Cold sweat magnet swap

[Tahoebrian5]

I've got a cold sweat set in my ibanez J custom. The guitar is really dark and tends to have a muddy bottom end. Recently been digging lower output pups so I'm wondering if a mag swap would help out. I've read where the CS with an A5 magnet is close to a VH2 so might try that. What about an A2 magnet? Anyone have any  experience with these? I've also got a set of used painkillers that have yet to be installed. Any popular mag swaps for those?

[ericsabbath]

if you're talking the bridge pickup, you'll need a 4mm magnet
the neck version is 3mm
I don't think this will brighten things up
the cold sweats are already quite bright
perhaps you should consider another set (rebel yell bridge/holy diver neck, for example), or something less hot, like a riff riff set

the neck cold sweat sounds pretty good in the bridge position, by the way, and much brighter than the bridge model in a good way
very very paul gilbertish
if you don't mind the shorter pole spacing, I highly recommend you try that first

[Slartibartfarst42]

I've never heard of a Cold Sweat being described as 'dark' or 'muddy' before and I can't see moving away from a ceramic magnet helping. If you want to go brighter, I'd stick to something else. In the contemporary section, the only one I'd consider would be the Rebel Yell. If you go Vintage Hot, I think the Emerald would be an excellent choice and if you go for vintage output, you might want to look at the Riff Raff.

[Dave Sloven]

Cold Sweat bridge pickups are one of the brighter and tighter models in the range.

My guess is that there is something wrong with your wiring.

My first guess would be that you have wired your hot, pickup selector, and capacitor wired up wrong somehow.  I did this on my Stockholm at one point due to my poor eyesight and it sounded dark and muddy.

It's also possible that you have killed a pot somehow but that is usually accompanied by a scratchy sound.  The symptoms you describe sound like you have the capacitor and hot on the wrong lugs somehow

[Tahoebrian5]

Hmm, maybe I'll take another look

[Tahoebrian5]

Would it be a good test to wire it straight to the output?

[Dave Sloven]

A Cold Sweat bridge should sound really bright wired straight to the jack.

I went from 500K pots to 300K to tone mine down

[darkbluemurder]

I tested the Cold Sweat bridge in several guitars and found that it has a tight and punchy low end, a good bite in the highs (which may be too much for a particular guitar such as my PRS Custom where it stayed only for 5 minutes) and a quite flat midrange (which made it sound dark in my LP Custom) but was quite right for a very midheavy guitar. If you find the Cold Sweat bridge is too dark in your guitar you may want a pickup that has more midrange. Rebel Yell bridge comes to mind if you want to have a similar cut, or Abraxas/Holydiver if you want to get smoother. Lower output and brighter = VHII bridge.

It seems that BKPs are not subject to frequent magnet changes as e.g. Duncans or DiMarzios so there are fewer reports on that. One reason may be that they are more expensive and the other that most believe that the folks at BKP picked the best magnet for each model.

Cheers Stephan