Just installed riff raff set, neck pickup sounding muddy?

[rchip]

Hey guys! I just had a riff raff set put into my gibson explorer. The bridge pickup, is fantastic. Super expressive, I used to have a war pig in there, but because my style is more rock than metal, this pup is much better fit! I'm not sure about the neck though, it seems a bit too bassy? Compared to the seymour duncan 59 that used to be in this guitar, it's waaaay bassier and sounds too bassy whem playing 5th chords along the low E. Now, the only other neck humbucker I've ever used has been the 59, so is that a bright pup? Should I set the pickup lower or higher to the strings to recuce the bass?

Is there a possibiliy that the guitar was wired wrong? I didn't fit the pup myself a tech did, I know nothing about fitting pups, is it possible to wire a pick up in such a way that it will function perfectly but somehow make it sound bassier? like anything to do with the tone control perhaps?

thanks! any info you could give would be a big help as it's kinda bugging me. But the bridge pup sounds like heaven through my marshall superbass, classic rock rock heaven. With a boost, it sounds so mean and rockin.

[AndyR]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

I'm not sure I can help too much, no experience of SD59, but I do have riff raffs in a gibson explorer - absolutely love them there.

My explorer is very dark and woody sounding. It came with the gibson ceramic jobbies (I think they're both 500T), which I quite liked, but I wanted to try the riff raffs I had - I'm more into "vintage" tones. They're lower output than the gibson pups were, so the "wood" is doing more of the talking, as it were. And yes, because of this, the neck is much warmer and darker than it was. But "muddy", I wouldn't call it that on mine, (but others might!) - having said that, I always tend to use a neck pup for other things than 5th chord rhythms, that's what I use the bridge for.

I do suspect you might be getting "more" of your guitar's own characteristic sound with the riff raffs (although with a name like SD59, I assume these were vintage type pups too, with a roughly similar sort of output?)

As far as I'm aware, if the tech was just swapping the pups, there isn't much he could do to make the pup sound bassier without changing other stuff as well - I assume you've got the standard two volumes and one tone, no other extra circuitry that might have confused matters?

I am wondering about the tone control as well though - there's a fair few on this forum who don't use or believe in tone controls, I'm not one of them, I do love tone controls, but I must admit that with the explorer I can't use it as much, it's pretty much set on 9-10. I have been wondering about experimenting with different pot and capacitor values, but right at the moment it's firmly in the "if ain't broke... don't fix it" category for me!

[kellar]

If your guitar is a bit dark, you can try disconnecting the tone pots. That's what I did in my Epi Les Paul, which was always to dark for me. It brightened the tone up a ton. Or, you can try 500K pots if you don't have them already.

[Twinfan]

Have you checked the pickup heights in relation to the strings?

[Brow]

I've had SD59s in the neck of a Dean ML and they were in my Gibby LP Standard when I bought it, and I've never hated a pickup more than I do that!

I found it to be extremely bassy with no cut or definition at all. It seemed to have no mids and a very scooped tone. I have a Riff Raff in the neck of a Gordon Smith Graduate 60 (LP style guitar) and don't find it to be in boomy or overly bassy in the slightest.

I know some Gibsons come with 300k pots fitted as stock (my LP did atleast) so you could possibly try a set of 500k pots as already suggested?

[rchip]

Hey! thanks for the replies, appreciated to the max!

I lowered the pole pieces on the pickups, The neck is no longer too bassy! I just had my first band practice with them, the guys thought it sounded amazing. Thanks for the replies again, the riff raffs sound fantastic with the band, I think it's the best bridge humbucker i've ever played!

[AndyR]

Glad you sorted it  :D

I didn't think of pole-pieces, and I did actually lower all mine so that they were flush with the covers a while back...  :roll:

I restrung mine at the weekend, sounds even better... Riff Raffs in an Explorer are VERY nice I'm finding (and I'm a strat-man really!)

[ericsabbath]

I've had SD59s in the neck of a Dean ML and they were in my Gibby LP Standard when I bought it, and I've never hated a pickup more than I do that!

+1000000

worst neck pickup i had (and i had a lot of cr@ppy pickups)
totally dark, muffled, scooped
i always had to check if my tone knob wasn't on 0 and volume on 2, cause that it sounded like

i don't believe Tim would design a pickup to sound like that
maybe you just prefer brighter and a bit higher output neck pickups

glad you're enjoying it now  :P