Too bright high strings??

[BloodRose]

I got to have a long overdue jam session with some of my closet queens plugged into a JCM800 halfstack.. (the noise heard round the world)

anyhow, I had one guitar (and Im furious with myself that I cant remember which one) sounded great on the low strings, but the highs sounded shrill.. Always sounded good before.. I had to roll the tone back to tame them.. Is there something that would cause this aside from just needing to roll the treble side of the pup down? It seemed like I had the pup dialed in, so I was suprised. Maybe I had it dialed in thru a diff amp and the marshall accented the highs?

Looks like Im gonna have to drag em back out for another try..

[AlexR]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Pulling the pickup down generally thins the tone out.....apart from the PATB series where it apparently adds mids.
I've always found that raising the pickup and screwing in the poles fattens the tone.......although there is a time when close becomes too close.

[Adieu]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Any pedals involved? Bought myself a Seymour Power Grid on a $100-off clearance at my local GC yesterday, and that thing just OUTRIGHT REFUSES to get along with some of my better guitars... Seems like some pickups are unusual enough in their voicing to really clash with certain EQs, especially in active boost cases in pedals or preamps, or it could just be happening right inside the amplifiers, especially ones with not-so responsive and/or strongly skewed EQs that feed straight into a powerful gainstage. Would actually make more sense with that happening to vintage amps, what with certain technologies like active pups or preamps, superhot 20+k winds, etc., simply weren't accounted for by the amps designers, on account of not having been common or not yet existing at all.

Also, seems like most amp designers over the years have been fighting an uphill battle FOR more shrill, screaming highs, so your axe having too much of that might just mean that the JCM 800 really nailed the target. And is IS generally easier to take away than it is to add, when it comes to tone, so making average guitars into nice screamers and just the occasional axe too shrill isn't really a bad thing for an amp.

Btw, what guitar, what pups?

[vinta9e]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Use nickel strings. And earplugs. If it's shrill, it's too quiet.

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Nickel strings won't matter on the top strings as the plain strings are always the same material.

Pickup height is key when fin tuning a guitar...

I'd also say that's what the tone control is for unless you want to be one of those guys that's saying I like the sound of my guitar with the tone on 6 but I want the tone to be on 10 and in that case I say put the tone on 6 then take the knob off and put it back on where it looks like it's on 10 and be happy.

I'd ask what the guitar was, what kind of bridge it has and what it was made out of since all these things are very important in dealing with an issue like this but you forgot what guitar it is which tells me 2 things...

You have too much stuff.

You don't play enough.

I suggesting playing more and thinking about playing less and when you come across that guitar again let us know...

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Or it could just mean that he had 2 or 3 (or 5) too many that night.

But, I agree with AlexR and tgwif, adjusting pup and polepiece height is the key. Raise the treble side of the pup closer to the strings and lower those pole screws accordingly to get a thicker tone. Lower the pup on the bass side and raise those poles accordingly to get a thinner tone in the bass strings. Then adjust the tone stack in your amp (or guitar).

[BloodRose]

Re: Too bright high strings??

No pedals, no alchohol. Yes, I DONT play enough.. Especially with a real amp. I normally only get to play one of my guits at a time and play thru either my zoom with headphones or my little hughes and kettner SS practice amp. So the other day I got to blast with my marshall and pull some of my other babies out. Ill go through them again and try to figure out which guitar and pup. TGWIF, yeah I have too much.. I recently sold 7 guitars and have to thin out again. my goal (and my bank account say I need to )is to get down to 4. maybe 5 I just took such a loss on the others that Im skiddish about going thru more of that. plus, I LOVE everyone I still so its gonna be hard deciding what to sacrifice..

[richard parker]

Re: Too bright high strings??

How long ago did you change strings ? I find that unwound high strings can develop a nasty shrillness when they're past their sell by date.

[Rodney Gene]

Re: Too bright high strings??

How long ago did you change strings ? I find that unwound high strings can develop a nasty shrillness when they're past their sell by date.

This isn't that unusual. Might be the wrong pickup for that guitar. This same thing happened to me recently with a Lollar Vintage T. Great sounding slightly overwound Tele pickup, but when popped out of one Tele into the other, the top end was thinny thin thin, no matter what I did. Low strings sounded snappy and full. Put back the STK-t3b and back to business. You also didn't mention if it was a different room you were playing in? Tonal perceptions change form room to room. I often need to make adjustments when I gig. BTW, this was exactly the reason the 52s were developed in the custom shop to help balance top end while leaving low-end clarity.

Cheers!

Much Respect!

[Rodney Gene]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Sorry Richard! Didn't mean to quote your post! Meant to quote OP!

[BloodRose]

Re: Too bright high strings??

Its always sounded great before. So I like the pup in that guitar..