LP standard humbucker tone issue

[gimmieinfo]

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. ;-)

Higher resistance wasn't the solution, it was just one small improvement among many i have done and may have been the final one that took it over the fence. I will see saturday, but at the moment it's not bad at all. I just spent another bit playing it and i was really pleased with this LP for the first time. But that neck could still be a bit chimier so i will see how it fares saturday and if the neck isn't 100% there i'll look at the jazz. How would that compare to the 59 neck? They similar designs aren't they?

 

[freefrog]

Higher resistance wasn't the solution, it was just one small improvement among many i have done and may have been the final one that took it over the fence. I will see saturday, but at the moment it's not bad at all. I just spent another bit playing it and i was really pleased with this LP for the first time. But that neck could still be a bit chimier so i will see how it fares saturday and if the neck isn't 100% there i'll look at the jazz. How would that compare to the 59 neck? They similar designs aren't they?

The Jazz and 59 are not quite the same to me. A neck SH1 of 7.5k has an inductance of 4.27H, if memory serves me. It's quite higher than the 3.75H of a Jazz (for 7.3k). The Jazz has also a higher Q factor than the 59 wound with PE insulated wire... IOW and not surprisingly, 59 VS Jazz = the same kind of difference than between P.A.F.'s and T-Top's.
But I'd still swap the long A5 of a Jazz for a short RC A5 (not too gaussed): it should make it tighter, closer to a T-Top. I've recently created a topic to share my findings about that:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...-to-gibson-patent-sticker-t-top’s#post6255977

 

[gimmieinfo]

Well, u convinced me that if i find i wanna change the neck i'll try the jazz. And if i do i'll hit you up for a link to the magnet you suggest. Thanks.

 

[freefrog]

I'll have to disagree with you about steel bushings and aluminum stop tail doing anything. My guitars all come with steel tailpiece bushings & studs and all have had their zinc tailpieces replaced with Faber aluminum pieces. It didn't make any noticeable difference. I think you're getting into confirmation bias area here. You want things to change specifically before ever installing the parts and that's exactly what you think you hear once it's done.

Let's agree to disagree, so.

I never share any info that I haven't checked personally and I avoid confirmation bias like plague. The tonal effect of each mod done here is always checked thx to a recording direct to the board (with the guitar being played by someone else than the author of the mods, if possible).

I've related screenshots somewhere. I won't necessarily share that stuff immediatly since my archives contain thousands of similar pics. But the difference that I've evoked was ABSOLUTELY clear to us on a Les Paul (a Gibson one).

Now, what is absolutely true IME is that a same mod can have vastly different effects on different guitars, going from a clear improvement to nothing. Depends on a synergy between resonances IMO and IME. This idea was in the post that you quote, but about tuners...

 

[Wound_Up]

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).

I'll have to disagree with you about steel bushings and aluminum stop tail doing anything. My guitars all come with steel tailpiece bushings & studs and all have had their zinc tailpieces replaced with Faber aluminum pieces. It didn't make any noticeable difference. I think you're getting into confirmation bias area here. You want things to change specifically before ever installing the parts and that's exactly what you think you hear once it's done. 4 guitars and there was no change in low/mids or anywhere else on any of them.

I don't understand why Epi doesn't just used steel. Or why they don't set up their guitars properly before they're shipped. The guitars I buy all come with steel bushings and fully set up and they aren't $899 Inspired By Gibson Epiphones. In fact, I didn't pay over $300 for any of them. Nor did I spend time or money having them made playable once they arrived. They were all phenomenal right out of the box and needed zero adjustments and zero fret work.

I doubt that $900 IBG Epiphone is even close to being 3x better than them, either. Not when they come set up better than most guitars available today and are made with the proper materials and made the proper way. Mahogany body & set neck. 11/16"(18-19mm) thick solid maple cap. Carved top. Bound body and neck. All the usual LP appointments. I guess since I don't care what the headstock looks like, it makes it very easy for me to buy guitars without an open book headstock.

