Brighten up neck SC?

[greekdude]

Hello,

So I got my first one (got it in 1984) refurbished, painted, and with a new nice maple neck :

20171112_082407 by panixgr, on Flickr

20171112_082520 by panixgr, on Flickr

20171112_082510 by panixgr, on Flickr

Those pups are the stock ones. I used to have DMZ FT2 and FT1 in bridge/neck, keeping the middle stock, that's why the creamish yellow color. Anyway, I like the whole guitar much more than before (before pic : https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4346/37027794881_0a25949d9f_b.jpg ) , and I like all its sounds, except neck pup in low E. It lacks meat, mids and trebble. Too boomy and hollow.

Is there anything I could do to make it more "stratty"?

Thanks!

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Disconnect it from the tone or no load the tone it's connected to.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Thanx, it has 500k pot for that reason. I might try no-loading the neck pot. BTW I don't want to brighten up the higher strings so, only low E and maybe A, so its the lower strings that need brightening.

Any other mod? base plates? I might swap mid and neck and see if this makes any difference.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

500k pots and more brightness is needed? Wow!

 

[AlexR]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Back the pickup away from the strings. Especially the bass side. Neck pickups don't need to be closer than a middle

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Back the pickup away from the strings. Especially the bass side. Neck pickups don't need to be closer than a middle

Thanx, I had tried that, it sounded just weak, hollow and undefined, not this crisp, treble tone I have in mind. Its already some 3mm below the strings.

To give you an idea of what I am after, when I play some riffs from Alcatrazz first album e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNfuC4KPFqo&t=1753s with bridge pup I get this same exact sound. But with the neck pup I dont get the equivalent Yngwie's neck tone he uses in other parts/songs like the end of this solo here : https://youtu.be/sNfuC4KPFqo?t=2120 , I may phrase this badly but you get the idea.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Further tends to work better than closer in general.....but you have to find your own way with the rig you have of course. I find the neck works better with a fraction of your thumb or similar adding in some percussive element.
Of course I don't play high gain, but my neck strat pickups are generally 6mm-9mm from the strings. They start to interfere with the strings and get all sorts of odd overtones if they're closer IME

 

[jeremy]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

if its only the wound strings you want brighter, id try a stainless steel string set

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

I'll try that, but first I'd go down in gauge, from 9-46 -> 9-42.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

I had exactly same problem with SSL-1. Tried 500k pots, different tone circuit variations etc... Depending on the height it just always sounded either weak and lifeless or boomy and dark. I fixed it by switching to slightly overwound vintage spec pickup (VZ Blues middle).

I now have SSL-1 in my peavey strat copy, where it works very well with 250k pots...

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

^^ Thanx, I agree, what was happening is that the pup's output or composition of frequencies couldn't break the distortion's circuit so easily. In other words as you say it should be a little meatier.

Finally I switched to .042, attached some iron plate under the bottom magnet (I cannot know if it makes any difference) I played with the sounds, and found some combo that can do Hendrix and early Yngwie at the same time, solos + riffs with the neck pup. Kept that. I remember from my other scalloped yngwiecaster back in 2011 with the slightly overwound cheapo chineze neck pup (6KOhm) I got the greatest yngwie tones (but unfortunately with noise). I remember putting the HS3's afterwards I didn't like the tones so much. Had to disconnect the bottom coil from the HS3 which brought me back to where I was before.

 

[thegummy]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Transfer a Fender logo onto the headstock and it will sound just right

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Transfer a Fender logo onto the headstock and it will sound just right

Strictly an Aria logo will go up there. Some respect for real history is always a good thing.

 

[Obsessive Compulsive]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

I wonder why you are not trying to put in Dimarzio HS-2/ HS-3 (the ones he used before he had his signature series) if you are trying to copy Yngwie's sound.

Another thing is I think he played white Aria with humbuckers in that record.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

^^ Thanx, I agree, what was happening is that the pup's output or composition of frequencies couldn't break the distortion's circuit so easily. In other words as you say it should be a little meatier.

Finally I switched to .042, attached some iron plate under the bottom magnet (I cannot know if it makes any difference) I played with the sounds, and found some combo that can do Hendrix and early Yngwie at the same time, solos + riffs with the neck pup. Kept that.

Great you got it to work. Didn't thought about adding baseplate...

Don't know about "breaking the distortion's circuit", you mean more output to push the preamp?

I guess that might be one thing that made it better. Slightly higher output also allows to adjust the pup lower while keeping the tone good, which compressess the guitars overall tone, making mids more prominent.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

What i did was swapping the stock trem of a Squier Japan with a new Wilkinson with a steel block. It brightened it up considerably.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Don't know about "breaking the distortion's circuit", you mean more output to push the preamp?

Yup, exactly.

I guess that might be one thing that made it better. Slightly higher output also allows to adjust the pup lower while keeping the tone good, which compressess the guitars overall tone, making mids more prominent.

I was wondering if the pickup pole alignment might have some relation to it. The guitar had originally MIA-spec'ed trem spacing (56.5mm E-E), so the neck E-E is about 52mm. But with the super-vee in there the E-E dropped down to 52.5mm (Asian/MIM spec), therefore I would need a 50mm spaced neck pup.
So either I am going for a new pup in the neck, IMO hard to match the other two, or I am putting back the original bridge, but this is ... black ..

 

[greekdude]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Reverted (after many years) to the original 56mm bridge. I like it better. IMHO the said issue has improved a little bit. Definitely better alignment for neck pup.

 

[PicoRiveraTele]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Hello,

So I got my first one (got it in 1984) refurbished, painted, and with a new nice maple neck :

...

Those pups are the stock ones. I used to have DMZ FT2 and FT1 in bridge/neck, keeping the middle stock, that's why the creamish yellow color. Anyway, I like the whole guitar much more than before (before pic : https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4346/37027794881_0a25949d9f_b.jpg ) , and I like all its sounds, except neck pup in low E. It lacks meat, mids and trebble. Too boomy and hollow.

Is there anything I could do to make it more "stratty"?

Thanks!

What is the DC resistance of the neck pickup? It might be overly hot.

The other thing to consider is that the action might be too low, the string might be hitting against the frets, and you hear it more in the neck pickup due to the position of the neck pickup, it picks up more low frequency harmonics than does the middle or bridge.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Brighten up neck SC?

Reverted (after many years) to the original 56mm bridge. I like it better. IMHO the said issue has improved a little bit. Definitely better alignment for neck pup.

Would the string alignment really affect tone noticeably? How different is the trem?

I don't think any strat pup aligns perfectly in the neck position because of the way pickups are set on pickguard. Even more so with narrow trem (My Peavey strat has 48 mm width on neck pup. Both e strings are not really even over the polepieces)