One thing I'm wondering if someone can explain...does the 59 bridge sound so bright in this particular guitar because of the scooped mids? I noticed that the 59s are significantly mid-scooped compared to the others. Would that be part of the issue? If that is the case, would the magnet swap help much, or would I be better off putting in something that has more mids? Or would the other mentioned fixes do it? Just wondering if the scoop plays a role here.
I don't know if I can explain and I hope I don't reply too much in this topic but here is my take:
-IME, Dots tend to be mid scooped acoustically. The frequency chart shared above should illustrate this idea.
-A5 mags typically tend to favor bass and treble because they are strongly gaussed. The "mid scoop" is a byproduct of their strong magnetic field.
-Some coils like those of the 59 tend to accentuate this effect because of tech specs that I won't dig here.
So, you have a "mid scooping" pickup in an acoustically mid scooped guitar, yes.
Now here are schematically the effects of various solutions evoked above:
1-Any magnet with a weaker magnetic field would put less focus on the high range & bass because it magnetizes the strings with less strenght. Other AlNi(Co) alloys than A5 also increase the inductance, shifting down the resonant peak of the pickups. All of this gives apparently less bass, less high & therefore more perceived mids. The weakest mag field and highest inductance would be obtained with a typical A3, then an A2, then an A4...A typical UOA5 has a different effect IME: basically, it slowers the attack and mellows the sound accordingly.
2-Lowering the tone pot, changing pots resistance or adding a resistor in parallel between hot and ground would flatten the resonant peak of your pickups and tame the brigtness, obviously.
3-Adding stray capacitance with a long cable or parallel cap would shift down the resonant peaks of your pickups towards the high mids instead of flattening it. Mounting a pickup with more inductance would have the same effect (hence the recommendation of a Duncan Custom by Clint55 somewhere above: "hot" pickups have a high inductance shifting down their resonance, exactly like added capacitance. The difference is that more inductance = more output if the mag field remains the same. Different mags don't reflect this rule because their mag field weakens while their inductive influence rises).
IOW, all these solutions are valid because they converge towards the same goal: obtaining a less insistant and/or less high pitched resonant peak from pickups... and compensating the acoustic mid scoop of a Dot.
They just require different strategies (regarding pickups height settings for instance: with solutions 2 & 3, it might be necessary to lower the pickups under the bass strings in order to tame the bass in the same way than high frequencies are softened).
FWIW : rambling from an old fart as an attempt to help. LOL.
Again, good luck in your quest...
