LP standard humbucker tone issue

[gimmieinfo]

When i say "issue", theres nothing actually wrong, it's just an issue for me. I have searched ad nausium and read a ton of results and asked at several forums. And this ISSUE is just a product of me being a lifelong fender guy and not being used to the tone of a LP standard with humbuckers, and everything i have read has assured me this is just the way a LP sounds generally. It's a new epiphone 50s on which i have hardware upgrades that really helped but this issue is pickups, ad not because they are bad, just that FOR ME its got this issue i don't like but most HBs will sound like this because thats the LP sound. I even swapped a set of mojotone 59 clones that are low wind and unpotted with A4 and same thing It got brighter but the issue remains.

The issue is on 10 the pickups sound great with gain. I use classic rock degrees of gain and clean up with my treble bleed equipped volume pot. (it;s wired for single volume by the way....pups straight to switch, from switch to single 500k pot that reads 497k) When i roll down the volume the tone on the wound strings becomes dull as tho a EQ is being used and the treble has been sightly backed off and the 500hz slider bumped up. Just a dull thud. This was horrible when new but since i upgraded the hardware it's much better but still not satisfying Its not the tone pots, and they have been disconnected. The pot is a high end CTS. I also tried A5 bars in them and they got brighter but the low string issue still remained ad the overall tone wasn't as good so i replaced the stock A2's.

I have listened to lots of clips and as i said i have asked elsewhere and googled it a lot and it's become obvious theres nothing wrong, it's just a fender guy trying to come to terms with a gibson tone thats words different. But i also made the pickups splittable and that eliminates the issue. But it also loses too much of what i like with the volume on 10 for classic rock gain. So heres the question. Theres got to be a pickup that retains much of the humbucker LP tone but allows the wound strings to have a lot more chime and clarity on the wound strings when the volume is rolled back to edge of distortion close to clean levels. I know it's not my cord or amp or any of that because i have 5 other guitars that don't have this issue including a LP P90 special. Thoughts?

 

[Securb]

You mentioned a guitar you like with P90s. I was thinking P90s would be the solution the whole time I was reading yor post. You might want to try some humbucker sized P90s like the Phat Cats or maybe P Rails

 

[gimmieinfo]

Thats not what i want. I have a p90 special and i bought this it get the L standard sound. I simply want to find a set or some way to get the volume on 3-5 sound to be less nasally/congested.

 

[JOLLY]

Maybe try 50s wiring.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Maybe try 50s wiring.

Like i said in the original post, tone controls are disconnected.

 

[beaubrummels]

Maybe try 50s wiring.

He has the tones disconnected, so it's as bright as it's going to be.

I think humbucker Epiphone Les Pauls just aren't for the OP. He's like trying to get a Toyota to be a Ferrari. There isn't a passive pickup that's going to solve his issue, where rolling down to 3 on the volume is going to be chimy and bright. My only thought would be to go active pickups, either Fluence, or EMG, or Duncan's actives, or of passives maybe Lace Alumitones, or Duncan Parallel Axis pickups?

 

[Supernautilus]

This doesn't help your issue, but for the record I've never used volume or tone controls for exactly this reason. No matter the guitar, and I have owned many, I've never heard a sound from a rolled off volume or tone control that I liked. I get that there are folks who like those sounds, but not me. The only reason I even have controls hooked up in my guitars is a) for looks and b) I think the tone is harsh without them hooked up.

 

[gimmieinfo]

This doesn't help your issue, but for the record I've never used volume or tone controls for exactly this reason. No matter the guitar, and I have owned many, I've never heard a sound from a rolled off volume or tone control that I liked. I get that there are folks who like those sounds, but not me. The only reason I even have controls hooked up in my guitars is a) for looks and b) I think the tone is harsh without them hooked up.

I'm the opposite because i have never had a guitar that didn't work great with the volume s my clean to overdrive control. Its perfect for me on every guitar i have or have had with maybe 3 exceptions i can think of, all humbucker guitars. Theres got to be a solution be it a certain pickup or whatever. Even if i can get part way there because i have already improved it at least 50% with upgrade. It's actually ok as is but it's not ideal for my taste. I'm not looking to make it sound like a fender or even a P90 LP. I'm just looking for a different sound when i roll of the volume to clean up.

 

[Mincer]

What is your normal signal chain?

 

[gimmieinfo]

Guitar>amp

 

[freefrog]

IME, most electric guitars have a very recognizable EQing spectrum, acoustically. Changing components won't change this basic character in most cases. That said, some mods can certainly improve the tonal "balance".

