Is there something I can do...

[_tom_]

To make my guitar sound brighter and not muddy when I turn down the volume on it? I got a hotplate yesterday so I'm now basically using my amp as a single channel, cranking the clean channel to get proper overdrive.. but I cant get a clear enough clean, when I turn down the volume on my guitar it sounds horrible and muddy.. the neck pickup doesnt have a tone knob hooked up and still sounds kinda muddy to me.. just could be the amp though.. Anyway, any ideas?

The other thing I was thinking about was building one of those boxes with a volume control and a footswitch, so I can set the volume low on that and turn it on for my cleans? May be a simpler idea and would allow me to get cleans at the press of a button..

cheers for any help

[DeanS]

What's your set up?

[willo]

The other thing I was thinking about was building one of those boxes with a volume control and a footswitch, so I can set the volume low on that and turn it on for my cleans? May be a simpler idea and would allow me to get cleans at the press of a button..

cheers for any help

Do you mean this kind of thing?



http://www.fxdoctor.com/

I don't really know anything much about the actual circuitry inside the guitar, though, sorry....

[chrisola]

Get a Weber Mass.. then you have 3 treble boost stages, and Bass\Middle\Treble controls :P

[_tom_]

Haha I only just got the hotplate, its really good compared to my old weber minimass which muddied stuff up and cut too much treble, I dont even need to use the treble boost on the hotplate really, I just dont like it on the -16db setting too much, starts to sound cr@p because of the lack of speaker movement..

anyway, yeah, willo its like that I think, it was a Burford Electronics one I think (is that even a brand!?) .. but I thought itd be alot cheaper to make it myself, plus I just like making stuff haha. Basically just an adjustable volume cut pedal? Would this affect the tone like turning down my guitar volume though?

[maliciousteve]

I think it might be the pickups Tom. High output pickups have a tendency to not clean up very well. Medium output pickups clean up alot better. I use the Dimarzio Air Zone in one of my guitars and it cleans up quite well. The PAF Pro cleans up alot better than the Air zone too (paul gilbert does great things with just a volume control and he uses the paf pro).

That's just one suggestion though.

Another could be to maybe coil tap the pickups. That gives quite a nice clean sound.

I'm just going by what i done to solve this particular problem but some one with more experience maybe able to help a bit more.

[_tom_]

Well.. I'm only using Mules which arent exactly that high output really are they? Cant coil tap the pickups unless I send em back to get redone with 4 conductor wiring, I stupidly only ordered 2 conductor..

[maliciousteve]

Ah right, i didn't know you were using Mules. could maybe look into the EMG RPC. It basically gives more high end

http://www.emgpickups.com/displayproducts.asp?section=Accessories&categoryid=32&catalogid=132

[_tom_]

hmm that looks pretty cool, loads of messing around with different controls for my clean sound though that way.. Another thing could be an eq pedal? Lower the volume and boost the highs?

[maliciousteve]

That could work too. Another thing that might help is setting the mids quite high.

[_tom_]

Yeah, I have my mids at 12 all the time  8)

[maliciousteve]

that's 1 more than 11. like...1 higher  :D

[_tom_]

Obviously hahaha.. I like the fact that HRDx go up to 12... just because it goes up to 12, I cant even notice any difference from 10-12. Infact the tone controls dont make huge differences anyway

[dave_mc]

do you have a treble bleed capacitor wired to your volume knob? if you don't, that's the place to start to avoid muddiness with volume roll-down. I have one on my ibanez, but not on my kramer, and the kramer is noticeably muddier with the volume down.

[_tom_]

do you have a treble bleed capacitor wired to your volume knob? if you don't, that's the place to start to avoid muddiness with volume roll-down. I have one on my ibanez, but not on my kramer, and the kramer is noticeably muddier with the volume down.

Umm... dont have a clue. I'll take the back plate off later and have a look. Epiphone have WEIRD wiring. The bridge pickup is wired to the tone control, neck pickup wired to the volume, wtf, I thought normal LP wiring was to the volume on both. I want to rewire it PROPERLY but im scared I'll do something wrong then have to pay to get it all fixed.