I don't care what's on it or what it looks like as long as it's a quality instrument. These are quality instruments so i don't mind getting the best guitar for my money. If I don't have to pay $600 to get the guitar I want, then I won't pay it. Thank God I'm not a headstock snob. That's how I found these to begin with. I wanted an Epi Les Paul but they wanted twice what I paid for mine for essentially the same guitar. Only I would have paid another $300 for the Les Paul name. No thanks. It's not worth that to me.

 

[gimmieinfo]

I'll have to disagree with you about steel bushings and aluminum stop tail doing anything. My guitars all come with steel tailpiece bushings & studs and all have had their zinc tailpieces replaced with Faber aluminum pieces. It didn't make any noticeable difference. I think you're getting into confirmation bias area here. You want things to change specifically before ever installing the parts and that's exactly what you think you hear once it's done. 4 guitars and there was no change in low/mids or anywhere else on any of them.

I don't understand why Epi doesn't just used steel. Or why they don't set up their guitars properly before they're shipped. The guitars I buy all come with steel bushings and fully set up and they aren't $899 Inspired By Gibson Epiphones. In fact, I didn't pay over $300 for any of them. Nor did I spend time or money having them made playable once they arrived. They were all phenomenal right out of the box and needed zero adjustments and zero fret work.

Ok, i'm gonna put this as nicely as i can because i really don't want t start a heated debate even tho it probaby will because theres no way to say some things in text without sounding that way. *sigh*. But this confirmation bias thing is a real sore spot with me because not everyone hears the same and you may not hear things clearly like he does or like i do. Heres a little scenario i have been thru so many times over the years that puts that notion to rest, at least for those with sensitive ears which after a amount of modding over the course of 50 years thats insane has allowed me to hear things i couldn't have even just 20 years ago. here goes. I put steel bushings in my epiphone's bridge position. It made a nice improvement that i very clearly noted. I was so happy with that i put a set at the stop bar a week later. I sadly heard no change while expecting it would make the guitar even more clear sounding and was anxious to receive and install them . How does confirmation bias fit into that story? And like i said, i have this kind of thing happen on a regular basis. But i can tell you why that happened.....it's simple, my ears are sensitive to even subtle things from 50 years of extensive modding and they easily trump any expectations i may have. I could write a book the size of a now defunct phone book on this subject because I've been thru it a gazillin times, and with his apparent knowledge i assume freefrog likely has too. But i will just leave it at this because i know form 20 years of internet forums and not one person ever conceding to even the possibility that they might be wrong, that further debate is futile. Maybe freefrog will take it fro here but i'm done with the subject. It's just frustrating when i am 100% sure of what i hear when i say i am, and if it IS too subtle even for me i will tell you. This particular set of mods is not subtle to me and i know what i hear. Put it this way....i almost sent the guitar back when i frst got it but decided to try and get it to sound like i hoped instead. It worked. Carry on.....

 

[marcello252]

what type of treble bleed are you using? there are at least three types, one with a capacitor only, one with a resistor paralleled with the cap and one with a resistor in series of the cap, their functioning is different

 

[freefrog]

I don't understand why Epi doesn't just used steel. Or why they don't set up their guitars properly before they're shipped. The guitars I buy all come with steel bushings and fully set up and they aren't $899 Inspired By Gibson Epiphones. In fact, I didn't pay over $300 for any of them. Nor did I spend time or money having them made playable once they arrived. They were all phenomenal right out of the box and needed zero adjustments and zero fret work.

[...]

I don't care what's on it or what it looks like as long as it's a quality instrument. These are quality instruments so i don't mind getting the best guitar for my money. If I don't have to pay $600 to get the guitar I want, then I won't pay it. Thank God I'm not a headstock snob. That's how I found these to begin with. I wanted an Epi Les Paul but they wanted twice what I paid for mine for essentially the same guitar. Only I would have paid another $300 for the Les Paul name. No thanks. It's not worth that to me.

I don't understand why my answer to your post 25 above has ended as the post 24... I guess you were editing your reply and it did desorganize the order of posts (?)...

