Got a BGF50 and its still too stinking bright... ugh.. what now? Piledriver?

[thisisnickpaige]

here is my post from another topic, just wondering though because i dont want to lose the option of twang but this guitar is so bright! See what you think,

     " Yes i would steer heavily away from the BGF50's i just got one after much debate and quarrel on this site and couple calls to Tim. Im going to get it professionally set up with a 4-way switch but at this point i would DEFINITELY push you away from them. I was gunna get both the BGF50 and the piledriver but didnt and just got the bgf50s man was i wrong. Although the BGF50s has alot more balls and sustain then most any tele bridge ive heard it still doesnt have that UMPH i want or am looking for, does the piledriver have too much umph and is too dark? i couldnt tell ya, i shoulda freakin ordered it...c'est la vie! The BFG50 is jsut still too bright and almost brittle dare i say 0=(.  I'm not counting this pickup out till it's fully set up but im almost certain im gunna have to swap it out. Could also be my tele which makes a pine tele look like a mahogany les paul ( or rather sounds like lol 0=) ). It's just SO FLIPPIN BRIGHT and i cant do a darn thing about it. lol The neck pickup sounds like a bridge pickup, a middle position at best lol So could just be me but i'd suggest highly against the BGF50, and i dont even play hard stuff. Like i said, though its got umph its still a vintage voiced tele ( due.. the year 50 is in the name ). I'd go (and shoulda went with my best judgement) with the Piledriver. Unless you just want an all out humbucker then go that direction. I personally love the twangy tele bridge sound but just wants balls behind it lol =) ya know? "

   so what do y'all think? Does the pile driver still have tele qualities and twang?  Do you think my tele would brighten it up? How dark is this really? Just very curious and saddened BUT I MUST SAY Bare Knuckle Pickups is a beyond amazing company! I got my handmade pickup, crafted and shipped to my house in Schenectady in a week and a day! lol when i bought my other pickup from Seymour Duncan in California, that have machine made pickups took 2 weeks to get to me after a 3-5 day waiting period to process my claim. I think i found my pickup company for life 0=) AMEN! ROCK ON TIM!

[BigB]

Hi Nick

Sorry to learn the BGF50 doesn't work for you - and yes, I suspect you have a very extraordinarily bright Tele. On mine, the BGF50 bridge is, well, twangy for sure - heck, it is a Tele bridge, isn't it ? - but by no mean _too_ bright.  For rehearsals, I have my HRDx treble pot around 9 (on 12), and quite often the guitar's tone pot wide open, and well, it surely cuts through the mix, but it's by no mean brittle.  FWIW, I just use the same settings with my 'buckers guitar, and it works fine too.

Now remember that you have the option to return the pup to Tim in exchange of another one (you bought it directly from Tim IIRC ?). Just call him or send him a mail before...

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/tandc.html

[WezV]

shame - its my favorite tele pickup so far.

[Tellboy]

I did leave a reply in the other post regarding Piledrivers and BG50s. I like both sets but the BG50 definitely give the most authentic tele sound and are my favourite tele pickups. (see other post). I did have a Boss set too which I really liked.

Dare I say it ...  but scatterwound pickups might not be what you're looking for.  This is from the FAQ section:-

"Why do scatterwound pickups sound different to machine wound ones? Scatterwinding by hand can be time consuming but it has many advantages over conventional machine winding, not least a far superior sound. When a coil is scatterwound, the wire isn't as close or even, layer on layer, as with a machine and this lowers the distributed capacitance that exists between the turns of the wire. Lower capacitance allows more top end through, the resonant peak increases slightly and the pickup has a flatter frequency response across its range. The result is a clearer, more open sound that has the impression of being louder purely by the amount of extra detail and dynamics present."

Note scatterwinding allows more top end through - might be if you've got a VERY bright guitar that you would be better off with something like a DiMarzio Chopper.

[gordiji]

Nick, sorry to hear your woes but maybe a tele's not for you. I used to have a very warm sounding strat which
        was lovely compared to my g&l tele's i had at the time, but only at home!In a gig (country rock) the teles
        made the strat sound dull ,when they came to life especially for twangy stuff on the E A & D. The bite and
        definition is what made the tele so popular as a guitar.
        Also i found a lot of the character of my g&l's came out of my fender twin at good volume levels, more than
        you'd use at home.  
        Mess about with your amp settings a bit, i have a bright sounding amp at the moment with the treble set
        at just less than 9 o'clock, bass the same, and mid at 3o'clock which i thought a bit odd but that's what
        sounds good. If i had the treble at midnight and beyond it would sound horrible and yet this was the setting
        i'd have had on my old twin.  
        That said if you don't like'm swap'm. Good luck!  

