Jazz neck to boomy and mushy what's the alternative?
- Thread starter Ascension
- Start date
Ascension
Well-known member
Spent some time really working with the height today and it's better. May try the A2 swap. Guess the Kiesel Beryllium's and the SNS set have spoiled me as both have an almost acoustic quality with the right touch and amp clean that the Jazz just doesn't have. Duncan is really missing a large market IMO by not marketing the SNS set to the modern Worship crowd. Lamabatone and Suhr with the Thornbucker set are making a killing in that market. Have owned the Thornbuckers and played the Lambatone Cremas enought to know I prefer the SNS set to both.
Ascension
Well-known member
May be an option and have thought about that pickup.
hamerfan
Well-known member
I would first try a swap to A4. I did it several times with 59N, it doesn‘t stray too wide away from a A5, but helps nicely in the mud department.
Funny you mentioned Suhr. Recently a bandmate bought a used Starfield, which had a DSV neck instead of the stock 59. I liked it very much.
Ascension
Well-known member
Well considering the fact that I get called by a number of pretty well known worship artist to play events it's matters much! Matters as much for me as tone does for any other working player in any style. I have other guitars with Pickup set ups that are working for me but this one isn't.
Example a one off event with some of the local guys here playing my 17 Kiesel DC with a pair of Marks Singles and a Beryllium bridge. No real band practice charts and I got the call to play guitar.
The jazzN can be tweaked amazingly well. Use an alnicoIV to smooth out the high end and attenuate the low end a bit, and fill up the midrange. Use an A2 to make it sweet, bit creamy, flowing and fluid, with soft low end and boosted midrange. Give an A3 for a more open feel and organic tone, tighten up the low end a bit but keep the sweetness of the A2.
Install shorter poles to make it even more open sounding, clearer, brighter.
THEN move to different pickups.
Install shorter poles to make it even more open sounding, clearer, brighter.
THEN move to different pickups.
Ascension
Well-known member
Thanks for that. Have a A3 in the 59 in the neck on my 95 Washburn USA MG 102 so may play with mags before abandoning the Jazz. First one I have had in a guitar so still playing with it. This was done with the MG 102 with the A3 59 and a JB which were the stock pickups through the Whitford Fender Prosonic.
https://app.box.com/s/sy3fohp80absjr501cel
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What I meant was that your guitar is so much in the background that it can't even be heard most of the time (by anyone other than you).
Yes, a personal quest for you to find the tone that you like. I get that. But you say you have other guitars that are essentially "perfect" that you are comparing this one to. So, use the other guitars that have that great tone you love, in your worship groups. Why do you want this one to sound like those? Is it that this guitar has the feel that you like? The neck that suits you best? That you like playing this guitar a bit more than the others so you want this one to be your number one guitar with the tone you want? If so, then take the pups that you love out of your other guitars and put them in this guitar then you'll have your perfect guitar. Sell the others or the pups that you don't like.
When I played lead in my last covers group (actually all the groups I ever played in except one), my guitar was in the fore front and was heard and had to have the right sound for any particular song. But I had several guitars with totally different set-ups so I could pick the one that gave me the sound I needed...the sound the audience could hear and was expecting (so it would sound like the original artists). But if I just played in the background, it didn't much matter what guitar I played.
SweetClyde99
Active member
The Full Shred neck may help some, but you’re probably not going to find a neck humbucker with much less low end than the Jazz. Running a capacitor in series with the hot lead from the Jazz may help though m. I’ve done this a few times when I wanted to shave down some of the low end coming from a pickup with good results.
https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/mod-squad-muddy-sounding-neck-pickup
https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/mod-squad-muddy-sounding-neck-pickup
alex1fly
Well-known member
This is a funny thing with tone chasing - having multiple guitars with different sounds but swapping parts so they sound the same.
eclecticsynergy
Well-known member
I think for some it isn't so much about making them sound the same as about getting them into the same ballpark output-wise, so you don't need to redial your rig for each guitar. That's how it was for me at least: when changing guitars live, there just isn't time for resetting.
I value the individual tone & character of different guitars - otherwise, why switch?
Still, most of my working axes are set up to use the same amp & effects settings.
When I was gigging constantly (simple rig by today's standards - no presets) it had to work that way.
Sure, some instruments are always going to be too dissimilar. And these days I'm often using just one guitar.
But I've stuck with the habit. It can be useful to have a palette of different voices all within a similar output range.
Ascension
Well-known member
It's not so much that I want that guitar to sound like anything else I have but that when I grab it on stage it's not so much different from the others I have to stop and really tweak my amp to get a decent tone. Depends also in the setting I'm playing in as to whether I 'm up front or in the back ground.
Example is here doing a conference some old friends. This is my 13 KOA Carvin DC 127 with a Alt 8 Bridge and Sentient neck through my tiny little Mesa Subway Rocket.
Ascension
Well-known member
BINGO! Not just output though but also basic tone and feel. Want differences in my guitars but not so much that if I swap guitars on stage I have to do major tweaks to my amp to make it to work. The Jazz in this particular guitar is just to far away tonally from my other neck pickups.
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Ascension
Well-known member
Kinda where I'm leaning right now. After really spending some time playing with height on both the Perpet and the Jazz I'm closer but still not there. Next week when I have some time will pull out my mags and play with it. Have A2,4,and 3 on hand.
Ascension
Well-known member
Have used the Alnico II pro in the past so kinda know what that will get me. Normally have run them with a Custom Custom in the bridge though. The Jazz was an unknown when I got it but knew I could swap the mag and get a A2P so--. Had ordered a WLH. My normal go to neck pickups now are the Sentient, SNS and the the A2 7.5 K Kiesel Beryllium or 7.5K A5 Carvin C22J.
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