Anyway: IMHO, when it comes to Gibson copies, Epiphone walks on a fine line between the necessity to sell satisfying instruments and the other necessity to make them "not to good" in order to avoid any frontal competition with Gibson... I think it might explain many design decisions, forcing users to "upgrade" by themselves guitars which are "almost there" but not quite.
A good example of that is the association of good transducers (some Epi models being as good as Gibson equivalents) with bad covers (like some of those mounted by Epi while those sold by Gibson are always good). Who will/would think to pull off the covers on pickups ? Not every player, obviously. And it makes a noticeable difference in tone between an Epi LP VS a Gibby LP, able to feed the desire to buy a more expensive instrument...

Now and to reply to your last paragraph: I've expensive guitars, I've cheap ones. I play ALL of them indifferently and always find a clear satisfaction to make cheap axes as nice to hear n' play as costly ones. ;-)

Gimmeinfo, I hope I don't pollute your thread. What you said in post 26 about mods making differences or not is close to what I was trying to explain myself just before.

 

[gimmieinfo]

I don't understand why my answer to your post 25 above has ended as the post 24... I guess you were editing your reply and it did desorganize the order of posts (?)...

Anyway: IMHO, when it comes to Gibson copies, Epiphone walks on a fine line between the necessity to sell satisfying instruments and the other necessity to make them "not to good" in order to avoid any frontal competition with Gibson... I think it might explain many design decisions, forcing users to "upgrade" by themselves guitars which are "almost there" but not quite.
A good example of that is the association of good transducers (some Epi models being as good as Gibson equivalents) with bad covers (like some of those mounted by Epi while those sold by Gibson are always good). Who will/would think to pull off the covers on pickups ? Not every player, obviously. And it makes a noticeable difference in tone between an Epi LP VS a Gibby LP, able to feed the desire to buy a more expensive instrument...

Now and to reply to your last paragraph: I've expensive guitars, I've cheap ones. I play ALL of them indifferently and always find a clear satisfaction to make cheap axes as nice to hear n' play as costly ones. ;-)

Gimmeinfo, I hope I don't pollute your thread. What you said in post 26 about mods making differences or not is close to what I was trying to explain myself just before.

agree, or at least i believe that gibson and fender too both use certain techniques in order to keep their lower brands like epi and squier from competeing with their upper lines. But my experience has shown me that pretty much every time it's due to hardware or pickups or both, but usually hardware. I also think that once you identify the culprit(s) that is the bottlneck it's usually just a matter of cheap upgrades to bring them to a point they CAN compete with their gibson counterparts. Maybe not "counterparts" as in epi 50s vs gibson 50s, tho it;s certainly a possibility if not a 50/50 proposition. Because the wood is the final determining factor once the hardware is equal, and a maple cap with a flame veneer over it isn't going to take second fiddle to a one piece cap just because theres a paper thin veneer over the full thickness cap. It will be a matter of which one was more blessed by mother nature, something tap toning is never going to be 100% accurate at, not even close. Or a scarf joint....probably the best sounding acoustic i've owned has a scarf joint, and i've owned some nice vintage martins and gibsons. Even more, they CAN at times be as good without any mods. Witness my $370 (got a deal) 2020 Inspired by gibson LP P90 special. In STOCK form (even the pups are great) It beats my previous gibson in playability and tone to the point it's become my #1 for gigs and the gibson which was their highest end special aside from custom shop sat in it;s case most of the time. Even the andertons video where they compared it with the exact same model from gibson showed danish pete swooning over the epi and barely stopping short of saying it's as good. And by the way, full maple caps, ebony boards on the customs....these are what epi's 2020+ Inspired by gibson like are made of. They are a big step above previous epis which i found cheap i all respects.

