looking for the most transparet cover available...

[avereste]

... tonewise.

The reason is that I want to cover the neck and leave uncovered the bridge for aesthetics.
If both were coverd I wouldn't mind to turn the amp treble a bit, but that's not the case, and i want to keep the balance between them.

They're a couple of duncans and, if I remember well, when I took the covers off, I noticed more highs and output, despite they're said are nickel silver.

 

[super rad stuff]

Re: looking for the most transparet cover available...

when you took the covers off, did you do any adjusting with the coil screws/pickup height?

 

[avereste]

Re: looking for the most transparet cover available...

None, I even didn't took the pickup out of the ring when desoldering.
I noticed more presence, and they're 2005 duncan covers

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: looking for the most transparet cover available...

That's just the way it is. Remove the covers (even high quality nickel silver covers) and you get more treble. Put covers on and you lose some treble.

Duncan covers are as good as any commercial nickel silver covers out there.

Avoid covers that are brass with a nickel or chrome plating.

The best I have seen are those made by Tom Holmes. He makes them himself. Tom makes them so perfectly and polishes them so nicely that he doesn't need a thick nickel plating to fill in scratches or flaws. So his nickel plating is very thin. But I doubt you'll be able to find just some Tom Holmes covers without the $400 pickup under it!

The Duncan cover should be fine. But here's an Allparts cover with no plating: http://www.allparts.com/Pickup-Covers-Rings-and-Parts-s/122.htm

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: looking for the most transparet cover available...

The material composition/plating isn't so much the issue as the thickness.

Take a magnet and a piece of metal and put the magnet under a piece of material (plastic, paper, etc) and the piece of metal on top, then move the piece of metal around with the magnet. Use a thicker material and see how slow the metal responds. This is due to the material's density impeding the magnet's strength.

If you want pickup covers that are totally tonally transparent, make some out of a piece of printer paper or construction paper. If you want them shiny, cover them with a piece of Mylar film (like on those shiny helium balloons).

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: looking for the most transparet cover available...

The material composition/plating isn't so much the issue as the thickness.

Take a magnet and a piece of metal and put the magnet under a piece of material (plastic, paper, etc) and the piece of metal on top, then move the piece of metal around with the magnet. Use a thicker material and see how slow the metal responds. This is due to the material's density impeding the magnet's strength.

It's actually about capacitance. Read this: http://www.tonequest.com/pdf_pubs/TQRJan09_proof.pdf

Go to page 5 and read Tom Holmes comments about humbucking pickup covers. Then go to pages 15 and 16 and read why Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson humbucking pickup, said brass is not the best material to make a cover out of. And why gold plated covers dampen the treble as well.