I had the same problem with a set neck Chappy that was very bright and alive. This guitar defies what everyone says about the woods it's made with. It's an '87 25.5" scale set neck Chappy. Mahogany body, maple neck, rosewood board, floyd, and slammer pickups. This guitar is very lightweight and acoustically loud. It has a fast attack, lots of harmonic content, and very bright on the top end. The stock Slammer pickup measured 12k so it's a weird one. I hear most are in the 16k range, anyway in this guitar that pickup was very shrill. Great for metal through a high gain amp, not so good for rock through a mid gain amp like my Bogner XTC. Also, Hamer placed the bridge pickup closer to the bridge then any other guitar I've seen. I'm sure that contributes to the shril sound. I installed a DiMarzio Super 3 (Took it out of my PC-1) and that did the trick. The super 3 took out the harsh highs, added some nice lower mids, and beefed up the bottom end. Now the guitar sounds nice and chewy through the Bogner... Not thin at all like before... The Super3 might work for you in the Cali...
