JB vs PG question

[gimmieinfo]

Would a JB lose much headroom over a PG in the bridge of a LP? I use my treble bleed equipped volume to get clean to mean tones and the PG dos that ok, tho not as well as id like. It tends to be such an aggressive pickup that i feel like it retains too much of that and too much of that honkey midrange when i clean up with the volume. (no, it;s not a matter of the right treble bleed value or circuit) What would a JB sound like in this scenario? I guess the best i can describe what i want is not necassarily a cleaner tone when rolling back (tho i wouldn't kick that outa bed 4 eatin crackers ) as much as a much more transparent midrange.

I don't want a hot pickup but if it cleans up better i might try a JB, which i believe isn't as hot as the numbers would indicate anyways for my memory of using then=m decades ago.

 

[uOpt]

Sounds (no pun intended) like you might want to try a Custom 5 first.

The JB is very heavy-hitting and far away from the PG.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

FWIW, I think you remember the JB right in that it's not as hot as the numbers would indicate. It's the same DCR as a Distortion, Black Winter, or Invader, and it's by no means as hot as those.

That being said, the JB is still either at the very top of the medium output range or at the very bottom of the high output range. It's still a relativelty compressed pickup, and even if it's not as high output, I wouldn't say it's any more dynamic than a Distortion.

I don't know if what you want is a "transparent midrange", a JB would be what you should be looking at, if I'm imagining what you mean right.

 

[esandes]

The JB is the best pickup I have used for cleaning up perfectly when dialing down the guitar volume. I use linear pots. There's n9 loss of tone quality when the volume is down.

For some reason I have a hotter pickup, 20k and ceramic magnet, linear 500k pot as well, and it doesn't clean up anywhere near as effectively as the JB. I thought hot pickups clean up well.

For non-master volume amps, the JB is exceptional for dialing clean and scathing tones with the volume knob alone.

 

[Mincer]

I would think something like the Hybrid would be much better than the JB at cleaning up with the volume.

 

[gimmieinfo]

The JB is the best pickup I have used for cleaning up perfectly when dialing down the guitar volume. I use linear pots. There's n9 loss of tone quality when the volume is down.

For some reason I have a hotter pickup, 20k and ceramic magnet, linear 500k pot as well, and it doesn't clean up anywhere near as effectively as the JB. I thought hot pickups clean up well.

For non-master volume amps, the JB is exceptional for dialing clean and scathing tones with the volume knob alone.

Not sure why, but for some reason i thought that might be the case even tho it;s a high wind pickup, tho i dunno why i thought that. Not sure if it's something i read or what. But when i used them it was in the 80s and it was before i began using the volume knob for clean and distortion, so it wasn't from memory of my experience with them. Can anyone else confirm this?

On the other hand, you're saying u have a 20k wind that doesn't clean up as well as the JB, so not sure if your experience with the JB is only thru comparing it with that 20k p/u. If so thats not much of a endorsement of the JB's ability to clean up because of course a 20k p/u isn't gonna clean up well at all. Never heard the notion that hot pickups clean up well tho i suppose if you dial the amp's gain so that each pickup is driving the amp to the same amount of drive, then maybe, i dunno. Never thought about that till now.

 

[freefrog]

Hi-gain pickups can clean up efficiently when their volume pot is used. Yesterday, I was surprised again by how well I can do that with a 16k ceramic HB that I've built, albeit it had no treble bleed circuit - but no tone pot either: just a 500k volume... and a very short / low capacitance wiring inside the guitar, which is a bonus for "cleaning up" the sound when lowering the volume control.

That said, the ability of a pickup to clean up when lowering its volume depends partly on the drive circuit and/or amp used, of course. Gain staging is necessarily to consider here. Also, I use to adapt the value of treble bleed circuits according to the rig involved... In some cases, a crude 1nF treble bleed cap does wonders (especially with hi-gain pickups whose resonant peak can approximate the response of a P.A.F. clone, once the volume around 2/3 in such a situation). But IME, 50s wiring can do a better cleaning job than treble bleeds with vintage voiced PU's like a PG, if one lowers simultaneously the volume and tone controls...

