Reduce output options?

[The Dali]

Hi everyone--- I have a new project brewing for an Atari themed guitar. I have 2 humbuckers that use ceramic magnets and hex pole pieces. They are supposed to be B and N but realistically they are the same pickup... resistance is very close (16.1k vs 15.6k) so they sound very similar. Just wondering if there is any way to reduce the output from the neck humbucker or alter the tone in some way. I have the pickups already and would love to use them for the project... just looking at options.

(yes, I am looking at other pickup options too, but I have these on-hand so....)



Thanks!

 

[jeremy]

a mag swap to a3 would reduce output

 

[Chistopher]

Or if you want to do it for free you can lower the neck pickup away from the strings as well as experiment with the polepiece heights.

 

[Clint 55]

Wire the neck parallel.

 

[jeremy]

if its 4 cond, thats a good option

 

[dave74]

I agree with Clint,,,,,,,,,this time.

 

[Mincer]

Or just wire only 1 coil of the neck pickup.

 

[Securb]

Turn down the volume

In all seriousness, you might want to consider a different pot and cap value. It will not change the volume but the pickups will have different tones.

 

[Masta' C]

The suggestions above are solid.

You could also try "air"-ing the existing magnet, basically removing any metal spacers and placing a piece of plastic or wood in their place to keep the magnet from touching any of the hex poles. This will soften the magnet field and lower the inductance slightly, reducing the overall output.

 

[The Dali]

Thanks everyone - sorry for the delay in responding.

As luck would have it (and serendipity) I got my hands on a double white set of Invader pickups which would work perfectly with the theme (80's rock guitar with ATARI theme and Space Invader decals on the fretboard).

With that said, I love the idea of wiring in parallel for the neck on the set mentioned above and I may do that to see how that affects the tone of that set. Thanks!

 

[The Dali]

Fyi… the guitar in question

 

[GuitarStv]

Turn down the volume

In all seriousness, you might want to consider a different pot and cap value. It will not change the volume but the pickups will have different tones.

Turning down the volume with regular wiring sometimes kinda sucks because you lose all your high end. But if you install a treble bleed, then just turning down the volume can work very well indeed.