Thick sounding humbuckers?

I've been using Burstbucker Pros in my Les Paul Classic for quite a few years now. It originally came with the 496r/500t (stock) pickups and I always thought they were too hot and fizzy on the top end. I switched to the Burstbucker Pros which are fuller, not as hot, and definitley creamier in the midrange. I believe these were voiced from vintage Gibson humbuckers but not positive.

I'm also a classic rock guy so I know what you're talking about. I find rolling the guitar's volume down to between 6-8 with these pickups takes unneeded (relative term of course) "slop" away and balances the tone nicely. I hear a more full, articulate midrange. The burstbuckers don't have the bite of hotter pickups but I always feel I can dial it in if needed.

Be curious to know what you come up with. It's actually been awhile since I've thought about replacing the pickups in my Les Paul but I've been thinking about making some tone changes recently. Keep us posted!

Huh.  Overwinding forces the peak lower? So non-overwound pickups have a very high resonant peak?  

Is it out of the normal range of an electric guitar or something?  It seems counter intuitive that the smoother sounding pickup would have it's resonant in the top end.  Just asking out of curiosity as I know you know you're shit.   

A guitar pickup's response isn't flat. It is up to the resonant peak where the response rises and then it falls off at a 12 db/octave slope.

Using classic wound pickups places the peak at about 10k hz for the Gibson PAF/"patented" versions made in the 1960's. The peak is about 2~3 db high. A Fender pickup with it's alnico pole piece/magnets creates a larger, sharper peak due to the 50% iron alnico construction, it behaves more like an air coil next to the heavier inductance sound created by Gibson and their steel pole pieces.

Winding these coils creates that low pass response curve, more turns of wire "tunes" the resonant peak lower in frequency, once it gets to about 6k hz or lower it starts to sound peaky and brittle in the mids.
The peak doesn't increase in amplitude, just decreasing frequency. Once it gets into the response range of a 12" guitar speaker, it's easily heard.

Since most electric guitar speakers roll off at 5k hz, that vintage pickup 10k resonant peak is rairly heard, in fact, run the pickup through passive 500k volume and tone controls and that peak is attenuated to the point you will measure the roll-offs occuring past about 2k hz. In essence, the resonant peak is removed by cable capacitance and tone pot roll-offs, even when set to "10". Most will hear the increased bandwidth when the passive tone control is removed from the circuit. This is why Fender created their "no-load" tone pots that switch out the passive tone pot loading when set to "10". That's also why the bridge pickup on a Strat is snappier, it doesn't have a tone control like the other pickups.

The vintage wound pickups are smoother in response to the ear once played through the 12" speaker = another low pass filter. Using standard EQ and tone pot roll-offs, they can also sound as dark as you like or any other response the player chooses. The drawback, if any is output level. Back in the 1960's everyone wanted "hotter" pickups to drive the amps harder. DiMarzio was the first to offer an overwound humbucker loaded with a very strong ceramic magnet in the mid 1970's. It was called the "super distortion" humbucker. You can hear those poor sounding pickups on many records of that era.

Gibson caught on and introduced their "super humbucker", a regular humbucker pickup loaded with a large ceramic magnet. They tended to increase the amplitude of the resonant peak and sounded brighter in general, actually rather edgy sounding though many amps.

For me, tone is king, output is secondary. There are plenty of options to overcome those limits, pedals etc. All of my guitars are active, with preamp/buffers built into the guitars, as I've done since 1972. They allow for high output while still using wideband vintage wound pickups. Input impedance is set to over 1 meg ohms so there is no loading of the pickup coils. That allows the full bandwidth and resonant peak to travel to the amp/DI. Run DI it has an almost acoustic top end, very hi-fi. Run into my amps it's a thick, yet open tone with enough power to melt amps and they even drive headphones.

I use standard Fender pickups in most of my Telecasters, with the neck pickups replaced by $20 Allparts 5.5K ohm versions to obtain a bit more bandwidth. All are wax dipped and shock mounted with latex rubber hose. My Gibsons are 1960's "patented" versions or Burstbucker 1's. They sound the same to me.

I used to make and wind pickups back in the 1970's so I've tried all the variations, yet always go back to the original windings. All of the aftermarket pickups claim all sorts of sonic properties, but a simple sweep with a decent analyzer would show the buyer what they would get, not unlike a microphone response curve. I've yet to see any pickup maker offer those plots, nor have I heard of any of them bothering to measure them either.

Mysticism sells.

I like the regular Burstbucker 1 and 2, or 2 and 3 for a hotter darker set. Very good pickups, my go-to currently, in two separate instruments, my main axes.

If you want a warm thickened sound I have to think the '57 Classics are a good bet. More smoothed out on the top end. Vintage/standard output.

But if you want big fat rude and loud the Burstbucker 2 and 3 would be my pick. The output can overload certain pedals, which is the only drawback I've run into.

Or you could always switch to a P-90 style pickup (in the humbucker format I suppose, they are available) to REALLY go for that smooth mid thing.

Man, I love Gibson pickups.