Examples:

-LP models in the price range of Epiphone's often have a stop bar made of zamac and studs/post/bridge/saddles made of "discussible" alloys. A milled aluminium stop bar with steel studs, for instance, might improve the situation by trimming the low mids and extending a bit the high range.

-Same thing on the other end of strings: changing the mass of tuners modifies the resonant frequency of the headstock. It can make the sound worse. it can leave it unchanged. Depends on the guitar. But it can also favor a clearer acoustic resonance.

-Les Paul, Explorers and similar instruments with the switch on the upper bout include a good length of cable going back and forth between pots and switch. Easily more than 1m / 3ft. Parasitic capacitance of this inner wiring can be EXTREMELY high: a German scientist has measured more than 1nF per meter in a cable coming from a LP and whose cotton insulation had been "contaminated" by the moisture of wood. 1nF is the value typically measured on 6m of guitar cable or more. And high parasitic capacitance gives a muddier sound to average pickups.
Asian factories often use low priced wire whose stray capacitance is not controlled at all / totally random. Rewiring a muddy LP with some MOGAMI 4 conductors cable should make it less muddy.

-Pickups... What guitars with rich low mids need are transducers with a high pitched resonant frequency and a narrow pointy resonant peak (a high "Q factor"). Unpotted HB's with A4 mags don't necessarily have such specs. I'd consider underwound and UNCOVERED pickups, with a low DCR / inductance, rather in the vein of T-Tops. Avoid the Gibson T-Type, it has wrong specs despite of its name. But a pair of NECK uncovered Duncan SH2's might fit the bill, especially once fitted with a pair of short magnets...

Yesterday, I've worked on a guitar with too much low mids. I've mounted a pair of T-Top alike pickups that I had "tuned" to enhance the specs evoked above (neck clocks @ 6.8k, bridge @ 7.3 and I've changed their 4 conductors wiring for shorter coax cables with a way lower capacitance). The rich low mids are still there acoustically but the axe now sounds a lot clearer once plugged, almost too bright with some settings.

FWIW.


Side note - Ironically, the worst tonal problem I've ever met with an Epi LP was... too much brightness. So much that the guitar didn't sound like a LP. When my friend luthier analyzed this instrument, we found that Epi (Samick plant) had used 9 chunk of sycamore (maple) to build the body and a fotoflame veneer on it, instead of the mahogany body and maple top mentioned in the catalog for this model... What I try to say is that Epiphone's are not always what they are meant to be (I've a Wilshire in my collection so I'm not a gear snob: I just testify about what I've noticed these last decades).

 

[gimmieinfo]

IME, most electric guitars have a very recognizable EQing spectrum, acoustically. Changing components won't change this basic character in most cases. That said, some mods can certainly improve the tonal "balance".
I am quite aware if that, but the fact in singe coil mode the issue is gone tells me it IS possible that a pickup could help. Like i think i said, after mods the issue is lessened a lot but i still want it better.

Examples:

-LP models in the price range of Epiphone's often have a stop bar made of zamac and studs/post/bridge/saddles made of "discussible" alloys. A milled aluminium stop bar with steel studs, for instance, might improve the situation by trimming the low mids and extending a bit the high range. I have already upgraded the hardware to steel faber bushings, aluminum gotoh bar, gotoh bridge and the studs and posts are stock because i didn't like the brass ones that came with the gotohs and the stock ones are steel which further the tone towards what i want.

-Same thing on the other end of strings: changing the mass of tuners modifies the resonant frequency of the headstock. It can make the sound worse. it can leave it unchanged. Depends on the guitar. But it can also favor a clearer acoustic resonance. It have vintage tulips that are very light. One of the reasons i went with the 50s model instead of the 60s model that uses heavy cast modern tuners which IMO lessen the open-ness and dynamics.

-Les Paul, Explorers and similar instruments with the switch on the upper bout include a good length of cable going back and forth between pots and switch. Easily more than 1m / 3ft. Parasitic capacitance of this inner wiring can be EXTREMELY high: a German scientist has measured more than 1nF per meter in a cable coming from a LP and whose cotton insulation had been "contaminated" by the moisture of wood. 1nF is the value typically measured on 6m of guitar cable or more. And high parasitic capacitance gives a muddier sound to average pickups.
Asian factories often use low priced wire whose stray capacitance is not controlled at all / totally random. Rewiring a muddy LP with some MOGAMI 4 conductors cable should make it less muddy. My cable is a 10 sommer with switchcraft ends that i make. Sommer is extremely high quality low cap cable that if i recall hen i chose it was lower cap than mogami that i used previously. I n the guitar cables are short because they just go to the switch since i modded it for a single overal volume like a fender and the rest of the pathway is quality single conductor. Even the center tapes for coi splitting i added single conductor from the pups to the volume.

