How are good are tokai pickups compared to gibsons on LS70..

Do current tokais come with good pickups?? Anyone know the manufacturer??

Gotoh is still the hardware manufacturer for Tokai, and their pickups are not that bad that you have to change them right away, although you can often read this everywhere else. I would say test and play your guitar for a few weeks and then decide if you want to invest more money in it.

For example I still have my original 1984 Tokai '57 PAFs and will very likely put them in my Luxor ES copy, i.e. I don't think they are too bad for that guitar which once was my favorite.

The Pickups are just fine in my experience. From the Breezy's i have tried to my recent 335 'tribute' I think changing them out would be largely un-neccessary , unless you got some 'friday' jobs

well.. i recently got myself a 2003 love rock LS75Q with see thru dark cherry finish...

the store where i got it from also had another love rock which was a dark oak quilt top...

i tried them both out quite heavily before i purchased it... the dark oak had the standard pups that tokais come loaded with.. and it sounded totally awesome.. but the dark cherry one was loaded with seymour duncan seth lovers, and was ?100 more that the oak finish... the duncans sounded a hell of a lot better,,, so i went for the cherry bad boy....

but if i didnt have the cash to fork out for the cherry finish i would have still been happy with the standard pups.... they sounded fine for most styles....

It depends upon what sort of style of music you play. If you're playing some smooth, smoky laid back sort of thing which you need nice clean tones for, then the stock pickups are fine. If you're looking at anything where you're going to crank the gain up a bit, ie blues, rock, metal, punk etc, you are best off changing them for some aftermarket pickups.

Choices of pickups? There's a heck of a lot of choice out there, from cheap-ish ones, like Kent Armstrong's to expensive, like Fralins etc. Most people go for Seymour Duncan's 59 neck & either JB or Custom bridge.

I've got 2 Love Rocks at the moment, and both of them are fitted with www.bareknucklepickups.com pickups. I've had SD's in one of them (a 59 and a JB), but I got really fed up with their clinical sound, as well as the lack of tonal spectrum and clarity (IMO), so I started looking for another pickup which would suit my needs. As I'm in the UK, all the US boutique brands were just way, way too expensive, and there didn't seem like much choice, then I stumbled upon Bare Knuckle's. I was lucky enough to find a shop that had a guitar with the pickups I wanted in store, so I tried it out, and ordered them there and then. I've since gone on to buy 2 further sets for other guitars, I like the pickups that much.

They're scatterwound, by hand, in the UK. Their customer support is second to none. Their pickups sound absolutely amazing, with loads of character and clarity and "zing", I can't recommend them enough! :wink:

I always replaced them. They are fairley worthless on the resale market. I just got 30.00 for a pair of MK3's from a Japan Tokai.

I've only had my Love Rock a short while, with the PAF MKII Humbuckers that come as stock with the LS70F. I already find them to be not quite what I'm lookin' for when the gain is cranked but, when played clean they more than hold their own, at least in my view.

I want a sound akin to that of Joe Perry (Aerosmith) and Slash (Guns N' Roses/Velvet Revolver), a rockin' dirty distorted sound, but also, a nice smooth sound of say Eric Clapton if I wanted to play clean. I'll probably go with some Seymour Duncan Humbuckers, if I do decide on a change of pickups. Perhaps an Alnico II Pro or a '59 in the neck, and as for the bridge, I dunno just yet. There is the JB Model, an Invader and the Custom Custom which have all have an appealing sound. I've saw a lot of '59 and JB recommendations, but what about the others, anyone any feedback on 'em?

to get that sound you gotta pair your pickups with a marshal or any brit sounding amp. I've got Alnico pro IIs is my epi for both neck and bridge and it absolutley rocks

If you're considering changing pickups, Bare Knuckle do a really great range of pretty much full on boutique pickups for really reasonable prices, including Alnico II, III, IV, V and Ceramic's. Plus the fact that they are handmade in the UK, can't beat that!

www.bareknucklepickups.com

Both of my Love Rock's (a disputed 1980 and a '99) are fitted with Alnico V pickups going from 8k ohm to 12k ohm, and sound fantastic IMHO. Check them out.