Please help me with my Les Paul

[buellracer]

Hey everybody, I'm new here and I've got a question that has me befuddled. I have a 2001 Gibson Les Paul gothic, ever since I've had it the neck pickup 490r has sounded really dark (even compared to other les pauls with a 490r) and is pure mud in the neck when overdriven. The 490t in the bridge was fine. Now last week I bought a set of SD seth lovers for it and installed them. When I did this I swapped the volume and tone pots between the bridge and neck pickups. I LOVE the seth pickup in the bridge! (which I guess proves it wasn't the pots since I swapped them from the neck to the bridge) But the neck still sounds kind of muffled (even after I installed the new seth in the neck and swapped the pots for it) it sounds like the tone when it's on 10 is about on 6-7 or so. About the only thing I haven't checked is the wire that runs from the switch to the pot for the neck pickup. Could this be whats degrading my signal. Would it really wake this thing up to install all 500K pots (it has stock 300K and 500K)? Sorry for being so long winded but I'm really stuck and need some help :smack: . And one more thing the amps, just in case it helps I play through a Gibson Ga-5 les paul jr. and through a fender hot rod deluxe.
thanks in advance for any help.

and by the way, the seth bridge is the ULTIMATE rock pickup.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Please help me with my Les Paul

If you've got a volt/ohm meter, or can borrow one, put a little cable in your guitar's jack, then test the tip and sleeve.....on the bridge pickup and neck pickup. The bridge should read about 8.2 and the neck 7.3. If the wire or pot is bad, those readings will be way off. If there's nothing wrong with the pickups or wiring, I'll assume that the gothic's body is a very dark toned one, making the neck pretty murky. You may be best off with a Pearly Gates or Jazz neck, since those are brighter.

 

[proxy]

Re: Please help me with my Les Paul

Might seem like obvious question, but how is the neck pickup height? Sometimes you just gotta find the sweet spot.

 

[buellracer]

Re: Please help me with my Les Paul

I tried with my cheap multimeter from wal-mart, and my bridge read right below 9 and the neck read right below 8 but the middle read around 4.6 most of the time (it jumped around from 4.6 to 6) is that normal? Other than that I usually play with a pretty light touch I think (I was originally taught jazz) and my gothic with the satin finish and all is really rather bright acoustically. As for pickup height my neck is pretty much dead even with the ring, bridge of coursed sticks up more (somewhere around 1/4 to 3/8 inch). The bridge sounds fine, don't know why the neck wants to act up so badly.
I will change all the pots out tomorrow for 500ks all around and see how that sounds, I'll keep yall posted.
The thing that gets me is I play my dad's (same year) studio (has the same pickups stock as mine had, except covers) and with me playing it through my amps his neck pickup sounds brighter. I'm not really looking for overly bright like my strat, I would be fine with carlos santana out of the neck, but mine is so muddy, I'll try lowering it more too.

Thank yall for the help