Overly dark Les Paul

[FRockStar]

About £25 I believe. Available from Mr Feline himself, or via eBay (still from Feline Guitars). Check their YouTube tutorial on fitting them though, to see whether you wanna fit it yourself or not.

[JonnyScaramanga]

Serious suggestion here Johnny - Have an Earvana Compensated tuning shelf nut fitted
The improvement in the the harmonic content of the chords is reason enough but we have found that there is an added tightness and brightness to guitars that have them fitted

Thanks Jonathan. I'll consider that. I had an Earvana shelf nut in my other Les Paul for a while (one I bought from you, funnily enough). I ended up taking it out because, on that guitar, it seemed to be compromising the intonation in the middle of the neck, even though open chords were great. I can't say I noticed any tone change when I changed to a regular nut (can't remember what material my new nut is – some very hard synthetic material), but then I wasn't listening for it.

I'm hoping Eric Hellstyle will weigh in on this thread. His descriptions of a neck-position Cold Sweat in the bridge of his Les Paul sound like they could be just what I want.

He quoted Tim as saying:

yes the CS neck works well in the bridge position - coils are symmetrical and we use a short AV bar magnet v- SPN 42.5 AWG wire. Tonally it's a modern voiced PAF so not as organic or earthy in tone as a TM , RR or VHII - mids are much fuller than the VHII which sounds smoother by comparison.

And later wrote:

compared to the black dog I had in my '73 les paul custom, this guitar sounds definitely brighter, tighter and more articulated than the black dog
compared to the custom riff raff (4mm magnet), it feels about as bright, but that may be the guitar's fault (the neck dimarzio paf sounds quite bright too, although it's very bassy)
the cold sweat neck has a lot of bite in the bridge, and somehow feels hotter than the black dog, despite of having a "cooler" winding
seems a bit less bassy than both, which is expected, since the thick magnet of the riff raff adds bass and my les paul custom is bassy as $%&#, but it's still thick enough
it also feels a bit middier than the riff raff, but not all mid centered as the black dog

Sounds close. I guess another way of describing what I want is a lower-output, more vintage Rebel Yell.

[darrenw5094]

Tim said that the CS neck in bridge position has more mids than the VHII. Is the CS a scooped pickup, as in, less mids?

[ericsabbath]

aerosmith screams for a riff raff, but the neck sweat would do it without a problem
sounds a bit middier and more articulate than the riff raff
not a true vintage tone... more like a dimarzio paf pro version, but with the bkp mojo
the black dog sustains a bit better and sounds fatter and more compressed, but not as bitey and clear

[Philly Q]

aerosmith screams for a riff raff, but the neck sweat would do it without a problem
sounds a bit middier and more articulate than the riff raff
not a true vintage tone... more like a dimarzio paf pro version, but with the bkp mojo
the black dog sustains a bit better and sounds fatter and more compressed, but not as bitey and clear

Eric, you've often mentioned the neck Cold Sweat as a bridge pickup, but what do you think would be a good match for it in the neck position?  Mule maybe?

[ericsabbath]

probably the neck holy diver, as it has pretty much the same specs as the neck cold sweat, but it's a bit underwound
darkbluemurder might comment on that

[darkbluemurder]

Tim recommended the Holydiver neck as a good match to the Cold Sweat neck in the bridge. I am glad I took his advice - they work very well together. And by the way: the guitar they are in is quite dark sounding acoustically.

Cheers Stephan

[JonnyScaramanga]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll let you know what I do. I'm actually leaning strongly towards Riff Raffs – my personal theory of tone is that you generally get the best sound by using the lowest output pickup that will do the job.