pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

E

eddie nash

New member
hello,

I've got a new Carvin DC127 w/ 25" scale, maple neck-thru alder wings, ebony fretboard, and Original Floyd vibrato. this guitar is bright....and thin sounding. no girth or chunk.

what would be a good pair of humbuckers to help thicken her up, like Nadine Jansen? something good for shred & 80's thrash.

I was thinking....

Bridge / Neck

PATB-2 / PATB-1n

Blackouts set

DMZ Super 3 / PAF Pro

DMZ Tone Zone / Air Norton

BKP Holy Diver set

any opinions....suggestions?
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

Crazy8 / PATB-1n

because PATB2 is not that full sounding
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

hamerfan said:
Crazy8 / PATB-1n
Click to expand...

+1. Your wood is the culprit and an A8 on the bridge, in any PU, is a good idea. If the neck PU you choose is too bright, try an A4 in it. Basically get a set that makes sense for your tone goals, and if they're not quite what you want due to your wood, don't sell them, try a few magnet swaps first, and odds are you'll get what you want.
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

Something PATB for sure is the only good idea. Its a great idea actually.


And those saying go for a Crazy 8, I doubt this poster knows what it is and, chances are they dont want to spend $160 on a Custom shop piece. Plus, I found the Crazy 8 to be good in warm or darker axes. I dont know if it will work that well in this situation??

PATB-1 and Patb-1N.

PATB's are made for your exact situation!
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

Bridge: Custom Custom
Neck: Custom

I have this combo in one of my guitars (The I also tried a Custom8 in the bridge instead, but went back to the CC) and it is FAT, especially the neck position, but not muddy.

-Austin
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

You could also consider dropping the value of your volume pots to thicken the sound a bit. This can be done by soldering a resistor across the outer two lugs, if you have 500k pots, try soldering a 750k resistor in there. I view this as more of a fine tuning option, with the major change coming from magnet or pup swaps.
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

There are two things at work here. The first is the EQ of the guitar. That could be easily tailored with a warm sounding pickup, generally understood to be a high output overwound pickup that dampens the treble frequencies. 250k pots if necessary to smooth out the top end peakiness. While I'm not against that for this guitar, the other issue is how the note attacks, swells, and decays. That guitar is probably very "plinky" with a keyboard-like sustain, not much swell. That's where the PATB's can be helpful. They will get you the most "life" out of the string physically. If your goal is just to get the tone thick and smooth, then the Tone Zone/Air Norton combo is your best choice. That will thicken the sound, adding in low end "woof". The PATB's will have a little more crispness on the top end along with the sweet attack and sustain.

If it were my guitar I would probably go WITH the sound of the guitar, putting in something like a Custom 5/Jazz combo, and just play it for the razor sharp attack. Or a Dimarzio Super Distortion/Super 2 combo is stellar in a guitar like that, because it turns it into an attack machine. But I have other guitars for other purposes.

Perhaps the other thing worth mentioning is the P-Rails set (maybe with the Triple Shot) The HB tone is very thick and full, but still with good clarity on the top end. The P90's add that bubbly midrange that your guitar isn't producing naturally. So even if you didn't split them, they could be a great HB sound for that guitar. If you did split them to the P90, you'd have all that dynamic midrange to fatten up the single coil sounds. The Rails would be a little thin and cutting. Finally parallel HB would probably be great in the neck position.
 
Re: pups to thicken up thin sounding guitar

I love the PATB-1n/PATB-3 combo that I have in my Carvin DC127-T. Mines all maple with an ebony fretboard. That set makes my DC127 sound eerily close to a Gibson solidbody.
 
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