Squier classic vibes were the same way. (at least before they moved them to indonesia) A few upgrade and you had a strat or tele that could compete with fender. For me its about design and wood species, and if they get that right, the botteneck is hardware and/or pickups and many lines can compete once you identify and change those. And the cost is s little compared to the cost of buying the USA version that it;s still 1/2-1/4 the price. True the epi standards have laurel boards, but they are using some very nice laurel tat in many cases is impossible to tell from rosewood and doesn't have a different sound either. Anyways, point is the current IBG epi line is as you suggested held back from competing purposefully IMO, but IMO not due to poor construction or wood, just cheap and simple to mod things like i did. Of course for those afraid to even adjust a truss rod then it becomes a very different story, as doing the work to bring them u to snuff by paying for the labor is going to make paying a lot more for a gibson much less of an obstacle. In any case, mine is now sounding and playing very nice and having rehearsed with it once before i did a few of the final mods, i can say that it should now be great in a band context now and i think i may be good even with the neck pup. But i swear nothing will ever take the place of my $370 epi P90 special. That thing is unreal, and most of those who get one are blown away. Might be my fav guitar to date, and we're talking 50+ years of uncountable guitars.

 

[freefrog]

I remember having bought one of the very first Squier Strats for someone else. Harder to play than Fender equivalents but still a "real" strat with that bell tone... I suspect Squier to have downsized intentionally the quality of these guitars because they harmed Fender sales...

I've upgraded my share of Squier models for other people. Some had a "basis" almost as good as MIA Fender's, some others were less gorgeous, with sometimes a thick finish hiding multiple and undefined body woods (too soft in some cases to hold the screws of a tremolo, which is rather annoying).

Epiphone... I love my Epi Wilshire. So much that I've recommended it to my brother who loved it too. I didn't like an Epi "Classic" that I had in the 90's, nor an ES335 briefly owned, nor an Epi Nighthawk (this one has a thick neck, a thick finish and a dull tone... really not inspiring to me). I've ordered once a ltd edition Sheraton with mini-hum's: it had a "stress crack" at the headstock. I've refused to buy it.

IOW, my experience is that quality varies widely, not according to the brand but according to the factory where an instrument was built. Indonesian Epi's are good IME. Those made in China seem way less consistent and therefore way more discussible (I won't generalize since I've a Chinese short scale Strat with the "Fender" name on the headstock and which is a really good guitar bought at a bargain price... but quality seems to me really random with other MIC guitars).

Non limitative list. YMMV.

 

[gimmieinfo]

I remember having bought one of the very first Squier Strats for someone else. Harder to play than Fender equivalents but still a "real" strat with that bell tone... I suspect Squier to have downsized intentionally the quality of these guitars because they harmed Fender sales...

I've upgraded my share of Squier models for other people. Some had a "basis" almost as good as MIA Fender's, some others were less gorgeous, with sometimes a thick finish hiding multiple and undefined body woods (too soft in some cases to hold the screws of a tremolo, which is rather annoying).

Epiphone... I love my Epi Wilshire. So much that I've recommended it to my brother who loved it too. I didn't like an Epi "Classic" that I had in the 90's, nor an ES335 briefly owned, nor an Epi Nighthawk (this one has a thick neck, a thick finish and a dull tone... really not inspiring to me). I've ordered once a ltd edition Sheraton with mini-hum's: it had a "stress crack" at the headstock. I've refused to buy it.

IOW, my experience is that quality varies widely, not according to the brand but according to the factory where an instrument was built. Indonesian Epi's are good IME. Those made in China seem way less consistent and therefore way more discussible (I won't generalize since I've a Chinese short scale Strat with the "Fender" name on the headstock and which is a really good guitar bought at a bargain price... but quality seems to me really random with other MIC guitars).

Non limitative list. YMMV.

I had a nighthawk too. Horrible tone. I even disassembled a regular HB and screwed it to the stock NH's slanted HB plate and still no joy. No matter what i did, no matter what treble bleed circuit, turning it down yielded total lifeless mud. Horrible single coils too. As to squiers, the only ones i liked were the squier chinese ones that used proper woods. I would swap out the trems and they were great, but i could never get used to the uber thin necks which i would wager were done to hold them back. Hardware can be changed, but if you're gonna change the neck too u may as well just get a different strat or tele. Best one i had was the pine body 50s tele which aside from the thin neck was a absolute gem in every way, even compared to USA RI's. But again the thin neck finally had e selling it or i'd still have it. One of the most versitile teles i've has of any level and build quality was shockingly good.

 

[alex1fly]

Not to be argumentative but there are so many things wrong with this thread. Starting with OP's Les Paul having 3 out of 4 pots removed and ending with OP's claim that "forum posters will never admit they're wrong".

