RY and 80's Kramer!!

[metalmaniac93]

Well I have a RY in my old 80's Kramer Baretta II and I love the overall sound of this pickup.  It smokes. but I would like to have some of the top end rolled off it.  It is tight as hell and sounds great on every thing except the 1st and 2nd strings for rhythm and leads.  It does not sound bad or ice picky. I just would like a little bit more meat on those strings.  I have adjusted the pickups every way I could.  I know it was designed for a Les Paul, but if I could just get the top end a little bit rolled off/fatter, I would be in heaven!!!  Playing through an Engl Savage so that might be one issue.  It does not sound that way through my Shiva since the Shiva is full of thick woodymids as most Bogner's are, but the Shiva is not my main amp .  I have A Cameron CCV-100 coming in a few months, so maybe it will sound different.

[Telerocker]

What I do with my strats and tele's: roll the tone on the guitar a bit back, but I don't know if your Kramer has one.

[richard]

Don't know if this will help. I have RYs in a Gibson Firebird Studio (basically a huge lump of mahogany). When they were first installed I hated them because of the piercing top end. Now, you'd have to shoot me to get them out of the guitar. Took a lot of height adjustment and a re-think of the EQ on my amp. They now sound gloriously FAT and punchy with a nice smooth top that will bite if you dig in.

Never used an Engl but I believe they are bright amps. I play through a Cornford Roadhouse which is sort of older school Marshally sounding. I got the best results from setting the bass, middle and treble at noon and making small adjustments. The EQ is now - bass and treble at 11 o'clock, mid at 1 o'clock. I'm not using even half the intensity of EQ the amp is capable of producing. The RYs don't need it. On my amp the mid control is really the key - too much and they can start to sound harsh.

I have the pups backed off a fair bit from the strings.

[psalterium]

Well I have a RY in my old 80's Kramer Baretta II and I love the overall sound of this pickup.  It smokes. but I would like to have some of the top end rolled off it.  It is tight as hell and sounds great on every thing except the 1st and 2nd strings for rhythm and leads.  It does not sound bad or ice picky. I just would like a little bit more meat on those strings.  I have adjusted the pickups every way I could.  I know it was designed for a Les Paul, but if I could just get the top end a little bit rolled off/fatter, I would be in heaven!!!  Playing through an Engl Savage so that might be one issue.  It does not sound that way through my Shiva since the Shiva is full of thick woodymids as most Bogner's are, but the Shiva is not my main amp .  I have A Cameron CCV-100 coming in a few months, so maybe it will sound different.

You could try with different potentiometers (ie: 300k or 250k), or - as somebody suggested - with a little bit of tweaking in your eq settings.

[metalmaniac93]

Yeah, changing the pot is out of the question since it will change the overall tone, but maybe I need to play with the height and amp EQ settings as Richard suggested.   As far as the tone control, well I don't have one.   It is not ear piercing with my current settings, just a but thin on the 1st and 2nd strings.  Other then that I love the response of these pickups. 

Not that I will be changing these out anytime soon, but is there another BKP out there that is similar to the RY in response/tone/ and output without the biting top end?

[psalterium]

You might like the Holy diver, it is really well suited for that kind of guitar.

[Telerocker]

You might like the Holy diver, it is really well suited for that kind of guitar.

That came to my mind too, but as he likes the overall sound, I didn't suggest that. Maybe an eq-pedal can help.

[richard]

RYs are the only BK buckers I own but have seen a few folks comment that they are the hardest to dial in. It certainly took me a LOT of adjusting before I was happy but when I got there the results were wonderful.

I plugged into my amp at gigging volume and started with the pickup very close to the strings. I got used to how that sounded and then backed them a long way off to see how that sounded. Then I gradually raised each side by TINY increments and sometimes lowered them again until I got the sounds I liked. Took me a couple of hours. At the next couple of gigs with the band I paid a lot of attention to how they were sitting in the mix and made further adjustments.  All in all it was about 2 month before I finally found the optimum heights for my tastes.

The sound of the RYs changes a lot at different heights so, if you haven't worked this hard with them before, keep trying.

I get a lot of people tell me my amp sounds great and I always tell them that BKs are at least half of the equation.

[Kiichi]

I can confirm that the RY takes a shiteeload of adjusting, but I feel it is totally worth it.
A quarter turn or a screw can make a lot of difference I feel. Within half a turn I get from pop punk to heavy metal in the feel of the bass....or at least that is what it feels like.

[metalmaniac93]

Yeah, I love the overall RY tone and I am keeping in that guitar for sure.   I had the Holy Diver in my Carvin Bolt T+ and while it was a great pickup and one of the best lead pickups around, but it had too much mids and not enough bite/aggression for my rhythm playing.   I put a set of MCP Afwayu's (underwound) in it and it screams.  I shipped the HDs to my buddy so he could try them in his Jackson RR3.  A kind of Merry Xmas for him!! He has RYs in his Schecter Tempest and they rock in that guitar.  I was originaly going to go with the RY for My Carvin Bolt T+, but settled on the HDs due to this forum.  Well, my perfect pickup would probably be somewhre between the RY and HD in tone. 

[HTH AMPS]

Well I have a RY in my old 80's Kramer Baretta II and I love the overall sound of this pickup.  It smokes. but I would like to have some of the top end rolled off it.  It is tight as hell and sounds great on every thing except the 1st and 2nd strings for rhythm and leads.  It does not sound bad or ice picky. I just would like a little bit more meat on those strings.  I have adjusted the pickups every way I could.  I know it was designed for a Les Paul, but if I could just get the top end a little bit rolled off/fatter, I would be in heaven!!!  Playing through an Engl Savage so that might be one issue.  It does not sound that way through my Shiva since the Shiva is full of thick woodymids as most Bogner's are, but the Shiva is not my main amp .  I have A Cameron CCV-100 coming in a few months, so maybe it will sound different.

You could try with different potentiometers (ie: 300k or 250k), or - as somebody suggested - with a little bit of tweaking in your eq settings.

This is what I'd do as well, it doesn't radically change the tone of the pickups, but it does roll off some top end gradually.  The alternative is to get a 500k trim-pot and put it in series with your existing pot, then dial in the top end roll off.  This would give you the ability to set the 'on ten' resistance of the pot between 250k-500k, or wherever it sounds best.  This is what I do, then put in a fixed resistor of the corresponding value across the pot.

I've been thinking of putting together a mod kit along these lines, its an easy mod that allows you to tune in the pickup that little bit further.

[metalmaniac93]

HTH Amps, that sounds like a cool idea.  Would it work ona guitar with just a volume pot? 

[HTH AMPS]

HTH Amps, that sounds like a cool idea.  Would it work ona guitar with just a volume pot? 

yep, sure it would - you just solder the trim pot across the existing volume pot.

you'll want a linear taper trim pot to tune it in right.