-Pickups... What guitars with rich low mids need are transducers with a high pitched resonant frequency and a narrow pointy resonant peak (a high "Q factor"). Unpotted HB's with A4 mags don't necessarily have such specs. I'd consider underwound and UNCOVERED pickups, with a low DCR / inductance, rather in the vein of T-Tops. Avoid the Gibson T-Type, it has wrong specs despite of its name. But a pair of NECK uncovered Duncan SH2's might fit the bill, especially once fitted with a pair of short magnets... I tried mine uncovered and even tried A5 mags at the same time. No joy.

Yesterday, I've worked on a guitar with too much low mids. I've mounted a pair of T-Top alike pickups that I had "tuned" to enhance the specs evoked above (neck clocks @ 6.8k, bridge @ 7.3 and I've changed their 4 conductors wiring for shorter coax cables with a way lower capacitance). The rich low mids are still there acoustically but the axe now sounds a lot clearer once plugged, almost too bright with some settings.

FWIW.


Side note - Ironically, the worst tonal problem I've ever met with an Epi LP was... too much brightness. So much that the guitar didn't sound like a LP. When my friend luthier analyzed this instrument, we found that Epi (Samick plant) had used 9 chunk of sycamore (maple) to build the body and a fotoflame veneer on it, instead of the mahogany body and maple top mentioned in the catalog for this model... What I try to say is that Epiphone's are not always what they are meant to be (I've a Wilshire in my collection so I'm not a gear snob: I just testify about what I've noticed these last decades).This is a 2023 "inspired by gibson" model, and this line was completely revamped and uses proper woods including full maple caps on standards, ebony boards on customs and many improvements. They are worlds away from previous epiphone generations, nothing like them. My inspired by gibson LP special is maybe my fav guitar i have owned in 50 years of way more guitars than any hiuan can own. Any its a much better special than my last one which was gibsons highest end LP special they made at the time wothout going to custom shop model. My new 50s standard is IMO better then a lot of lower line gibsons easily.

So at this point you are probably thinking i'm BS'ing you, but i'm 70 and have been modding guitars since a time when the only aftermarket pickup was a dimarzio super D, and i routed a 72 deluxe and put those in it. Stupid, i know, but not till years later because that that time no one looked at vintage guitars as gold like we do today. Anyways, i tell you this not to blow my own horn.....i don't do or care about that but had to disclaimer it because forums tend to bring out people who see it as bragging. So i'm not BS'ing you about all i've done....i know most of this stuff from decades of working on guitars and only posted hoping maybe someone else has been where i am at the moment and found an answer even tho i know it;s unlikely. At this point it's a lot better and it's even possible next saturday (have a gig) i will find its good enough as is. We shall see. But even if i am happy with it for the most part, i still would need a new neck pup because this one is just total mud. Its lows overpower the hell out of the rest of the bandwidth and no height or pole adjustment helps a lot.

 

[alex1fly]

When i say "issue", theres nothing actually wrong, it's just an issue for me. I have searched ad nausium and read a ton of results and asked at several forums. And this ISSUE is just a product of me being a lifelong fender guy and not being used to the tone of a LP standard with humbuckers, and everything i have read has assured me this is just the way a LP sounds generally. It's a new epiphone 50s on which i have hardware upgrades that really helped but this issue is pickups, ad not because they are bad, just that FOR ME its got this issue i don't like but most HBs will sound like this because thats the LP sound. I even swapped a set of mojotone 59 clones that are low wind and unpotted with A4 and same thing It got brighter but the issue remains.

The issue is on 10 the pickups sound great with gain. I use classic rock degrees of gain and clean up with my treble bleed equipped volume pot. (it;s wired for single volume by the way....pups straight to switch, from switch to single 500k pot that reads 497k) When i roll down the volume the tone on the wound strings becomes dull as tho a EQ is being used and the treble has been sightly backed off and the 500hz slider bumped up. Just a dull thud. This was horrible when new but since i upgraded the hardware it's much better but still not satisfying Its not the tone pots, and they have been disconnected. The pot is a high end CTS. I also tried A5 bars in them and they got brighter but the low string issue still remained ad the overall tone wasn't as good so i replaced the stock A2's.

