chasing a tone gremlin

[rumblebox]

i have been struggling to get the desired bridge pickup tone from this guitar for over a year(when i pulled it out of storage). any pickup i put in the neck position sounds just fine, but i can't get rid of the sharp upper midrange honkey sound no matter what bridge pickup i install.

first i swapped magnets in the mini-humbucker with undesirable results.

then i got a hotter, fatter mini-humbucker made. it helped a little, but i wasnt satisfied.

so i got a set of P90s made. they sound better than the mini-humbuckers by leaps and bounds. i've been experimenting with different magnets in the P90 as well, but i still have that slight upper midrange spike and weak bottom end that make me put it down after playing for a while and pick up one of my others. at this point i'm thinking about replacing the pots and cap in the bridge circuit. i'm worried that is just the nature of this heavy ass guitar though.....

it doesnt sound BAD, per-say.... but i know the guitar should sound 10x better with these pickups. i've heard them in other guitars with drastically better tone.

any similar stories?

 

[cherrick]

It might be time to visit the wiring harness. I have guitars wired "50's style" with harnesses built by RS Guitarworks and by Dr Vintage. If you want to do the work yourself I'm sure you can get the parts.

If you are getting close with a P90 you might consider trying one wound by David Plummer (aka Zhangbucker, Zhangbucker Pickups - Home). He wound the P90s in my R6 and Dr Vintage built the wiring harness.

I also really like the Lollar slight-under-wound P90s as well.

Finally, are you rolling off the tone knob just a tad? I find that plus mixing in a small amount of the neck pickup helps.

 

[acstorfer]

So here's your deal, please correct me if I'm wrong.

Guitar belonged to your father, selling it is out of the question?

Your options

1. Try the wiring harness. Don't know if it will give you too much though, Gibson used pretty good guts back then.

2. Route it and finally put in a humbucker. Yeah, people will go nuts with me saying this, but it's your guitar and you're not selling it. You put in due diligence regarding mini's and P-90's. I would still consider this a last resort though.

3. Try more pickups, but at some point like you said, you're just chasing down tone.

4. Find some effects/pedals and you'll get the tone/sound you're looking for. There's a lot of folk here who look down on effects. They feel going straight into the amp is the only way. Screw that! If you can get your tone digitally then who cares, as long as you have your tone.

5. Save up for a full humbucker LP. To me, mini's and P-90's are not all that versatile, and from what I've been gathering about you, you really want full humbuckers. Of course to me, I think it would be completely cool if you route out your Deluxe. There is a reason that so many people did it to their Deluxes. Yeah, you destroy value but do you care? Wouldn't it be better to play your Dad's guitar?

 

[cherrick]

How did you know it was his dads guitar?

 

[acstorfer]

He's been a member for a while. Anyway, I think that's the case.

 

[rumblebox]

you hit the nail on the head.... i'm not ready to route it yet though. i'll keep experimenting with P90s and mag-swaps until i nail the tone i'm looking for.

 

[acstorfer]

you hit the nail on the head.... i'm not ready to route it yet though. i'll keep experimenting with P90s and mag-swaps until i nail the tone i'm looking for.

Good! I would still try experimenting with amps and effects as well.

 

[rumblebox]

Nah. My amp/board sounds spectacular with my other guitars. I may have chris wind a hotter fatter p90 with A2's.

 

[HOT-BRIT]

talk to Ron at Scatterbrain he will fix you up with hat you are looking for

 

[rumblebox]

would orange drop caps help any? or is the factory stuff pretty good for 71?

 

[cherrick]

dump the factory stuff. Caps are cheap.

 

[eddie_bowers]

Definitely experiment with caps. Get a few different types and a few different values to try with some alligator clips. I like the green Russian K42y with my P90s.

 

[Jackassrock]

Yeah, go PIO instead of orange drop. It's a much cheaper mod than buying pickup after pickup, and if it still doesn't give you the desired effect, you can resume the pup search, but I've been a big fan of the PIO with 50s wiring as of late.

 

[rumblebox]

I ordered some orange drop .022's earlier today. How much of a difference do they make when the tone is on 10?

 

[HOT-BRIT]

i ordered some orange drop .022's earlier today. How much of a difference do they make when the tone is on 10?

very little if any at all on 10

get some russian pio caps they are not expensive and work well

 

[rumblebox]

What value do you think?

 

[Jackassrock]

Believe it or not, you will hear a difference. I thought the same thing, but decided to try it out, for the low cost of a pair of Sprague vitamin Qs. They can be had for 15 to 25 bucks all over ebay. I installed them in my Studio Custom, which is my usual go to for the cover band gig, and was well prepared to be disappointed about spending even that little bit of cash, but when I took it to the gig that night, I was smiling like a fool the whole time. Shit sounded great.

Since then I've been putting them in everything. I just bought a 20 pack of the Russian greenies, and they sound great too. I tried 'em out in a Yamaha SBG500 last week. Awesome !

 

[Jackassrock]

very little if any at all on 10

get some russian pio caps they are not expensive and work well

Really ? I noticed a difference, and I'm usually wide open on the tone knob.

 

[HOT-BRIT]

really ? I noticed a difference, and i'm usually wide open on the tone knob.

any difference is minimal wide open, you get more improvement when working with the tone knob

 

[Wicked Sensation]

I think Bill Lawrence makes a replacement pickup for the Mini-Sized humbuckers.

Maybe you could try that out too?

Just a suggestion, but good luck!