dark neck pickup

[spratocaster]

Hi all,

I just installed a 59 in the neck of my ESP viper and a Screamin' Demon in the Bridge. The Demon is great, and was just what I was looking for. However, the 59 is a bit dark and a little muddy. I have wired it in a normal fashion with 1 500K volume pot, a 1 500K tone pot, and a 223 uF Capacitor. Is there anything that can be done to brighten and clean it up. If not, is there a better pickup that would meet my needs? Thanks.

 

[Artie]

Re: dark neck pickup

Is your 59 4-wire? This may not be much help, but I just worked something out on paper today, that will brighten a neck 59 a bit. I won't be trying it though, 'til this weekend. I'll report back Sat. or Sun.

I'm sure others will chime in, in the mean time.

Artie

 

[spratocaster]

Re: dark neck pickup

Unfortunately its a 2 wire.

 

[koolkat]

Re: dark neck pickup

Have you tried adjusting the pickup height? If that doesn't work, you may want to consider the Jazz model. It's fairly similar to the 59', except less boomy and a little brighter.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: dark neck pickup

If your 59 is too dark a Jazz might be the ticket....in fact, go with the Jazz!

 

[spratocaster]

Re: dark neck pickup

should I adjust the height up or down to brighten the pickup?

 

[koolkat]

Re: dark neck pickup

should I adjust the height up or down to brighten the pickup?

I would first try lowering the height since it's possible that your pickup is too close to the strings and causing what's commonly referred to as "wolf tone", which might account for the mudiness you're hearing. Also, the closer you get to the strings, the more the magnet will pull on the strings and reduce your sustain. The best thing to do is just play around with different heights and let your ears be the judge.

 

[spratocaster]

Re: dark neck pickup

Thanks Koolcat that really helped out a lot. Its still a little dark for my tastes, but between fine tuning the height and fiddling with the amp I think I can get the sound I want out of it.

 

[philthis]

Re: dark neck pickup

Hi all,

I just installed a 59 in the neck of my ESP viper and a Screamin' Demon in the Bridge. The Demon is great, and was just what I was looking for. However, the 59 is a bit dark and a little muddy. I have wired it in a normal fashion with 1 500K volume pot, a 1 500K tone pot, and a 223 uF Capacitor. Is there anything that can be done to brighten and clean it up. If not, is there a better pickup that would meet my needs? Thanks.

I had the same problem so after trying out diff pickups I went with a Full Shred neck pickup. Ya I know the name doesnt grab your imagination but the Full Shred-made for neck-pickup is bright and combined with my screamin demon in the bridge sounds realy good.
the Full Shred neck is bright enough when split it sounds like a single coil yet when played unsplit with some distortion it sounds very full and bluesy. very nice :beerchug:

 

[marvar]

Re: dark neck pickup

have you tried disconnecting the tone pot and cap altogether? I always unhook all tone controls, and for me it seems to help.