I have listened to lots of clips and as i said i have asked elsewhere and googled it a lot and it's become obvious theres nothing wrong, it's just a fender guy trying to come to terms with a gibson tone thats words different. But i also made the pickups splittable and that eliminates the issue. But it also loses too much of what i like with the volume on 10 for classic rock gain. So heres the question. Theres got to be a pickup that retains much of the humbucker LP tone but allows the wound strings to have a lot more chime and clarity on the wound strings when the volume is rolled back to edge of distortion close to clean levels. I know it's not my cord or amp or any of that because i have 5 other guitars that don't have this issue including a LP P90 special. Thoughts?

Sounds like something is wrong with your wiring. When you roll treble bleed volume down it shouldn’t get duller or thuddier. For me I’ve given up on troubleshooting wiring and just take my guitars in - they’re simply better at it than me - but you could probably also share some wiring photos here to see if something obvious pops up.

Also being a Fender guy I have to keep my have that thinner tone that comes with turning the volume knob down on my LP. So I hope you can figure it out and enjoy your LP.

Another option is to just get a predone wiring harness and use that. Any treble you lose by having tone pots is negligible in my experience and easily added back at the amp.

Another option is to use a good EQ before the amp. I can get pretty close to a Fender sound by scooping the heck out of the mids.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Lots of typos in my last post but it won't let me fix them with a error......"403 forbidden'". WTF?
EDIT: i see now.....won't let me because i am editing what i wrote within the quote. But then why did it let me post like that to begin with? Odd...

 

[gimmieinfo]

Sounds like something is wrong with your wiring. When you roll treble bleed volume down it shouldn’t get duller or thuddier. For me I’ve given up on troubleshooting wiring and just take my guitars in - they’re simply better at it than me - but you could probably also share some wiring photos here to see if something obvious pops up.

Also being a Fender guy I have to keep my have that thinner tone that comes with turning the volume knob down on my LP. So I hope you can figure it out and enjoy your LP.

Another option is to just get a predone wiring harness and use that. Any treble you lose by having tone pots is negligible in my experience and easily added back at the amp.

Another option is to use a good EQ before the amp. I can get pretty close to a Fender sound by scooping the heck out of the mids.

Nothing wrong with the wiring, trust me. Not to mention it was like this before i rewired it. been like this from new/stock and thru ll mods i've done. And like i said, it's NOT abnormal at all. It's just the way LPs generally sound. But like any guitar it can be changed to some degree.

 

[beaubrummels]

The only guitar I've owned that I could roll down to 3 on the volume for cleans and run it to 10 for distorted leads is my 1994 Les Paul Standard, which has bone stock wiring, modern wiring, with 498T/490R pickups. It's kind of the opposite of what people have been telling you: hot pickups with modern wiring, but I think that's why I had to roll it down to 3 to get to clean. But it's only bright if you run it into the right amp. Even my SG with the same configuration (498/490, modern wiring) didn't work like that, it stayed distorted at all levels.

I still think you'll need to look at unconventional pickups, like Lace Alumitones, or Duncan Parallel Axis, or maybe actives, to get what you're describing.

 

[freefrog]

My cable is a 10 sommer with switchcraft ends that i make. Sommer is extremely high quality low cap cable that if i recall hen i chose it was lower cap than mogami that i used previously. I n the guitar cables are short because they just go to the switch since i modded it for a single overal volume like a fender and the rest of the pathway is quality single conductor. Even the center tapes for coi splitting i added single conductor from the pups to the volume.​

I use Sommer LLX from guitar to amp too, and I know it's lower capacitance than Mogami since Sommer LLX has the lowest capacitance on the market, anyway. I've somewhere some pics with the capacitance of these cables as measured by our lab meters....

But that's not what I was talking about, as you know: I was evoking Mogami as a substitute to the kind of wiring usually used in LP guitars. If you've pulled it off, just ignore the related part of my post.

Now and to come back on topic: I've mentioned humbuckers with a high pitched and pointy resonant peak / high Q factor because Fender style single coils DO HAVE a high pitched and pointy resonant peak / high Q factor.

