What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

[Robert Delahunt]

I have a Showmaster FAT HH (flame ash top, basswood body, '59 RP neck, Fender PG+, maple neck, rosewood fretboard, locking tuners, graphite nut (stock), tremolo set floating, graphtech saddles). It's excessively bright. Doing an A/B test, my Lite Ash Strat (maple neck & fretboard, swamp ash body, 3x Alnico II Pro Staggered, floating trem, stock nut and tuners, etc) is less bright. :eek13:

I'm at a loss. The Showmaster is way too bright. The pole pieces are screwed in flush to the top of the bobbin, the pickups are SD recommended height, setup is good, strings are what came stock (Fender nickel-plated bullet 9s).

What would you do in this situation? I have to use the tone knob at 10% to make the guitar not excessively bright, but then power and some of the upper mids drop off. With that little tone, it sounds a bit mushy.

I just want my Showmaster to stop being so @#$ bright. :rocket: If I have to, I'm seriously thinking to sell the stupid thing. As is, the tone knob is scratchy and will soon get replaced, but for such a sweet feeling and playing guitar, it's like an ice pick. What gives? lol

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Pure nickel strings, 250k pots, roll back the tone knob, turn down the treble on the amp....

 

[mrturtle_91]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Try turning the treble down on your amp, or changing the pickups to something less bright.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Well the point is that I'd prefer to leave my amp set where it is. Having to change stuff all the time is annoying. However, as I found out, changing pickups never seems to give you back the value you had in the guitar: you always get less back.

Seriously, should a basswood body guitar with maple neck and rosewood fretboard be so bright? It's downright annoying.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

You might have to break down and tweak the settings on your processor.

If that ME50 had an equalizer, it'd be awfully handy right now.

 

[ibanezrocks]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Try swapping the magnets to A2 in the pickups, or just getting different pickups. The PG+ is just an overwound PG with an A5 magnet, which I imagine would be pretty bright. Also the recommended height for pickups is just a very loose suggestion, theres no wrong height, just whatever sounds better to you. Lower the pickups to get a darker tone, try 250k pots, and even try putting some heavier strings on there.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

You might have to break down and tweak the settings on your processor.

If that ME50 had an equalizer, it'd be awfully handy right now.

I've been using a Stagemaster 1000 recently, because no one will give me time on the sound board to tweak the patches so that they're all of equal volume (so that I don't get weird surprises). This is what I meant: I can set up the Stagemaster at friendly "defaults" and the Showmaster is ice pick compared to what should be a very bright strat. I'm just confused as to why. Sure, however: I can set it to "mild" which cuts off the highs a bit....

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

?? what is the point in having different guitars then??
Sounds more like it needs a 250 pot as suggested and some different settings!

 

[Smilemon]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Strings make a huge difference on the tone of my Tele, i had a set of Dean Markley Cryo Blue strings, way to bassy, my speaker hated them. Thrraap thrrap. I put on a set of Fender stainless steel, they work much better. I would say a set of nickel strings.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Oh lord, you said you're using 9s.... get some pure nickel (at least) 10s and see what that does. Everytime I get a guitar with 9s on it, it's super fun to play, but then I put a 10-52 set on, and it sounds like I turned off the "thin and icey" pedal.

 

[Robert Delahunt]

Re: What would you do with a bright Showmaster?

Oh lord, you said you're using 9s.... get some pure nickel (at least) 10s and see what that does. Everytime I get a guitar with 9s on it, it's super fun to play, but then I put a 10-52 set on, and it sounds like I turned off the "thin and icey" pedal.

Ok. I'll restring with pure nickel 10s and hopefully that will make a difference.