help with my pickups

[mlair]

I have a Jackson SL2H it came with a '59 in the neck and a jb in the bridge, and they sound great. I also have a ESP M-2 same wood and same construction (neck through, floyd rose) same strings. Origionally it had EMGs in it and i swapped them out for a '59 in the neck and distortion trembucker in the bridge. In my Jackson the '59 has a nice neck pickup sound, good clean, nice lead, but in my ESP it just sounds harsh and trebbly. and my Distortion sounds rather thin and trebbly/harsh. i changed the pots when i swaped the pickups i used cts pots, 500k for volume and 250k for tone (i belive those were the pots Jackson used in my SL2H)
Can anyone offer any insite as to why the '59 and Distortion sound harsh and thin in my ESP, and why the pickups in my Jackson sound so nice? Did i also have to change the input jack when i took the EMGs out? Is the wood ESP uses (not ltd) low quality?
also my cts pots have no control over the volume/tone its eather off or on

 

[jeremy]

Re: help with my pickups

have you tried moving the pups closer to the strings? that may help thicken things up.

real esp guitars are usually good quality.

 

[mlair]

Re: help with my pickups

yes, i've tried that already. should i try a 250k volume pot? whould that make much of a difference?

 

[BigDaddy]

Re: help with my pickups

Sometimes even though two guitars are constructed the same the wood can be very different. There are so many different grades of wood and they can come from different parts of the world. I have been told even two pieces of wood from the same tree can sound completely different.

From your description it sounds like the other guitar has more highend output and those pickups are accentuating that. The C5 magnet will do that as will a ceramic. If you want to tame the highs try the 250K pots first. If that doesn't work a switch to an APH1 in the neck and a CC in the bridge might do it. The A2 magnet will tame the highs an will compress more.

A big thing and almost always forgotten about pickup changes is the height of not only the pickup but the pole screws too. One way to limit the treble is to screw down the individual height adjustment pole screws and raise the pickup itself. That will cut some highs out.

 

[mlair]

Re: help with my pickups

thanks big daddy! verry helpful. i usually adjust the pole screws to match the raidus of my fretboard, but i didnt know that if you lower the screw and raise the pickup it can limit trebble