Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: littleredguitars2 on January 26, 2014, 12:14:41 AM
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one of my strats is tonally very dark. its alder but compared to my other alder strats its very dark. i've had a few different pickups in it and while it makes a difference, its not enough difference. i was thinking about maybe experimenting with different neck woods. right now it has a maple neck with rosewood board. i want to stay with the darker color. i know ebony is supposed to brighten things up a bit but will it make a world of difference? or how about some other darker colored neck woods?
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What pots you have in the strat? Maybe other pots/capacitors?
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What pots you have in the strat? Maybe other pots/capacitors?
i'm like. 99 % sure its a 500k cts. but i suppose its worth double checking. its a single humbucker only strat. so no caps
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Bridge pickup only and no tone control? Try a no-load volume pot. On ten it operates as a bypass.
EDIT: Just checked that, apparently it works for a tone but not as a volume. In that case fit a push-push pot for your volume and wire it to bypass when out/up
You can check how much you might gain by doing this if you simply connect your pickup directly to the jack. If you like the way that sounds but want to retain the volume control then go for a push-push.
Is this on the Stockholm guitar?
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Some strats don't use steel saddles. Would be worth checking.
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What pots you have in the strat? Maybe other pots/capacitors?
i'm like. 99 % sure its a 500k cts. but i suppose its worth double checking. its a single humbucker only strat. so no caps
You could try a 380k.
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What pots you have in the strat? Maybe other pots/capacitors?
i'm like. 99 % sure its a 500k cts. but i suppose its worth double checking. its a single humbucker only strat. so no caps
You could try a 380k.
Do you mean try an 1Meg? 380 would make it darker, no?
Also, maybe try D'Addario Pro Steels.
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What pots you have in the strat? Maybe other pots/capacitors?
i'm like. 99 % sure its a 500k cts. but i suppose its worth double checking. its a single humbucker only strat. so no caps
You could try a 380k.
Do you mean try an 1Meg? 380 would make it darker, no?
Also, maybe try D'Addario Pro Steels.
I never should contribute on the forum after a late gig. Yes, you're correct. The value should be higher. My mistake.
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one of my strats is tonally very dark. its alder but compared to my other alder strats its very dark.
Plugged or unplugged ?
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unplugged. its got a gibson dirty fingers in it right now.
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Went to investigate fingerboard woods at the warmoth site, and ebony is on the brighter end of the scale while being the darker colored too.
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Went to investigate fingerboard woods at the warmoth site, and ebony is on the brighter end of the scale while being the darker colored too.
yeah i knew that. but i'm wondering if its going to really make a consideable difference
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My guess is, not enough difference for what it costs.
I agree with Agent Orange's ideia of wiring directly to the jack to see if there is something to gain by changing the pot.
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unplugged. its got a gibson dirty fingers in it right now.
How have you got the pole pieces set? The usual trick is to lower the pole pieces nearest the neck and raise the ones nearest the bridge
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I do not know if it is cost efficient or even doing much, but what I can say is that I got one guitar (somewhat superstrat style) with ebony board and several with rosewood. The one with ebony is a maple / mahagony 5 piece neck through with swamp-ash sides and madagascar ebony top and back (both rather thick). Now this is a neck through and seriously heavy as all f*ck, but honestly the brightest of all my guitars by far. Even brighter than my Ibanez S series which is a thin piece of wood. No, this one is brighter. Also deep in the bass and not britle or anything mind you, but it has a very distinct top end and very present and bright attack. This is noticable acousticly and amplified and this baby has Crawlers in it. Still, brightest attack out of all my guitars. Makes for a cool sound having all that character, warmth and fatness from the Crawler with more bright attack than my Ibby which has a Rebel Yell.
Shame I do not like to play on the neck...makes me wanne sell it even though the sound for low to mid gain is absolutly glorious and unique.
Of course I can not say how much the top and back contribute and how much the board does, but I can surely say that ebony seems bright as heck to me.
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If you are trying to make the guitar brighter acoustically then apart from puling the pickup away from the sytrings in case it is dampening the response , then you need to look at physical rather than electronic things.
Assuming that the strings are new as old strings will cloud everything
te only things that can make a difference to this guitar are :
Tuners
type of saddles
Colour of hardware - chrome/nickel WILL sound a bit brighter than black painted/coated
type of nut - it is here I will make my big point that if you have an Earvana fitted you may well get all the treble response that is possible from this particular guitar
Bringing the strings back in line harmonically in my experience adds both a sustain and a high end shimmer to the sound.
I wouldn't fit them to my own guitars if they didn't make such a difference
They allow me to get a Les Paul type guitar to be open, clear and responsive.