Kramer Nightswan

[seancorker]

As some people have expressed an interest in the thread I'll keep reporting on the Swan.

I've spent most of the day playing the guitar through my amps and reached a couple of conclusions: The natural upgrade for the SD Full shred is the Holydiver. They share the same liquidity of feel with a high gain amp.

There is definitely a Les Paul vibe about the guitar tone

The second conclusion is that the SD pickup are pants and will have to go. I thought I might be able to use them for a gig to see how they felt but if you wind off the volume they sound like a thin nasely single coil - You might as well replace the volume with an on/off switch. The JB isn't much better! Both PU suffer from S Duncans' characteristic muddy mids.

For the middle PU I think I'll have to go with the Cold sweat but wound in between neck and bridge. The current pickup has the vibe of a neck PU with more clarity and punch.

I'm still undecided about the bridge but I'll try a crawler from another guitar in there when I get the middle PU ordered.

[FELINEGUITARS]

If backing off the volume is like an on/off switch then maybe change the vol pot before making expensive decisions like pickup choices.

[seancorker]

If backing off the volume is like an on/off switch then maybe change the vol pot before making expensive decisions like pickup choices.

The pot is a CTS which looks pretty new. There are enough reasons without the volume issue to ditch the SD's

[seancorker]

If backing off the volume is like an on/off switch then maybe change the vol pot before making expensive decisions like pickup choices.

Sorry just read your quote properly. By on off switch I meant that the PU only sounds good on 10. The lower volume tones are unusably thin and nasely so it might as well have an on off switch.

[darkbluemurder]

What value pot do you have in there - 250k or 500k? And is it a log ("A") or a linear ("B") type? For humbuckers I prefer a 500k log type for best control.

A slight disadvantage of 500k pots vs. 250k pots is that they appear to kill more highs than the lower value pots. A popular attempt to correct this is to add a small capacitor (say 100pf to 1000pf) between the input (where the wire from the pickup or the pickup selector is attached) to the volume pot wiper (the middle tap). This cap has a more pronounced effect the more the pot is turned down - which can be the reason for "thin sound". A "counter-fix" to that is to put a resistor in parallel with the cap (say 100k to 1M). Do you have any such compensation circuit in your guitar? If yes, try and take it out to see if you like that better.

Never played the Full Shred but I guess everybody on this forum by now knows that I strongly dislike the JB and believe I would like any BKP humbucker better.

Cheers Stephan

[seancorker]

What value pot do you have in there - 250k or 500k? And is it a log ("A") or a linear ("B") type? For humbuckers I prefer a 500k log type for best control.

A slight disadvantage of 500k pots vs. 250k pots is that they appear to kill more highs than the lower value pots. A popular attempt to correct this is to add a small capacitor (say 100pf to 1000pf) between the input (where the wire from the pickup or the pickup selector is attached) to the volume pot wiper (the middle tap). This cap has a more pronounced effect the more the pot is turned down - which can be the reason for "thin sound". A "counter-fix" to that is to put a resistor in parallel with the cap (say 100k to 1M). Do you have any such compensation circuit in your guitar? If yes, try and take it out to see if you like that better.

Never played the Full Shred but I guess everybody on this forum by now knows that I strongly dislike the JB and believe I would like any BKP humbucker better.

Cheers Stephan

I'm going to drop a Crawler in the bridge from another guitar plus strip out any excess wiring etc this weekend. I believe the guy who built it put a cap in there, which would make sense as its a 500k CTS and should be fine. Like you I'm not a fan of JB's or any Seymours to be honest.

[seancorker]

The Crawler went in today and the difference is astounding! What was Seymour Duncan thinking when he designed the Full Shred? Its a truly awful PU!

The guitar now has bottom end and very tight and chunky it is too! the mids have clarity and articulation and there are plenty of harmonics flying off the high notes. The Crawler has long been my favorite BKP PU but it sounds stunning in the Swan, especially now I've tidied up the wiring and got rid of the cap.

My dilemma now is what to put into the middle position. The SD JB sounds ok combined with the Crawler for now but it will inevitably have to go.

Do I treat it as a darker bridge PU or a neck with more attack?

[itamar101]

The Crawler went in today and the difference is astounding! What was Seymour Duncan thinking when he designed the Full Shred? Its a truly awful PU!

