Black Dogs in my ESP Eclipse II Crazy bright and thin?

[kmanick]

I recently bought an Eclipse II and really like the way it plays, but it came with EMGs so I had to pull those out.
It's got an ebony board (I think that may make enough of a difference) using it through a modded JVM that sounds great
with all of my other guitars , so I know it's not the rig.
I was at the Axe Palace and they recommended a set of Black Dogs (using this guitar in a classic rock cover band)
I read all of the reviews and I have to say my bridge pick up does not really sound at all like the descriptions.
It's super bright, the high end is almost shrill and I've got very little bottom end.
I got a set with gold covers (to keep the look of the guitar the same) and I have to say I'm really at a loss here.
I have BK's in a couple of my other guitars and they kick ass. Did I get a dog (no pun intended) ?
the neck pick up sounds great , but for what these things cost me with the covers ?
I'm really disappointed, what's happening here? any idea?
I've messed with the height and it didn't help at all. I use my bridge pickup to play lead quite a bit
and it does not sound good. the holy diver in my Jackson soloist sounds much fuller and
warmer. I'm kind of bumming right now

[darrenw5094]

check the wiring?

actually, the old emg pots should be replaced also

[kmanick]

the pots were changed to push pull (I'm wondering if the tech messed something up on the bridge though)
 but I'm thinking I may need a 250K pot for the bridge. the neck pickup sounds great but the bridge almost sounds like a strat
on the High B and E strings. Playing chord and rhythm sounds fine but those higher notes? ugghhhh shrill city

[Dave Sloven]

Seems to me that you need to check first that everything has been wired correctly.  There are wiring diagrams on the BKP site that you can download.  I would check every point on your wiring against the diagram. Pots should be 500K.

If all else fails a useful diagnostic tool is to wire the pickup straight to the jack, red to hot, rest to ground.  It should sound brighter and louder there than with the harness, but it should not sound tinny.  If it sounds better that way than how it sounds now the problem is in the harness.  If it sounds more shrill and/or tinny that way I would suppose that the issue is a mismatch between pickups and guitar or a manufacturing fault with the pickups.

If you have a coil split or something on the bridge it's possible that the tech didn't know the BKP colour codes and stuffed it up, wiring it the wrong way to the switch.  Again, look at the BKP diagrams

[kmanick]

it is wired to a push pull pot to split the bridge (both pickups are wired to push pull pots)
hopefully he is in today I have a rehearsal tomorrow and want to use this guitar.

[Dave Sloven]

Do you still have the old stereo jack in the guitar, or did you change it to a new mono jack?

[kmanick]

I'd have to check but I'm under the impression that he changed out all of the electronics.
the "active to Passive" package.
EMG Loaded guitars come with a stereo jack?

[Dave Sloven]

That's what I hear.  According to some videos you can rewire the stereo jack as a mono jack by using the right lug.  I just wanted to make you aware of another variable to look into.

[kmanick]

just checked , he did change the jack to a mono jack
I'm at a loss , I'm going to use this guitar at rehearsal today for the first time
and over $300.00 later this guitar sounds worse than it did with the EMGs. 

[Alex]

The stereo jack wouldn't make a difference, that's only for the battery of the actives.

The set should sound notably darker and mid-heavier than the EMGs.
Just from a hunch it sounds to me that the pickups were installed with the coils in parallel rather than the usual serial. Maybe whoever installed them got the color codes wrong.

You'll need to either fix it yourself or take it to someone who know what he's doing. This is, btw, the main reason I learned to solder and do guitar repairs myself - bad experience with "techs", who really didn't do the job right.

[darrenw5094]

You could check the wiring yourself and compare that to the colour chart in the BKP website.

Better still, take a pic of the wiring and post it up here............

[darkandrew]

Can I ask how old your Eclipse is? The reason being is that I have 3 Eclipses and have found that "factory fresh" they have very little resonance and need a lot of playing to break them in, so much so that when I bought a set of Nailbombs for my newest one (also an EMG equipped model)  I was really underwhelmed with them (thin, low output, no sustain) - however when I put them in one of my older, more resonant, Eclipses they sounded great. A year or so later and the "new" Eclipse is also sounding great (albeit with EMG 57/66 pickups in it).

[kmanick]

My Eclipse is brand new.
I just came back from rehearsal and this guitar disappeared in the mix 
I'm starting to think I may have been better off finding a les Paul with a neck shape I like and refretting it with Jumbos 
I'll take some pics of the wiring and post them up.
The last I heard the Axe Palace is the largest BK dealer in the US. if their tech doesn't know how to wire
these up I'd be shocked, they install these in lots of guitars. But...he may have messed this one up
shite happens.

[Dave Sloven]

I soldered the pickup hot to the wrong lug on the volume pot with my P-90 and it sounded like cr@p, I don't remember it sounding brighter, it sounded more like I had the volume rolled right back. Maybe check that everything is soldered to the correct lug and that there are no stray blobs of solder anywhere.  I would assume that someone at the Axe Palace would know the BK colour codes, so I doubt that's the problem unless the guy is new there and your guitar was the first one he had done there.

There are very few BKPs that would be brighter than an EMG active pickup, and the Black Dog is not one of them.  It makes me think that something is wrong. The other thing might be that BKPs are very sensitive to the guitar you put them in with regard to resonance etc - EMGs really are not - and that might be affecting the sound.

As far as I can see the only thing that might 'break in' over time is the finish.  If you are not worried about the guitars appearance or like the 'hot rodded' and/or 'worn in' look you could sand the finish off the back of the neck and see if that makes a difference.  Even flattening the finish with a scourer might make enough of a difference to simulate the effect that darkandrew describes.  I have used scourers on the back of the necks of several of my guitars and while I didn't notice any tonal difference I did notice that the necks became faster to play, and if the paint is poly the most that will happen appearance wise (using a green scourer) is that the back of the neck will take on a satin appearance.

[darkbluemurder]

I have two Black Dog bridge models and used them in different guitars. The tonal focus is in the midrange. In one guitar it was quite bright but not thin or shrill. In two other guitars the highs sounded a bit subdued even. Low end is not huge but there - that is why it is said to be well suited for low tunings. Unless you have a very bright and thin sounding guitar to begin with - which would most likely also make the neck pickup sound thin and shrill - I would also suspect the wiring or a bad component - either the volume pot for the bridge pickup or the pickup selector switch.

The Holydiver bridge is indeed warmer and fuller compared to the BD bridge - I had both in the same guitar.

Cheers Stephan