Abraxas question

[richard]

I got the Abraxas set years ago and put them in a PRS Bernie. This guitar never got a lot of playtime. Last year I got a Quilter Cub US which I like but it is a pretty bright amp. With my other guitars I generally have to back the treble off quite a way. The other day I dug out the Bernie and was surprised at how dark it sounds. I know the Abraxas is supposed to have an attenuated top-end but this is extreme to the point of unusable. I have to crank the treble way into the active zone to get any top at all but it sounds generally like mud. Anyone else have this experience of the Abraxas?

[timmy_b]

That certainly doesn't sound normal for the Abraxas. Those Bernies are fairly warm in my experience, but not to the extent that you're describing, certainly.

Are you noticing this to be the case for both pickups in the set, or one in particular?

I would suspect that you have had either a connection in there somewhere go bad while stored, or may have a short circuit that's affecting the correct operation of the controls. Have you tried out the tone control on the guitar to ensure that it's giving the expected range of variation in the sound of the guitar?

One good option is to connect the bridge pickup directly to the jack socket, therefore bypassing the other components in the guitar and giving you a true sense of what the pickup is outputting.

[darkbluemurder]

The Abraxas bridge is a warm sounding pickup for sure with lots of midrange but it never came across as muddy to me. The Abraxas neck to me sounds like a low wind PAF type pickup. In a warm sounding guitar and in particular if all your other guitars (you did not describe what they are) are on the bright side, they can sound dark in a back-to-back comparison.

I would say the True Grit bridge is significantly brighter than the Abraxas bridge. As regards neck humbuckers the Abraxas is one of the brightest in the BKP line already.

Cheers Stephan