Hope OP finds a solution but man this is one of the weirder threads I've seen in a good while.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Not to be argumentative but there are so many things wrong with this thread. Starting with OP's Les Paul having 3 out of 4 pots removed and ending with OP's claim that "forum posters will never admit they're wrong".

Hope OP finds a solution but man this is one of the weirder threads I've seen in a good while.

You need to realize that what i am saying is not that they are wrong about a given mod per say, but that they will not even admit that just because they don't hear it doesn't mean i don't. They tend to suggest that because they don't It's ME that is wrong and that i am experiencing placebo effect or confirmation bias. Thats simply 100% wrong and I should know how i perceive things better the they know how i percieve things. I don't see how thats weird. What seems weird to me is someone telling a person that dont know from adam what is happening with their ears ! That my friend is whats weird. And as for 3 of 4 pots missing.why is that strange? First, i used 2 of them to split the humbuckers and thats useful to ME. There are gibson models that have one volume and as far as tones, a lot of people don't like tone controls and the fact is theres not a tone in this guitar thats harsh and bright to where i would even need one. I use the splits regularly. Hows that weird? Is gibson weird for making some modelswith one volume? Because you don't find it useful? You aren't me. It appears to me that u are just looking for reasons to call me out because you don't like what i've said, but you i dont think you picked anything thats wrong with what i've said or weird. Or maybe u just skimmed my posts to quickly to get it.

 

[donaldr]

Instead if playing with your volume pot, have you tried a active volume pedal?

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I'll have to disagree with you about steel bushings and aluminum stop tail doing anything. My guitars all come with steel tailpiece bushings & studs and all have had their zinc tailpieces replaced with Faber aluminum pieces. It didn't make any noticeable difference. I think you're getting into confirmation bias area here. You want things to change specifically before ever installing the parts and that's exactly what you think you hear once it's done. 4 guitars and there was no change in low/mids or anywhere else on any of them.

I don't understand why Epi doesn't just used steel. Or why they don't set up their guitars properly before they're shipped. The guitars I buy all come with steel bushings and fully set up and they aren't $899 Inspired By Gibson Epiphones. In fact, I didn't pay over $300 for any of them. Nor did I spend time or money having them made playable once they arrived. They were all phenomenal right out of the box and needed zero adjustments and zero fret work.

I doubt that $900 IBG Epiphone is even close to being 3x better than them, either. Not when they come set up better than most guitars available today and are made with the proper materials and made the proper way. Mahogany body & set neck. 11/16"(18-19mm) thick solid maple cap. Carved top. Bound body and neck. All the usual LP appointments. I guess since I don't care what the headstock looks like, it makes it very easy for me to buy guitars without an open book headstock.

I don't care what's on it or what it looks like as long as it's a quality instrument. These are quality instruments so i don't mind getting the best guitar for my money. If I don't have to pay $600 to get the guitar I want, then I won't pay it. Thank God I'm not a headstock snob. That's how I found these to begin with. I wanted an Epi Les Paul but they wanted twice what I paid for mine for essentially the same guitar. Only I would have paid another $300 for the Les Paul name. No thanks. It's not worth that to me.

The tailpiece makes less of a difference, but it does make a slight difference IME. I like the Gotoh Aluminum tailpiece as it's the lightest I've tried, and hence, the most zingy.

It's the bridge that makes a MASSIVE difference, IMO. IME, as much if not more than swapping magnets on a pickup. I've had three on my Gibson: Stock API Aluminum body with Steel studs and I suspect Zinc saddles, Schaller STM with Zinc Body and Brass roller saddles, and Graphtech all Resomax. My favorite is the stock Gibbo, TBH. It's the most zing-y, which I really like because the guitar itself is pretty fat to begin with.

The stock bridge on Epis BLOWS. It's honestly one of the worst if not the worst Tune-O I've tried. I had an Epiphone Les Paul Custom that I swapped a Graphtech Resomax into and night-and-day difference.

