People on Jackson forums assure me this guitar is very tight and not bassy at all, a little thin if anything. I have an epiphone explorer with burstbuckers that is tuned down a half step from this guitar and it sounds mid focused and tight, makes me happy. So if anyone has a guess as to what is happening or is my guitar just a dud and it’s soaking up all the tone into bass signal.
As most powerful humbuckers, the JB is a high inductance pickup (in the 8 Henry range, while Burstbuckers are in the 4H range). High inductance gives more power but it also shifts down the resonant peak exhibited by any passive pickup, giving less treble and more bass/mids.
It gets worse if the guitar is played through some long and/or capacitive cable.
There are other solutions than increasing pot resistance. Mounting pickups with a lower inductance, of course. But also using a wiring with less capacitance, some buffer/preamp just at the output of the guitar, some capacitor in series with the JB, some dummy coil(s) in parallel with it...
Details on request. In the meantime, you might try the JB with its coils in parallel with each other rather than in series. its output will drop but it shouldn't sound bassy no more...
Food for thought:
1-link:
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...-changing-the-voicing-of-pickups…#post6244220
(The first pic of the first post, with a 500T vs the same pickup + and inductive filter, shows the same kind of difference than between a high inductance bridge humbucker and a lower inductance one. IOW, it's practically a picture of what you hear and complain about. See also the post 7 for similar comparisons)...
2-Below the frequency response of a same humbucker played in chords direct to the board through the low parasitic capacitance of a very short cable VS the high capacitance of a very long cable. Yes, the frequencies of a passive pickup are THAT flexible, just because of some factors most often overlooked...
