Any pickup mod idea before selling a Jumbo MFD equipped G&L ASAT special?

[marcello252]

That is sweet. That's a heckuva bridge. I wonder if those are sold separately?

I don't know if they sell it, fact is it's not that easy to mount, I saw there is a piece of metal under the bridge that goes inside the body, so you have to route some wood, part of tge big sustain this guitar has I think comes from this tight connection between bridge and body

 

[marcello252]

For those still interested in, the setup with the standard tele at neck and the g&l bridge was too much unbalanced.
It happens they gave me a pair of Jaguar pickups, I think they come from a newer Squier, they measure 6.2K and 6.0K, who knows, let's try, I put back the original pickguard and just screw the two pickups in place, there's room enough and it's not visually that bad.
Well, it turned out I could have solved the problem.
The pickups sound fine, with a nice alnico feel, they are quiet, it sounds like a cross between a tele and a jaguar, little punchier than a standard tele, with the mids slightly forward (the claws?), it's even decent to see... At the moment I can't ask for more

 

[jeremy]

nice! i run jaguar pups in a strat and i love it. i dont use the claw though. glad you found something that works!

 

[Juanhanglo]

Stupid question, but you've dicked around a bunch with pickup adjustment, right? It usually takes me weeks of playing around with pickup position before I'm happy, backing it waaaay off, bringing it up too close, changing the angle of the pickup, etc. I think you can also mess with the pole pieces on the MFD as well, right? (Flat vs a vintage stagger is a difference that may or may not work better for your ears.) The changes can really alter how a pickup sounds and feels.

I do this all the time!

New pickups, especially ones that aren't the norm, mess with my ear's sonic expectations.

Case in point:
I like a5 pickups mostly, apparently. I picked up (no pun, lol) a set of dark matter 2s (ceramic mags) from dimarzio on black friday.
When fired up, I heard this weird attack thing that was like an upper mid spike, but only affecting the attack, and only on the top 3 strings.

So I adjusted everything. I lowered poles, radically tilted it, etc.
Better, but.......eh.
Put it down and walk away

Came back next day and tweaked some more. This time with my amp models.

Ill spare the whole rundown, but suffice to say, it took a few days for my ears to "accept" the DM2s, and also to figure them out.

You know how they were ultimately set? Even, but slightly elevated poles (just a hair above the bobbins) and level!
I wouldn't have believed that based on my initial reaction. Lol
Now, its down to overall height adjustment.

I have 3 weeks to figure out if they're staying or swapping.

 

[Chistopher]

I do this all the time!

New pickups, especially ones that aren't the norm, mess with my ear's sonic expectations.

Case in point:
I like a5 pickups mostly, apparently. I picked up (no pun, lol) a set of dark matter 2s (ceramic mags) from dimarzio on black friday.
When fired up, I heard this weird attack thing that was like an upper mid spike, but only affecting the attack, and only on the top 3 strings.

So I adjusted everything. I lowered poles, radically tilted it, etc.
Better, but.......eh.
Put it down and walk away

Came back next day and tweaked some more. This time with my amp models.

Ill spare the whole rundown, but suffice to say, it took a few days for my ears to "accept" the DM2s, and also to figure them out.

You know how they were ultimately set? Even, but slightly elevated poles (just a hair above the bobbins) and level!
I wouldn't have believed that based on my initial reaction. Lol
Now, its down to overall height adjustment.

I have 3 weeks to figure out if they're staying or swapping.

This is why hifi speakers have a break-in time even though speakers don't really need to break in any more. Guitar speakers, being relatively crummy all things considered, still need to break in

 

[esandes]

Beautiful guitar. Single piece body. G&L were too good for the world.

 

[marcello252]

I tried it yesterday with the band and she sings beautifully, cutting nicely in the mix with a healthy long sustain, a little on the dark shade, maybe two 500k pots could work better, I think I'll try them in the future

 

[esandes]

I tried vintage output single coils with 500k pots and it was bad. It sounded nothing like a sweet vintage single coil sound.

I have high output (12.5k, A5 rods) single coils with 500k pots and it doesn't sound as good as vintage output w/ 250k pots.

 

[freefrog]

I tried vintage output single coils with 500k pots and it was bad.

It might have sounded good, depending on the wiring / pickups / guitar / rig involved...


Sure, low inductance / hi Q factor / hi flux strenght single coils tend to prefer low resistance controls... but all single coils don't have such specs. In Jaguar pickups like those mentioned by marcello252, the claws increase the inductance and lower the Q factor compared to a Strat single coil, for instance...

Anyway, a single coil with a 500k volume + a 500k tone pot is practically in the same situation than when paired to a single 250k volume pot (as is the stock bridge pickup in a Strat).

And if ever two 500k controls make the sound too bright, it's always possible to apply the old Bill Lawrence recipe consisting to connect resistors in parallel of the pots, in order to fine tune the resistive load (unless one simply lowers the tone control, of course). ;-)

EDIT - BTW, vintage Jaguar's hosted 1M volume and tone master pots, just like some Telecasters from the 60's. ;-) Only the switchable "rhythm circuit" connected to the neck PU had a 1M volume in parallel with a 50k tone, giving a much lower overall resistive load (now, granted, there was also a 56k series resistor before the 1M master volume, making the 1M tone control more evenly efficient).

 

[jeremy]

i always thought i hated jaguar pups. i was wrong. i hated the 1M pots. i run a hardtail strat i made with a trio of antiquity II jaguar pups and it sounds like a great strat. i dont think the pups themselves are that much different than a strat pup, similar wire, similar turns, just flat pole vs staggered, which is why i went this route. i almost always wire the bridge pup on a strat to a tone control.

id live with the guitar as it is for at least a few weeks before changing the pots. see how much you want to change, maybe just a 500k tone pot would be enough

 

[freefrog]

I see why Fender did mount 1M pots in the Jaguar: shorter scale of the guitar = stronger fundamental notes... claws around the coils = 1/3 more inductance and a lower Q factor = flatter and lower pitched resonant peak (hence the darker tone marcello252 did notice with 250k pots)...

Now, the wiring of a Jaguar is strange : in lead mode, there's a bass-cut / hi-pass 3,3nF cap (the "strangle switch"), itself located before the tone pot... It creates a conflictual relationship between these components, hence the necessity of a 56k series resistor before the volume in order to obtain a reasonable behavior from the tone control... but this addition alters the tone when the "Strangle switch" is disabled, since it changes the tone pot in a volume dampener during the first 10% of its taper...
IOW, I'm not sure the 1M pots are the only "discussible" feature of this circuit, if it's discussible... ;-)

 

[jeremy]

ok, maybe i hate jaguar pups with vintage jag wiring

as stand alone pups, i think they sound great. mid 6k dcr w/ 42 formvar and flat a5 rods = win for me

 

[beaubrummels]

Well, that's the first JagSATuar I've ever seen!

 

[marcello252]

claws around the coils = 1/3 more inductance and a lower Q factor = flatter and lower pitched resonant peak (hence the darker tone marcello252 did notice with 250k pots)..

I can confirm these effects of the claws since I remember I once tried to remove them from my Jaguar years ago for experiment, and the guitar was unplayable, it was like blowing your nose with a kitchen alluminium foil, a sea of piercing treble