A good guitar is a good guitar, though. Plenty of LP copies sound as good if not better than Gibsons even with stock cheapie Zinc stuff. Getting good hardware with good metals makes them go that extra 1%, though. Law of diminishing returns, I guess. A Gibson CS is not really 10 times better than an Epi LP either.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

+1 for a simple plain-cap treble bleed like the 180pF used on PRSs. It helps get you a more singlecoily tone as the volume rolls back.
According to those with a deeper understanding of these things than me, it does this by shifting the resonant peak of the pickups.

~

As mentioned already, wood makes a big difference in the tone of a guitar - not just the species, but also the particular individual pieces.
IME that's especially true for the pieces of wood in a neck. In bolt-on guitars, neck swaps often transfer a lot of tone character too.

In Gibsons, LPs can span quite a broad range in their inherent natural tone.
The classic "typical LP sound" is the middle average, but there are extreme examples - all made with the same types of wood.

One of my LPs was thin sounding and painfully bright with its stock Burstbuckers and even with an AT-1 at the bridge it's not exactly fat.
An outlier for sure, but it showed me how wide the disparity can be sometimes, across the spectrum of LP voicings.
And that's in Gibsons with real mahogany - the range of natural voicings could be even wider with import guitars.

This is partly because there are a number of Asian species being called 'mahogany' for marketing purposes.
Import builds mostly use woods like lauan or sapele, which despite having been labeled 'Asian mahogany' are not mahogany at all.
I think it's also probable that the wood for cheaper guitars is not being selected as carefully, perhaps not dried as well either.

It's possible the OP simply has an LP that's unusually dark and thuddy. Sometimes it's in the wood.

One more idea: Faber offers a saddle set where the plain strings have plated brass but the wound ones get titanium.
This gives a little more of a piano tone on the low strings I think. I used those on one guitar, and it made a difference... On that one guitar.

 

[gimmieinfo]

Well i'll be damned...i got it ! Some here said use 50s wiring and i have tried that before and it did nothing but negative things. Well, i now realize thats because I tried it on fenders. Heres what i didn't realize about it. Someone explained it to me elsewhere and he's the only person i ever heard describe it this way which is the only reason i tried it. He said when you roll the volume down with 50s wiring it removes mids, and that's exactly whats been the problem. I never figured i could scoop the tone with 50s wiring but i hooked up a tone control (previously not using tones) and thats what t did. It didn't work when i first tried it with a .047uf. But i tried a .022 and it worked a bit better but not great. Finally i went in the same direction to a .01 and that did the trick. I still have the treble bleed because without it it didn't work near as well. What i found as i was told is that turning the tone down actually cleans it up/scoops it even more, and he was right. And the great thing about the fact the .01uf turned out to work best is with the tone on 7 where it sounds great when the volume is lowered for cleans, it doesn't have any notable effect on the tone when the volume is on 10. So i can use the tone to adjust how much scoop and brightness i want when i clean up and leave it there without dulling the tone full up like a normal tone would do. I still don't get AS clean as i would like, but worlds better When i tried it on fenders no wonder i didn't like it....the last thing a fender needs is less mids when you roll f the volume to clean up ! Of course it's all very tweakable so you could probably make it work well there to by choosing the right cap value. Also, i hated the taper before which had me having to turn the knob way down to 3 or 4 to get where i usually am at 7, and i ride the volume a lot so that was reay troublesome to get where i want w/o missing a note. Thats a big one for me, it's just right now.

I cant tell you how many times i have read about 50s wiring but no on ever says anything about it scooping the tone ! Finally someone mentioned it and knowing a big pert of the problem with this LP is it's a heavy low mid guitar so i knew thats just what it needed. Had he just said try 50s wiring i never would have because as i said, it never helped in any way on strats. Treble bleeds do what i want on those. But wow, it's a whole different guitars and sounds fantastic now. Cap value is VERY important tho. It can go from "screw this" to "wow".

 

[freefrog]

Someone explained it to me elsewhere and he's the only person i ever heard describe it this way which is the only reason i tried it. He said when you roll the volume down with 50s wiring it removes mids, and that's exactly whats been the problem.

