Duncan Custom seems Muddy

[Blille]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

The reasoning for the cap value is a darker tone when working through jazz at home. Personal preference.

My personal preference (I play mostly blue note jazz) is to have a much lower value (0.005) and to roll the tone more. The result is that I reduce more a smaller subset of high frequencies.

 

[Cynical]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Orange Raw on the amp is the problem. Try Orange Vintage or Red Modern. If you insist on Raw, go Red.

 

[Hank-]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

I always used the idea of setting the guitar's tone control on 5 & then adjusting the amp to a fixed tone, gives more tonal versatility than keeping the tone knob always full up. That way I can decrease or increase my brightness without touching the amp, a treble bleed also helps the darkening effect of modern wiring. Live its always best to have a backup that sounds closest to the primary instrument.

Anyways, the semi hollow design might be causing the custom to sound unclear. It isn't a very high output pickup but it does have bass content that could make things muddy/wooly even though it has lot of top end, a tubescreamer might not help to tighten it enough.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

I still feel the principal issue is that the amp is dialed in for a Comanche. IMO pretty much any humbucker guitar is going to sound a little darker (and yes, a bit less well-defined) compared to singlecoils. And the Custom is going to give stronger output too, likely to exacerbate the difference by overdriving the amp compared to the other guitar.

Perhaps a bright, low output PAF type bridge would be enough closer to the singles that you'd be able to find an amp setting that works well for both guitars.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Maybe these pickups just aren’t the right ones for the op...something brighter might work.
But, if you are looking for a Strat type tone in a humbucker this might be a long journey.

 

[Nagisa]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Did we ever get confirmation on the cap values you’re using?

How’s your quest going?

I really agree with others here about messing around with caps. I’m running a .022 orange cap on my uoa5 custom and NO cap on my pearly gates neck. It took me a while of going from .033, .015 and so on for both, but it really made a difference for me even on 10 with the tone. Experiment away, and don’t buy into the utter BS that expensive pio caps are better. It is one of the finest examples of snake oil in the guitar industry, an industry swimming in snake oil

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

It took me a while of going from .033, .015 and so on for both, but it really made a difference for me even on 10 with the tone.

Sounds like you have a problem with your pot if that happens. Usually when the tone is on 10 ~99.9% of the signal bypasses the cap completely. But sometimes you get a bad pot and even at 10 the tone control sounds like it's at 8. Come to think of it, given the OP uses such a massive cap, that might be part of the problem.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

The .100uf cap doesn't sound right to me. Maybe that slim .01% of signal through that size cap is enough to muddy it.

 

[chadd]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

I still feel the principal issue is that the amp is dialed in for a Comanche. IMO pretty much any humbucker guitar is going to sound a little darker (and yes, a bit less well-defined) compared to singlecoils. And the Custom is going to give stronger output too, likely to exacerbate the difference by overdriving the amp compared to the other guitar.

Perhaps a bright, low output PAF type bridge would be enough closer to the singles that you'd be able to find an amp setting that works well for both guitars.

I'm betting you're 100% on the money

 

[Nagisa]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

It’s possible, but I have done this on 2 guitars and on 10 any cap vs no cap is noticeably different

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

You could try no loading your tone if you want to stay with your beast of a cap.

Nagisa: I'm all about PIO lol. I notice a difference between mylar, orange drop, and PIO. I think orange drops sound pretty good but PIO is my favorite because it's smooth, creamy, and vintage.

 

[Nagisa]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

You could try no loading your tone if you want to stay with your beast of a cap.

Nagisa: I'm all about PIO lol. I notice a difference between mylar, orange drop, and PIO. I think orange drops sound pretty good but PIO is my favorite because it's smooth, creamy, and vintage.

Yea it’s all preference and it does sound vintage. But an expensive pio is not worth it over a cheaper one. I wasn’t meaning pio is bad but like bumblebees are a waste.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Did a quick ebay search and new bumblebees were $70 or $100. Errrr. That's bad. I get the PIOs that are $8 or so.

 

[Blille]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Did a quick ebay search and new bumblebees were $70 or $100. Errrr. That's bad. I get the PIOs that are $8 or so.

That's a great deal! Mojo is PRICELESS.

LOL

 

[Gtrjunior]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Did a quick ebay search and new bumblebees were $70 or $100. Errrr. That's bad. I get the PIOs that are $8 or so.

I have the orange drops in my LP. The guitar sounds fine to me but I’ve often wanted to experiment with some PIO.
Any chance you could share a link to the ones you like?

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

https://m.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Hop...SUAAOSwyltZVSIN:sc:USPSFirstClass!87108!US!-1

I like 18 nf because it's the lowest value that doesn't preserve mids and get honky. The result is light and creamy especially with the PIO.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Thanks man!
I’ve got a Bluesbucker incoming...might as well try these while I’m at it.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

Alright! No prob!

 

[mxaniac]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

I was just doing a speaker swap on an amp and I noticed it has much more effect on some guitars than others. Makes sense really, suppose you have an amp voiced for all mids, a speaker voiced for all mids, and a pup voiced for all mids, you're going to have too many mids. So I suppose it's possible you have a collision of voicing.

 

[Blille]

Re: Duncan Custom seems Muddy

I was just doing a speaker swap on an amp and I noticed it has much more effect on some guitars than others. Makes sense really, suppose you have an amp voiced for all mids, a speaker voiced for all mids, and a pup voiced for all mids, you're going to have too many mids. So I suppose it's possible you have a collision of voicing.

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