[Philly Q]

Boss, maybe? 

I believe that has plenty of power to do the "compete with a humbucker" thing, but it's a bit closer to a classic Tele sound than the Piledriver.   Feline and gwEm have made plenty of comments about the Boss in the past.

But it might still be too bright in your super-bright Tele.

[froglord]

Can anything be done with pots and/or capacitors to tame the treble?

[AndyR]

Can anything be done with pots and/or capacitors to tame the treble?

+1

I wondered that. I've recently replaced an Orange Drop cap with a Vitamin Q in my Baja with BG 50s (and a load of other guitars). That has taken quite a bit of the "bite" out of that particular guitar, and the jury's still out on whether I'll put the Orange Drop or a ceramic disk back in :lol:.

Some of the things I love about the BG 50s have gone with the Vit Q, but on the other hand some other rather tasteful things have started happening as well. If I was playing at gig volumes, I think I'd love the Vit Q effect, but through modellors or a small valve amp at domestic volumes I think I'm not quite getting the benefit on this guitar! (On the other hand, for me, it's been a vast improvement on strats and humbucker guitars.)

Give the caps a go, but I can't help wondering - do you use the tone/vol controls on the guitar anyway? Is the amp set specifically for this guitar or not? With the way I like to run amps, if I have the tone full open on any tele bridge, it is too bright for most of the time. It's nice to have that extra bit available, and I do use it, but most of the time, the tone control on my teles hovers between 4 and 7 ish...

Another thing is pickup height - I can make my BG 50 bridge a lot brighter (but less powerful) by lowering it from where I have it set. Also you have the standard "fender" single coils trick of raising or lowering the bass side of the pickup as a kind of "tone control". And on a tele bridge pickup, you've also got control of slanting it towards or away from the saddles - it does seem to make a difference, I use it mainly when fine-tuning the bridge+neck tone, but I haven't yet managed to figure out what the "rules" are yet on that particular adjustment!

[sjwebb90]

Check the actual values of the pots with a meter. In my experience Pots are not that accurate. For example the 500K pots I have seen have varied wildly from around 450K up to 550K. Too lower value and the guitar will sound dull and too higher value and the guitar will sound shrill.

I have a PRS that came with a 520K Volume and a 550K Tone pot. The guitar sound thin and shrill.  Installing pots closer the nominal value, mine were around 505K, sorted the problem.

Needless to say all the pots in my guitars that haven't read close to the nominal have been stripped out and replaced.

I am no expert on pot values for a Tele's or what Bare Knuckles suggests, but Seymour Duncan show a 250K volume and tone and a 0.047uf cap.

http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=standard_tele

If your pots are close to the nominal you could try another value of Capacitor.

[BigB]

o expert on pot values for a Tele's or what Bare Knuckles suggests, but Seymour Duncan show a 250K volume and tone and a 0.047uf cap.

If your pots are close to the nominal you could try another value of Capacitor.

250K pots and 0.047uf cap are standard values for Fender-like SC pups.

[Nick]
To lower the cutoff frequency of the tone control you have to use a higher value cap. And as AndyR mentions, PIO caps give a smoother tone than ceramic ones.

[tomjackson]

I don't find the BG50 bridge that bright really, I mean it is bright being a Tele bridge pickup but find it fairly thick and not as cutting as some.  More tweed than blackface if that makes any sense.

But if you have 250K pots already there's not much you can do really, a Callaham bridge plate tames some high end (by filling out at other frequencies) over the fender ones but the effect is fairly subtle.

Or you could try a passive midrange booster like the Vilex one to shift away from the highs...

But if you really just don't like it I would just swap the BG for a Piledriver while you have the chance....

[PhilKing]

When Tim told you to get the BG Flat 50's did he mention the new wind?  If he did, you need to write that into the comments section.  I think prehaps that would work for you - I am in Hoboken, and I have most of the BK's in various guitars.  If you could get here you'd be welcome to try them out.  You could also hear the new winds against the regular and the piledriver. 

One other question, what strings are you using?  If they aren't pure nickel, then try the free BK set.  They might tame your tone issues.

[BigB]

I don't find the BG50 bridge that bright really, I mean it is bright being a Tele bridge pickup but find it fairly thick and not as cutting as some.  More tweed than blackface if that makes any sense.