I'd avoid any generalization about that... The influence of 50s wiring largely changes according to the capacitive loads (plural) involved: the load of the cable from guitar to amp BUT ALSO the stray capacitance of the pickup itself + its own cable.
If the pickup + its cable have a low capacitance, the resonant peak disappears when the volume is lowered. The tone can certainly appear as lacking of high mids in this case.
When the pickup + its cable have a high inner capacitance, the resonant peak remains once the volume lowered and some people feel the sound as too bright.
In the second situation, using a cable with a higher capacitance from guitar to amp can be a good idea.

The stray capacitance of a pickup + cable can be measured with a lab meter, at frequencies above the resonant peak - 10khz being a good choice for most transducers.

FWIW.

Glad you found a solution anyway.

 

[gimmieinfo]

I'd avoid any generalization about that... The influence of 50s wiring largely changes according to the capacitive loads (plural) involved: the load of the cable from guitar to amp BUT ALSO the stray capacitance of the pickup itself + its own cable.
If the pickup + its cable have a low capacitance, the resonant peak disappears when the volume is lowered. The tone can certainly appear as lacking of high mids in this case.
When the pickup + its cable have a high inner capacitance, the resonant peak remains once the volume lowered and some people feel the sound as too bright.
In the second situation, using a cable with a higher capacitance from guitar to amp can be a good idea.

The stray capacitance of a pickup + cable can be measured with a lab meter, at frequencies above the resonant peak - 10khz being a good choice for most transducers.

FWIW.

Glad you found a solution anyway.

Well, maybe i'm not accurately describing what happens, but before when i lowered the volume it's sounded like someone jacked up 500hz way up (just a guess at the frquency) and lowered 3k. Just a muffled sound that never sounded clean. Now it sounds like 500hz is flat or even cut ans the highs are still there. Before it seems like the highs passed by the treble bleed were not really happening and i believe thats because that 500hz peak was drowning the top end out. It was frustrating and hard to fix and i dont think i could have w/o the 50s wiring. And you're right, cap values are paramount and when using a treble bleed along with it means theres even more adjustment possible, so i can see how this could be a major undertaking of messing with cap values and maybe adding a resistor to the the bleed cap if necassary. I think the possibilities of fine tuning it when using a bleed ca along with it are endless and i will no doubt be messing with it further if it isn't perfect.

I've seen a lot of posts from people all over the web with the same issue while researching this so i think it's a much underutilized mod. I imagine thats because people try it and if the tone cap isn't the right value for this purpose or they don't also use a bleed they might not get the results and give up. And also because the real benefit is on LPs or other gibsons or PRS, anything that cleans up to mud. Fender are easily tuned with just a bleed circuit.

 

[freefrog]

Well, maybe i'm not accurately describing what happens, but before when i lowered the volume it's sounded like someone jacked up 500hz way up (just a guess at the frquency) and lowered 3k. Just a muffled sound that never sounded clean. Now it sounds like 500hz is flat or even cut ans the highs are still there. Before it seems like the highs passed by the treble bleed were not really happening and i believe thats because that 500hz peak was drowning the top end out. It was frustrating and hard to fix and i dont think i could have w/o the 50s wiring.

I had understood what you've explained.

My previous message was an (apparently clumsy) attempt to sum up the physical principles at work in this case : your pickups and their own cables have apparently a low parasitic capacitance. So, when you lower your volume, it flattens the resonant peak of your pickups. As this resonant peak is basically located in the high frequencies, the tone is duller.

If your pickups and their own cables had a higher parasitic capacitance, the resonant peak would still be there once the volume lowered. The sound would stay bright.

IOW, 50's wiring has a variable effect according to the electrical properties of the pickups themselves + their cables. It's annoyingly complex and it probably makes my posts boring but that's how physics affects our favorite toys, hence my attempts to share about that.

Below is a graphic simulation of what I meant. Upper red lines = response of a pickup with its 500k volume control full up. Black lines = the same pickup with its volume lowered (a few hours ago, I've shared the same graph on another site but for opposite reasons: a member was complaining about his tone as being too bright once the volume lowered with 50's wiring, which means that his pickups have probably a high parasitic capacitance)...