Hello, again
I don't know if any of you recently read my post on the tech forum, so I'll just fill you in. I recently put together a broken guitar that I have lying around (Washburn WI-24 if you know that model). It is a Maple body with a bolt-on Mahogany Neck. When I put it together, I stuck in a Seymour Duncan JB/'59 set that I replaced with Nailbombs.
On top of some numerous other guitar projects I finally sat down and had some quality time with my 'reborn' guitar. I was suprised to find that the guitar actually has the tone that I have been looking for! While the bridge pickup (the JB) sounds terrible, the neck ('59) Is very, very blues sounding (I play in a sort-of classic rock band, and blues is our main influence). Think along the lines of Slash's guitar tone on Sweet Child o' Mine. Of course that applies until I play chords or power chords, where upon It sounds like a jumbled, muddy mess of Treble, Mids, and Bass.
Now when I compare it to my Schecter (Mahogany body and neck (glue in)), which has the Nailbombs, The tone is quite squenched and lacking the character of the '59. Although it does sound better when played with chords. Testament to the quality of the Pickups.
At first I assumed that it was the capacitor on the tone knob. While the Washburn has a 3-way switch and 4 control knobs, the Schecter has a 5-way and 2 knobs. When I peeked into the bodies of both, I noticed that the capacitor of the Schecter was soldered to a different prong than the Washburns. I also noticed that my grounds were on top of solder and not in contact with the rear of the volume pot.
Could the answer lie in the capacitor position or is it the poor ground? Before I put together the guitar, I loved the tone. Now I am split becuase the '59 has the tone I want, but lacks the clarity of the Nailbomb.
Sorry for the long winded post, and I am not sure if this should go in Tech or not.
Any thoughts would be appriciated, and I'll try to clear things up if you have questions.
