Thin sounding

tcarnes68

New member
I have used SD pickups of various models forever. I just bought a new Epiphone Les Paul standard pro with vintage pickups and push pull tap. I bought a new pearly gates bridge PU as my buddy has one in his Real Les Paul andit sounds great. It sounds pretty thin in my EPI. I have the pots that have the plug and play plug on them with 4 wire PU’s and realizes the wireing between SD and EPI is different so I got that right. I went back to the original PU and seem to like it a bit better but I’m still not happy. It still sounds thin and I can hear a lot of the string attack and tinny noise of the nickel cover if you know what I mean. I’ve had SD 59’ and JB. Sh1 and 5 in different guitars and have liked them all. Any recommendations why I might be getting this sound? I had a fake Chinese Lp and it sounds awesome and this EPI is even a bit heavier but still sounds thin. Not sure what’s going on??????
 
Re: Thin sounding

Make sure it is in phase with the current pickup, as well. It shouldn't really sound thin, so make sure both coils are working.
 
Re: Thin sounding

I have not. What might I expect by doing that? Would it be really noticeable?

For my rig it does. In fact one of the cool things about Duncan's PAF offerings, at least IME, is their sensitivity to user adjustments.

I can run my 59 / Seth low, and raise the polepieces for bright, open trebly tone (like clean Bloomfield) or the pup higher (just slightly) and lower the polepieces for a thick, woody, tone.
 
Re: Thin sounding

I agree, it sounds like more of a setup issue than a pickup issue, though there could be an issue with the quality of the soldering - did you solder it yourself or get someone to do it for you?

I recommend studying setup of action and pickups and making sure that your clearances to strings are good, as mentioned by other posters. Fret high up the neck and see whether you get the same output levels from each of the strings, fret on the highest fret and make sure you still get clear notes with no fouling of either pickup, make sure your neck pickup isn't too close to your strings...
 
Re: Thin sounding

For my rig it does. In fact one of the cool things about Duncan's PAF offerings, at least IME, is their sensitivity to user adjustments.

I can run my 59 / Seth low, and raise the polepieces for bright, open trebly tone (like clean Bloomfield) or the pup higher (just slightly) and lower the polepieces for a thick, woody, tone.

I agree. Sounds like the poles might just be too high and too close to the strings. It's a pretty easy task to adjust them. I'd wait on re-soldering until you've tried tinkering with the height a bit.
 
Re: Thin sounding

I have a PGb in an Epi LP that sounds GREAT. I set my poles almost flush with the bobbin and raised the whole pickup pretty close to the strings.
 
Re: Thin sounding

also check pot values. epi usually has 500k while gibson used to have 300k frequently which rolls off a noticeable amount of high end
 
Re: Thin sounding

My old PGB measures 7.9k and it always sounded a bit thin, whatever i did. Put i an Alnico8 and .... Holy cow, this thing rocks!
 
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