Anecdotically, it's possible to make a PG tonally close to a JB just with the low value cap trick that I've shared in my only answer to your previous topic. The output level won't be there but the mid centric voicing can be emulated by this mean.

 

[beaubrummels]

IME the current stock JB doesn't clean up with the volume (unless you really turn it way down, to where it sounds dark.). And compared to the PG, compared to a PG on 10, I have to turn a JB down to about 6-7 to get it to the same volume, e.g. hitting the amp at the same level.

 

[marcello252]

But IME, 50s wiring can do a better cleaning job than treble bleeds with vintage voiced PU's like a PG, if one lowers simultaneously the volume and tone controls...

The 50s wiring is actually the one I prefer literally everywhere, with single and hb control

 

[freefrog]

OK, I've spent a few minutes to do ultra quick tests with what I had at disposal. All pics show the crude (intentionally not "normalized") response of humbuckers when excited through an ultra low impedance air coil, with volume full up then lowered. Vertical steps of 3dB.

Below is the hi-gain ceramic HB evoked in my previous post. As already mentioned, it has a single pot: its volume control. The low capacitance of its wiring promotes the sparkle when its volume is lowered (pink line).



Now, here is a mid gain HB with a LP style wiring (toggle switch far from the pots), necessarily more capacitive since there are more and longer wires. Although the tone pot is not enabled (being a no-load control) and leaves active the 500k volume pot only, the higher capacitance of the whole wiring contributes to dampen the sparkle, even if the resonant peak is still higher pitched when the volume is lowered...
NOTE - This pickup is covered. A part of the sparkle is dampened by the related Eddy currents.



Below is the same pickup than above but with no-load tone pot enabled AND lowered - it's connected in the 50s wiring fashion, BTW... See how the volume now controls a much wider range once lowered, giving a clearer tone, while a part of the lost sparkle gets back (black line in this screenshot, to compare with the pink line above)...



Finally, here is the response of a hi-gain pickup with a crude 1nF treble bleed cap on its volume control (still no tone control in this case)... Unlike 50s wiring, the treble bleed cap tightens the bass range. Works very well with this precise HB. Might sound a bit thin with another HB, which would then require a resistor in series or in parallel with the cap...



Hope it illustrates that pickups don't really clean up efficiently or not by themselves* or at least, not alone. Their performances largely depend on a whole system : a same humbucker might clean up in a magnificent way with 50s wiring in a SG and become very muddy sounding with modern wiring in a LP once the volume lowered, because of the parasitic capacitance of the wiring harness (among other factors)...

*NOTE about the pickups by themselves: As I've tried to explain it several times in similar topics, the capacitance of their coils and cables / wires before the volume control is still critical. That's why many hand wound coils tend to clean up in a more transparent way than machine wound equivalents. But there are not many artisans able to hand wind humbucker without loosing the higher Q factor of "classic" (machine wound) PU's and the related voicing with it....

FWIW.

 

[esandes]

Not sure why, but for some reason i thought that might be the case even tho it;s a high wind pickup, tho i dunno why i thought that. Not sure if it's something i read or what. But when i used them it was in the 80s and it was before i began using the volume knob for clean and distortion, so it wasn't from memory of my experience with them. Can anyone else confirm this?

On the other hand, you're saying u have a 20k wind that doesn't clean up as well as the JB, so not sure if your experience with the JB is only thru comparing it with that 20k p/u. If so thats not much of a endorsement of the JB's ability to clean up because of course a 20k p/u isn't gonna clean up well at all. Never heard the notion that hot pickups clean up well tho i suppose if you dial the amp's gain so that each pickup is driving the amp to the same amount of drive, then maybe, i dunno. Never thought about that till now.

I don't think the 20k BKP Ragnorok comparison takes away from the JB. It shows that the JB has some sorcery to it to clean up so well. My Gibson pickups (BB1/2) also clean up well. But the JB has more gain to drive the amp at around 8.5-10.