The guitar now has bottom end and very tight and chunky it is too! the mids have clarity and articulation and there are plenty of harmonics flying off the high notes. The Crawler has long been my favorite BKP PU but it sounds stunning in the Swan, especially now I've tidied up the wiring and got rid of the cap.

My dilemma now is what to put into the middle position. The SD JB sounds ok combined with the Crawler for now but it will inevitably have to go.

Do I treat it as a darker bridge PU or a neck with more attack?

You put in a VHII neck and watch as you get the best rhythm sound ever.

[Telerocker]

The Crawler is very good pickup. It always delivers in my coverband in all kind of circumstances and with different backlines.
Maybe not the obvious choiche, but how about an MQ? I like P90's vibe: fat with chime.
When you're no fan of P90's, I personally would try a Mule-neck in that position.

[darkbluemurder]

Sounds like the Crawler bridge sits really well in that axe - congratulations!

I would go for the Crawler neck in the middle position. It's close to a PAF and should not be muddy in the middle position.

I feel the middle pickup is closer in tone to a neck pickup than a bridge pickup. Jake E. Lee uses the middle pickup a lot on Badlands' Voodoo Highway album - almost all of the bluesier tunes have it - and also on Rumbling Train on the first Badlands album. I believe he double tracked the lead using the middle pickup on one track and the bridge pickup on the other - at least this is what I believe I hear.

Cheers Stephan

[Philly Q]

I feel the middle pickup is closer in tone to a neck pickup than a bridge pickup. Jake E. Lee uses the middle pickup a lot on Badlands' Voodoo Highway album - almost all of the bluesier tunes have it - and also on Rumbling Train on the first Badlands album. I believe he double tracked the lead using the middle pickup on one track and the bridge pickup on the other - at least this is what I believe I hear.

That would be a middle single-coil rather than a humbucker though, wouldn't it?  Assuming it was the white hardtail Strat with a Duncan Allan Holdsworth bridge pickup and DiMarzio SDS-1s.

[darkbluemurder]

That would be a middle single-coil rather than a humbucker though, wouldn't it?  Assuming it was the white hardtail Strat with a Duncan Allan Holdsworth bridge pickup and DiMarzio SDS-1s.

That is correct, and yes, I was thinking of that particular white hardtail strat, even if I don't know whether he actually played that one in the studio.

You may wonder why I think "Rumbling Train" is double tracked. I read somewhere that he double and triple tracked many leads on the Ozzy albums, and while listening to "Rumbling Train" sometimes I thought "that is the middle pickup" and then a few seconds later "no, it's the bridge pickup", just to reverse it a few seconds later.

Cheers Stephan

[seancorker]

Sounds like the Crawler bridge sits really well in that axe - congratulations!

I would go for the Crawler neck in the middle position. It's close to a PAF and should not be muddy in the middle position.

I feel the middle pickup is closer in tone to a neck pickup than a bridge pickup. Jake E. Lee uses the middle pickup a lot on Badlands' Voodoo Highway album - almost all of the bluesier tunes have it - and also on Rumbling Train on the first Badlands album. I believe he double tracked the lead using the middle pickup on one track and the bridge pickup on the other - at least this is what I believe I hear.

Cheers Stephan

Cheers, the Crawler is a keeper. It seems to bring out the Les Paul characteristics of the guitar. The whole guitar takes really well to my Cornford live set up too - very dark and crunchy but cuts with incredible clarity.

There isn't a massive tonal difference between bridge and middle - Its slightly nasaly in character but an interesting tone to work with. I'd like to treat it as a neck pickup because thats the job it will do. My only concern is that neck PU's are wound with less output so would shifting it to the middle might cause a volume drop? I really don't know?

I'm really like the cold sweat neck as a benchmark tone but what ever goes in there has to be flexible and give me a good funk tone

[Telerocker]

I'm afraid you can't have it all in one guitar. Good funktones for me come from strat-singlecoils. If humbuckers: Mules-set in the middleposition provides decent, crispy funktones. Stormy's would do too.

[Philly Q]

You can get a thinner tone which might be suitable for funk if you wire the bridge and middle pickups out of phase.  Easy to try, easy to reverse if you don't like it.  :)