick

demonstration on how to swap pickups. It's super easy; it takes no time at all, and then you can always swap back if you

want to, too. So what I'm going to be doing with this guitar is I'm going to keep the original pickups in the case

with it, and if I ever decide to sell it, I have the original pickups, um, or I can swap back if I don't like them as much.

So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to try out, uh, switch swapping the 490R and the 498T pickup set

that comes stock on a lot of Gibson SGs with the '57 Classics, which also come stock on a lot of SGs, um, the '61 reissues.

Typically, which are usually a higher price point. So all right, let's go ahead and get started. All right, all right, so

we're just going to quickly do a quick video on how easy it is to swap pickups on an SG. You don't even need a new set of strings; you can save your whole set of strings, and it takes no

time at all. So, first thing you want to do is just loosen off your strings to the point where you can remove the

tailpiece. So you want to keep enough tension on them that they don't come off the posts, but you want to loosen it enough

that we can remove the tailpiece. So those are loosened, so I'm going to go ahead and try the tailpiece here, make

sure it can be removed, and there it goes, easy. So now I'm just going to set the tailpiece aside so it's out of the way,

and I'm going to try very hard not to bend any of my strings so I don't have

to replace any; they can just be reused very easily. So there it is, just off to the side, just out of our work area, and

then, on SGs, if you don't have the single-side pickguard—if you've got this bigger batwing style—um, you're going to need to

remove your bridge because the bridge is actually mounted to the pickguard. So just set your bridge aside, and

then you need to take out your bridge posts here; set those aside, and then you just need to remove

all the screws in your pickguard. All right, then you just want to remove all the screws that are mounted

to your pickguard—so four screws—just take them out. And once you're done, you want to put them back into the

pickup so everything stays together. All right. Now that your pickups are removed, at this point you just want

to put them over to the side and then carefully flip over your guitar. Remember that your strings are still attached, so

make sure they don't bend, and then just take off your back cavity plate. And now you've got these two big

wires coming out of the cavity from the front. So these are your—both of your pickups—and uh, these are just

attached. So there's two parts to the wire: the braiding is the ground, and then there's another part that's

connected to these pots here, and that's the—um—the lead. So that's the actual signal. So you want to go ahead and—this is

going to be your neck pickup (the top), and then your bridge pickup is the bottom. And there's just four spots that need to

be soldered here, and it's going to be—just keep in mind of where they are. So the neck pickup here is here; you can even

take a picture with your phone so you remember. Going to go ahead and unsolder those, and then I can remove the

pickups. Now you can just flip over the guitar and remove the pickups, and there's our old pickup set.

And now, at this point, you just want to mount your new pickups to the pickguard. Uh, make sure you're putting the neck in

the front and the bridge in the back, and make sure your poles are the right way as well. So here are my '57 Classics, all

mounted. Uh, yeah, just make sure that the poles on the neck pickup are on the top and the poles in the bridge pickup are

at the bottom. Then you want to feed uh the cables through the cavity, and they'll pop out the back. You can easily tell

between the uh neck pickup and the bridge pickup cable, because when you're—when you have them fed

through the body, the bridge pickup is going to be quite a bit longer. So that's how you can easily identify them. Also,

There, they are fed in the body, and then you want to make sure that, uh, the wires are just within the cavity.

So you don't have any wires, uh, resting on top of the cavity, and then just put it into place. At this point, you can go

ahead and throw some screws in the pickguard just to keep everything together. When you turn it—turn it around—now we

can identify the neck pickup because it's shorter and the bridge pickup because it's longer. And I know that it's just four

solder points at this point. So I need to solder the ground to this pot here and the lead to my first potentiometer, uh,

arm there, and then the same thing with the bridge, putting it there and there. So just four little solder points, and

then I'm finished. All right, so that's it—all finished. Very simple. At this point, I just like to test out, make sure

everything was done properly there. So I'm just going to try—I'm in bridge position, so this should be my bridge

pickup, and the volume works, and the tone works. Now let's try the neck, and the volume and tone works. So yeah,

everything works as it should. So now the next step is just to put everything back together in the exact same order

that you took it apart. So I'm going to put the screws in, I'm going to put the

cavity plate back on, and I'm going to put the bridge and the tailpiece on and tune it up. Right. So I'm plugged into my

65 Deluxe reissue. I'll have the amp set at the same settings for both pickups, and I'll be going through the same

pedals. So first we're just going to do clean, then we're going to do, uh, with a

little bit of transparent overdrive. We'll do a direct A/B comparison of both, uh, just to hear the differences. All

Right, so I'm going to start out with the 490R and 498T pickups. We'll start off in

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think it was worth the time and effort to do that? Um, these pickups I found on Reverb. They were about $250 Canadian for the

set. So, uh, yeah, it's definitely not cheap to swap pickups, but they definitely did sound a lot different and, uh, to my ear, I

preferred the '57 Classics. Uh, that's again personal preference, but to me they sounded a little bit more

well-rounded, um, a little bit more balanced. Uh, you could hear the highs and the lows a little more equally, um, and I

really liked how they broke up. Uh, I really like the grit they had, um, a little bit more than the 490R and 498T

pickups. Um, I found them—the '57 Classics—a little less muddy at times and just a little bit more articulate.

and a little bit more bluesy-sounding, which is what I'm into. Again, this is all personal preference, and uh,

you might prefer the 490R 498T set for a bunch of different reasons, but for me

and my playing style and my preference, uh, I really do enjoy the 57 Classics, and uh, this particular set that was in here

stock of the 490R 498 pickups were really, really nice-sounding. I've had some that I just can't stand, and that

set was actually pretty good. I enjoyed it, but uh, so that's why I was a little worried that I would go through all this

and then I'd enjoy the original pickups more than the 57 Classics I put in, because I haven't tried a set of 57 Classics in a

long time. But uh, I did prefer the 57 Classics; they just uh, mesh with me a little bit more. I just really like the

sound and uh, the clearness of them, the articulation, how they break up, uh, and the balance between the highs and

the lows; just very nice. It's a very vintage-sounding, like PAF-style pickup, and uh, that's kind of what I'm just

drawn to as a player. But yeah, um, I hope you enjoyed the video. It's very easy to swap pickups

on Gibsons. Uh, you don't even need to change your strings. Uh, you can really just loosen it

Should you Change Your SG Pickups? 490R 498T VS Classic 57's

Should you Change Your SG Pickups? 490R 498T VS Classic 57's