Trying to make the Invader work for death metal in SG

[kaza]

Hi everyone!
Recently I've got a '86 SG Special with SH6 in a bridge, and it had some unpleasant shrilling tone in the high mids despite having an original 300K volume pot which i couldn't fix with amp EQ.
Besides it lacked low-end a bit, so I decided to fix both problems and swapped SH6 for Invader with 500K volume pot.
These annoying high mids have gone immediately, overall tone became much fuller, but I've got a new issue - wooly booming lows unsuitable for my style of playing.
Also now i have to turn up treble and tone knobs on my amp to max.
I tune to C# Standard with 11-54 strings and play mainly oldschool death metal, not too much technical. Since I've fallen in love with this guitar's playability and feel I'm going to try every available option to make it suitable for my purposes, instead of going with active pups.
What I've already tried and what didn't work enough:

• Adjusting pickup height. Now It's 3mm from top of pole piece to low E. 4 mm is better in terms of low-end tightness, but overall tone becomes dull and thin.
• Adjusting pole pieces. Tried to raise up pieces in one coil, in another coil, in both coils. Maybe I couldn't find good combination of poles and pickup heights, maybe ther low-end became a bit tighter but it didn't sound cool
• Tried dimarzio hex pole pieces which I've pulled out of Super D. The tone has completely changed and became clearer, but all the charachter of Invader have gone completely too, it became flat, less raw and i guess i could get more cool tones out of dimarzio Super D itself then out of this hybrid ))

Need your help guys! I love this guitar and guess i CAN love Invader cause it have made my SG much thicker and has a sort of unique rawness and ferocity i haven't heard out of other humbuckers

 

[jeremy]

if you just want to shave off some of the low end, putting a resistor in series with the pup is a cheap easy thing to try. not sure the value youd want to start with, maybe .1 uf? hopefully others will chime in with more direction

 

[Empty Pockets]

https://www.avedissianpickups.com/product/railsplitter-humbucker i have these in my Flying V and find them extremely tight and chuggable for how huge they sound. Neck pickup is great for cleans and solos and when split, they sound almost like P-90s. I really like them.

 

[UnderTheFlame83]

Put the original pole peices back in the Invader and set them all the way down. Adjust pickup height without fretting last fret to low E 2.75 mm and high E 2.25 mm.

 

[Artie]

if you just want to shave off some of the low end, putting a resistor in series with the pup is a cheap easy thing to try. not sure the value youd want to start with, maybe .1 uf? hopefully others will chime in with more direction

A .1 uf cap will probably be too much. I'd start with .01 uf.

 

[kaza]

Won't 1000K volume pot help to clarify it a bit?

 

[kaza]

A .1 uf cap will probably be too much. I'd start with .01 uf.

Jeremy suggested to use a resistor, and you are talking about capacitor. I'm total noob in electronics but i guess these things are different

 

[Artie]

Jeremy suggested to use a resistor, and you are talking about capacitor. I'm total noob in electronics but i guess these things are different

Jeremy did a "typo."

uf anything is a cap.

 

[devastone]

I have some .1uF resistors I'll make you a good deal on! They're at my beachfront house in Colorado, I'll pick them up next time I'm there.

 

[jeremy]

yes, it was a typo. you want a cap, not resistor.

a 1M pot will give you more high end, not sure about clarity necessarily

 

[CaptainWhizz]

This may be a silly question, I know you said you cranked the treble on your amp, but have you cut the bass at all?
Also, the Invader is one of the darkest pickups, maybe it’s just the wrong choice for what you want?

 

[Mincer]

I'd try wiring the Invader in parallel, and boosting the signal after the guitar.

 

[Artie]

I'd try wiring the Invader in parallel, and boosting the signal after the guitar.

Invader in parallel is one of my favorite Duncan sounds. Clean, like a hot single, but with some harmonic complexity due to sensing two slightly different string nodes.

 

[Cynical]

Put a Tubescreamer or some other mid-humped EQ before your amp.

 

[SweetClyde99]

Adding a cap in series was going to be my suggestion as well. It helped me get a very fat sounding Tone Zone to work in my Strat.

Here’s a page that goes into more detail: https://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/mod-squad-muddy-sounding-neck-pickup

Does anyone know what would happen if you replaced the ceramic spacer mags with regular spacers on an Invader? How close would it sound to a Distortion? Can you get some sounds in between the two pickups doing this? Or maybe just replacing one of the spacer mags on the side closest to the neck with a regular spacer might nudge it a little more in that direction?

 

[devastone]

Can you tell us more about your signal chain, amp, speakers, etc... I learned the hard, expensive way when I was a young'un that a great guitar through a great amp into a mediocre cabinet will never be satisfying. Basically, anything in the chain may be giving you issues. The SH6 is a great sounding pickup into most amps for high gain, so surprised that you didn't like it, especially down tuning, it's tight bass should have worked for you, not against you. Pickups will never give you a total tone makeover, they are a small piece of a much bigger puzzle. A different speaker will change your sound much more than a pickup. Just an FYI from someone who has paid a lot ofr experience over the years.

 

[Mr. B]

You've got thick strings, on a short-scale all-mahogany guitar, drop tuned to C#, with the one Duncan pickup that has the biggest bottom end of any in the lineup... and you are having problems with lows that are too boomy.
I am at a loss. I can't think of any reason the lows would be boomy given that combination.

 

[Demanic]

Simple solution, turn the bass on the amp down. Maybe move than you think that you should.

Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk

 

[AdrianSD]

Can you tell us more about your signal chain, amp, speakers, etc...

This. The entire nois^H^H^H^signal chain matters. I personally couldn't bond with the SH6 at the time because of the same reason: too shrill. So out it went, *however* I've learned that not only the guitar, but everything else matters: the effects used, amp, cab, speakers, even the cables. I've only got superstarts with Floyd Rose & Gotoh GE1996t, no tone pot in any of them and one of them was particularly dark, so ended up with titanium saddles and 1Mohm volume potentiometer. Since parting ways with the Distortion I've changed few things and I've ended up with a setup where the high freqs are rolled back almost completely, while I can push the presence just over past 12 o'clock on the DSL to get that nice chunky Marshall sound. The recipe in my case consists mainly in a TS in front of the amp as clean boost only (full volume, zero drive) and a BOSS GE-7 in the loop with 6.4khz cut almost completely, this gives me the ability to push the ultra channel gain and volume pretty high, same for the master volume. I've also changed the speakers in the 2x12 closed back cab, now I've got a WGS Veteran 30 and an Australian made Lorantz and this thing simply rocks big time, the cab gives me the bass and low mids while the rest of the chain gives me highs and the entire middle freq range, all completely adjustable. All without fizz, bonus!
For reference, the bridge pickups in use at the moment are:
- Custom
- Custom A8
- JB
- JB A8
In hindsight I'd like to test another Distortion now

 

[allstarrme]

That how the invaders sounds with those hex cap screws, just boomy and loose.

I would try black winters, plenty of power but more even and defined.

What speakers are you using? Changing your speakers will make a much bigger impact on your sound than your pickup will.