But if you have 250K pots already there's not much you can do really,

Kinda like the BF/Tweed analogy - makes sense to me at least

wrt/ the guitar tone stack, a higher value PIO cap will both smoothen (compared to a ceramic one) and darken the tone. I played a bit with caps on my (quite bright) Vox Custom 24, and both the cap material and value made a noticeable difference. It obviously won't make a SC sound like a HB nor drastically alter the guitar and pup tones, but it can certainly help taming brittle highs - or opening muffled ones FWIW. At least - assuming part of the problem is this "ultrabright" Tele - this may give Nick a chance to get a feel of what the BGF sounds like on a more balanced instrument.

Now given Nick's description of the tone he gets with the BGF50 on this particular guess, I guess it won't be enough to cure the problem. Or should I say: the problem*s* - the guitar being overly bright, but also the vintage Tele bridge tone not really being what Nick is looking for.

[thisisnickpaige]

Thank you to all the responses i will try to answer them all. Caps and pots: i dont want to touch a single stinkin thing! lol The neck pickup sounds literally magical! Perfect height perfect setting, perfect value. It's one of the nicest sounding pickups ive ever had; sweet spot? Try GOLD MINE! =)

Tellboy: There is nothing wrong with this pickup(BGF50) like i said in the other post. This sounds like a normal tele but for me i want more attack ( stricking power) and girth, or warmth. The sustain on this pickup is gorgeous! Distorted it sounds great, but clean i just want more, like when i play a full chord it doesnt girth enough, it doesnt have enough warmth, enough fullness. Like i said there is nothing wrong with this pickup lol theres something wrong with me lol 0=) I started as a bassist so my idea of tone is kinda messed because of it and this tin box tele dont help....huh perhaps i found its name? LOL 0=) but i just want more warmth and im thinkin maybe im just lookin for more of a humbuckers girth and warmth and umph...hence why i thought pile driver i may buy a piledriver return this and get a boss then return whichever doesnt work. Not sure, and no its not too bright i guess i exaggerated, in my tele its kinda plunky, it sounds like its a step in the right direction (aka Bareknuckles are the place to be) but i still got some more steps to take. This tele is so super bright is the other problem too, like i said in my other tele the pickup i put in this sounded warm and full (the SD:Antiquity) but then in this tele it sounded like a tin can. So for most the BGF50 would be good but still for me in this freakin guitar i need more girth.

Gordiji: I love teles and i love twang, i can even get down with brightness but this guitar makes pickups sound brittle.  If i raise the bass side it gets warm, but then its not attacky enough, so i lower that and raise the treble side and its not warm enough and its too attacky and doesnt give as it would if it had the warmth. So im stuck, its in a good spot now, as best as i can get it but its still missing that somethin, that gumpshin...no idea, so im guess not the pickups fault. I suspect in another tele this pickup would be my choice of pickups it sounds like what i would like i can just tell my guitar is not letting it breath, almost choking it out. lol It KO'd the SD:antiquity but Bare Knuckles dont go down easy...or ever. lol Wow i guess its a good idea i sure as heck didnt get the yardbird LOL id be pissed.

PhilKing: hey man, Hoboken, Jersey? Im sorry. LOL just kidding, don't mean to feud on here , i just love the NY/NJ rivalry lol Anywho, yeah man im in Schenectady thats like a 4 hour drive if not longer i think, thank you for the offer though thats mighty kind and what new wiring do you speak of?

Tomjackson: i thought it was what i was looking for lol and yeah ive messed around with caps and pots in my strat when i had and its very true they can effect and colour the tone but thats what they do they cant change the base sound ya know? They can doctor it but they're not magic. lol =) So what d'ya chaps think? Boss or Piledriver? Any major differences? I may just get both... and go from there. Sheesh. lol

[Keven]

Another thing is pickup height - I can make my BG 50 bridge a lot brighter (but less powerful) by lowering it from where I have it set. Also you have the standard "fender" single coils trick of raising or lowering the bass side of the pickup as a kind of "tone control". And on a tele bridge pickup, you've also got control of slanting it towards or away from the saddles - it does seem to make a difference, I use it mainly when fine-tuning the bridge+neck tone, but I haven't yet managed to figure out what the "rules" are yet on that particular adjustment!

just want to reiterate this, since BKP's are more sensitive to height than alot of other brands. bringing it deeper into the body can help give you a woodier tone, at the cost of output, but it's not that bad of a cost.