Among "standard" humbuckers, T-Tops and pickups with similar specs (underwound, poly insulated wire, like the SH2) do exhibit this feature. And if ever it's not pronounced enough, the use of shortened screw poles helps by diminishing the inductance + eddy currents and rising up the resonance even further. Swapping the cable of the pickup itself for a low capacitance one doesn't harm either. The only thing that can't be corrected is the width of the magnetic windows, inherent to full sized humbuckers ...

Now, do exactly what you want and be happy.

 

[gimmieinfo]

ps with similar specs (underwound, poly insulated wire, like the SH2) do exhibit this feature. And if ever it's not pronounced enough, the use of shortened screw poles helps by diminishing the inductance + eddy currents and rising up the resonance even further.

Do they still sound like a humbucker or do they lean too far away from that? Because i know there are pickups like those dimarzio EJ's that supposedly sound closer to a single coil but i don't want that. As to the screws, been thinking about clipping the ends of the neck pickup, not to change the middiy character so much but just because the neck is somewhat muddy. I say somewhat because while it WAS very muddy, i did something late last nite that seems to helped out in that respect AND overall but couldn't test it til just now. (8 am....neighbors) I tried what i saw in a you tube vid where the guy scrapes the edge of the carbon trace in a pot to raise the value. Raised it almost 50k and i really like the result. I ordered several 500k pots for it hoping to get one thats higher but all were well under 500k. By the way, i was wrong in the OP...it's not 497, it was 472k. So i raised it to 515k and that makes a substantial difference. Trying it a few minutes ago the neck on 3 had less mud. Strange really because i would think raising the resistance would do just the opposite or at lease cause me to have to lower it even more then 3. But i'l take it ! In any case at the moment it's sounding very good and i'm not sure i need to mess with it further aside from *maybe* getting a more open neck pickup eventually. The sum of everything i've done has taken it a long ways and that pot value being higher really seemed to just open up the tone in all respects.

 

[freefrog]

Do they still sound like a humbucker or do they lean too far away from that? Because i know there are pickups like those dimarzio EJ's that supposedly sound closer to a single coil but i don't want that.

The DiMarzio EJ is based on a Filter'Tron, if memory serves me. Its inductance is something like 2.3H and 1.8H (for B & N models), which is effectively on par with the inductivity of Fender single coils. T-Top's and PU's with similar specs have a beefier inductance and have been used in countless rock tracks, anyway. What they share with single coils is the pointy narrow resonance, making them tight if needed.

To illustrate my statement, I'll share below the frequency response of 2 neck HB's mounted in guitars with similar specs and played in chords direct to the board, through a 1M input.

Blue line = a modern Gibson 496R. All frequencies from the 82hz of a low E string to 800hz are promoted, sometimes of 9dB. Talk me about mud city.

Orange line = a Patent Sticker T-Top. It's tight. Even tighter than the stock neck single coil of a (real vintage) 1962 Strat that we've compared to it.

For the record, the neck PU in my LP number one has practically the same tight EQing and cleans up very well when I lower the volume. It's a P.A.F. clone built with NOS materials.

Now, such a frequency response doens't require vintage pickups nor even vintage materials : it just needs a high Q factor, that pickups like the SH2 exhibit.

BTW, higher resistance pots also make the resonant peak higher and narrower, rising artificially the Q factor.

FWIW. If higher resistance pots are effectively the solution, all my rambling above is useless anyway. ;-)

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Maybe I'm not adding much to the convo, but an issue I've personally found with Epiphones is that the bridge pickup is farther away from the bridge than onother more "historically accurate" LP's. That definitely changes how it's going to sound compared to a Gibson, even if it's just a couple of mm's, which I suspect might have something to do with your "issue".

I don't think it's so much of an issue, really. It's just the way things are. I have a similar "issue" with my Strat right now which has a HB in the bridge position that sounds so dull and blunt compared to my LP because on the Strat, the pickup is like almost a cm further away from the bridge itself than on the Gibson.

I'm sure that's not what's causing the issue, but it might be adding to it.

Maybe, you could try an asymmetrically wound HB. I'm not sure if the Mojotone clones are asymmetrical, but I bet moving the hotter coil to face the bridge would help. Kinda like how a 60's Burstbucker is. Or maybe try making a hybrid of your own like a WLH/'59 Hybrid where the screw coil comes from the WLH. Or to be brighter, even, a '59B/'59N hybrid.

Also, try stuffing some foam underneath the pickup to tilt it a bit so that the screw coil sits a bit highter up.

Or maybe try the DiMarzio EJ sigs. Although, that might really make your LP not really sound like a LP.