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Sunburst Pickup Tweak?


Rich_S

Question

Don't get me wrong... I love my Slammer Series Sunburst.  It's a first-class axe, and I love guitars that I get cheap and "improve".  Two of my favorite players owned red Sunbursts (James Honeyman-Scott and Andy Summers).  I love the Gravelin pickups I have in it, Josh is a great guy and I loved how he worked with me on making this set happen.  This guitar is a keeper.

The problem is, I'm a Tele guy.  I just prefer the snappy sound of the through-body bridge, the maple neck, and the longer scale length.  Sonically, Teles are "home" for me, whether they have single coils or humbuckers.  As a result, my rig really sounds best with Teles.  It's a low-wattage, cathode biased 18 Watter clone and with the mildly-hot humbuckers (10K A5 bridge,  7.7K A2 neck)  on the Sunburst, the rig just gets a bit farty.  No jangle.  I'm sure the mahogany body and neck aren't helping much in that regard.

I'm looking for suggestions on what to do to brighten the guitar up a bit, without swapping pickups.  So far, I'm thinking about dropping the pickups down and raising the screw poles up, making them a bit more single-coil-ish.  Would that help?  What string-to-screw height would you recommend?  (Now that I look at it, it appears I never really adjusted the pole pieces when I put the Gravelins in.  They're not even following the string radius.)

Any other changes, short of buying a big, fixed-bias Marshall?

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That may be tough as 18 watters based on the Marshall circuit are typically grinders....which is why we love  them with buckers. 

You may need a different amp if you wanna keep those pickups in that guitar. Me, I’d either slap new pups that have the jangle in the guitar or just use it for thicker bucker tones.

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Well, yeah... it's obviously going to be my guitar for the thicker bucker tones.  It's just that the contrast is a bit too great, given that my rig is normally set up for the Teles.  I don't want it to NOT sound like what it is, just a bit less so.

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If those are 4-wire pickups, just wire one coil. Or better still, install a push/pull pot and have it both ways. Or slap a hum-size P90 in there. Josh does those, too.

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compressor and treble booster?

Low capacitance cable

Stainless steel (rather than nickel) wrapped strings

coil split on the bridge humbucker

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Already have the push-pull coil split and use it for some of this stuff.  Good cable from guitar to pedalboard, several buffers there before the run to the amp.  P-90 would be nice, but this guitar just HAS to have that double-cream/zebra set it it. 

I just adjusted my pickup heights tonight, since the way they were made no sense at all.  I moved the pickups down so the coils are flush with the pickup rings, putting the bridge pickup slugs a bit more than 1/8" below the strings (fretted at the 22nd).  Then, I raised the screw poles to match the string radius, with about 3/32" clearance.  I'll see how it sounds tomorrow, then tweak it for string balance.  I set up the neck pickup the same, but will need to re-visit it to get it balanced with the bridge.

Stay tuned....

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Lowering the pickup height and raising the screw poles up so that about 1/2 of the head is exposed above the bobbin could very well get you where you're wanting to go.

Another option: there's a couple different grades of steel commonly used as pole screws, one of which will definitely lend some extended treble response and 'zing' to things. Shoot me your address again and I'll send you some!

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Thanks for the hints, Josh.  What I have now is a very much exaggerated version of what you suggested.  The differences in height seem extreme to me, but my little stainless-steel ruler says 3/32" all the way across.  I'll let my ears decide tomorrow, and probably end up dropping those center poles a bit.

m4qMCdy.jpg

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Nobody home but me and the critters, so I got a chance to crank it up during my lunch break.  It's better.  In particular, I can hear the middle-string chord voicings on "All Right Now" much better.  I did twist the middle two pole screw down a bit, because the way they were in the photo above just looked ridiculous. 

The whole neck pickup needed to be raised a bit to balance it better with the bridge. 

I had fun blasting through a few of the reunion cock-rock songs.   If my tone isn't detracting from the fun, then it must be pretty good.

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Not sure if this would help but, I had an import Monaco not too long ago. All stock. Pretty muddy sounding. I was going to install some better pickups but decided instead to rewire it bypassing the tone pot. I never use the tone pot anyways, its always on 10. Anyways, the brightness and clarity I got from bypassing the tone pot was what I looking for and ended up not buying new pickups. I did end up selling the guitar since I pretty much only play my T-62. So, maybe try bypassing the tone pot? Sounds like you may have solved your problem with volume?

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2 hours ago, e-isle rock said:

Not sure if this would help but, I had an import Monaco not too long ago. All stock. Pretty muddy sounding. I was going to install some better pickups but decided instead to rewire it bypassing the tone pot. I never use the tone pot anyways, its always on 10. Anyways, the brightness and clarity I got from bypassing the tone pot was what I looking for and ended up not buying new pickups. I did end up selling the guitar since I pretty much only play my T-62. So, maybe try bypassing the tone pot? Sounds like you may have solved your problem with volume?

That would brighten the tone for sure.

If you're handy with a soldering iron,, you could replace the tone control with a 1 Meg pot and/or experiment with different values for the capacitor.

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" If you're handy with a soldering iron,, you could replace the tone control with a 1 Meg pot and/or experiment with different values for the capacitor. " - good idea, aknapp. And to take it a step further, the one place that manufacturers will skimp - especially on import guitars - is with the quality of the electronics. Upgrading to brass shaft CTS Vintage Taper 500k pots, a .022uF cap, and 50s wiring would be my first move.

 

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I upgraded to 500K CTS pots and Switchcraft switch & jack when I put Josh’s pickups in.  I’d have to check the cap value, though.  

On a guitar with 2 volume and 1 tone control, we're forced into '50s wiring, right?  The connection to the tone pot has to go on the output side of the toggle switch, which is connected to the wiper of whichever pickup is selected. 

Edit: I checked.  My pickups are wired to the hot legs of the volume pots.  The wipers go to the 3-way switch, and the center of the switch goes to the output jack and to the tone pot.  I believe that is '50s wiring.  I also confirmed the 0.022uF orange drop tone cap.  Pots are Emerson 500K audio taper.

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Yep, what you described is 50's wiring, wiper wired to the tone control. "Modern" wiring has the tone control tapped off of the same input leg of the volume pot as the pickup. I know you're into tweaking out this guitar but I just have to suggest that you get your hands on some sort of Hamer with a sustain block bridge....you can't dial that tele thing out of them imo. Very cool if that's what you're after. Maybe try something of the humbucker sized p90 flavor in this guitar to get you where you wanna go?

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