Muddy Sounding Neck Pickup: Suggestions?

[pushover]

Potted means when the pickup coils are submerged in hot wax (usually beeswax) or epoxy in oreder to supress microphonics (epoxy is not commonly used). And FWIW, Gibson 57' Classics are wax potted, The BurstBucker models that are avilable aftermarket are not (with the exception of the BB pros which are potted). Oddly enough the BurstBuckers that come on the Historic spec G brand guitars are wax potted (wow, my head hurts now). I don't know the make of the Heriatge pots, but they are 500k. You could try going with the 500+k Superpots that RS guitarworks sell. Or if you're really brave try a 1 meg for an even brighter tone.

 

Dave,

 

I think you're telling me something I asked about earlier.. So I seem to vaugely remember  from somewhere something that matches what you say above.. larger value pot = brighter tone. Is that both pots? Vol pot, tone pot? My intuition implies it would be the tone pot.. And then what is the deal with caps? Obviously they will affect the frequency rolloff also, but with caps, does higher value mean more treble or less?

 

Also.. the thing that concerns me about the pot and cap approach is that I'm not sure that my issue is a brighter/darker thing. Muddy certainly sounds darker, but it's more than that, its also a matter of less clarity of the individual tones, and I'm not sure how changing pots and/or caps is going to fix that?

[Spectrum13]

When you pull off the knobs and remove the nuts you should be able to remove all the pots from the guitar and read their values. And yes, I would say a higher values on the neck will clean up some of the mud and open up the high end. As you are fine with the sound of the bridge, I suggest just replace the volume, tone and caps on the neck. I have a thread going on pots and caps for Lollar P90s. I contacted Jason and he gave me his recommended values. I then spoke with Billy at RS and he confirmed same and wired some superpots which I hope to install this week. I did this to my 150 and it was well worth it.

  Factory's choose their small parts for reasons both economic and traditional. Think of why a statocaster has a master volume with neck & middle tone. In 1954 when you needed a lead sound you hit the bridge pickup and got super treble. It's 2008 so I built a strat with master volume (push-pull coil split) master tone and a blend to get neck and bridge and all three positions. Works better than the traditional. Sorry for the rant. I did not think you wanted to know what everyone's favorite 150- 157 pickup was but rather short of replacement, find out what your options were after adjustments and (I think) brighter strings.

[pushover]

When you pull off the knobs and remove the nuts you should be able to remove all the pots from the guitar and read their values. And yes, I would say a higher values on the neck will clean up some of the mud and open up the high end. As you are fine with the sound of the bridge, I suggest just replace the volume, tone and caps on the neck. I have a thread going on pots and caps for Lollar P90s. I contacted Jason and he gave me his recommended values. I then spoke with Billy at RS and he confirmed same and wired some superpots which I hope to install this week. I did this to my 150 and it was well worth it.

  Factory's choose their small parts for reasons both economic and traditional. Think of why a statocaster has a master volume with neck & middle tone. In 1954 when you needed a lead sound you hit the bridge pickup and got super treble. It's 2008 so I built a strat with master volume (push-pull coil split) master tone and a blend to get neck and bridge and all three positions. Works better than the traditional. Sorry for the rant. I did not think you wanted to know what everyone's favorite 150- 157 pickup was but rather short of replacement, find out what your options were after adjustments and (I think) brighter strings.

 

Thanks for the suggestion.. Above you mention "brighter" strings.. Got a suggestion as to what you would consider a brighter string? It's certainly an easy change if I have a good recommendation as to what to try.

[Spectrum13]

A new steel string will be brighter than nickel. Round would brighter than flat.

[cosmikdebriis]

When you pull off the knobs and remove the nuts you should be able to remove all the pots from the guitar and read their values.

 

Unfortunately... Quite often there's a big lump of solder for the earth connections covering the value so if you can't see anything that could be why. :'(

[Spectrum13]

COS,

 

  I'll check when I get home.. but I believe the pots that came out of my 150 had the values on the side and the earth connections were on the top. But I would not be surprised if Heritage electronics are like neck profiles.

[Spectrum13]

Confirmed, pot values are on the side. Alpha pots have values on the bottoms.

[cosmikdebriis]

There seem to be at least two different types of pots used by Heritage. Whether the values are the same I cannot say but I'd expect so. Of course they may get changed so we're never 100% certain.

 

This is exactly the sort of info I'm collecting though so let me know what yours are and which type plz.

 

Here's a link to some pics... From our ubiquitous resource... 

 

http://s288.photobucket.com/albums/ll185/H...arpics/Details/

[Kazwell]

No law says you have to put a pickup that is matched for the neck in the neck. Howabout putting a slighly darker than average bridge PU in the neck? Use your tone knob to pull down the treble if need be. Unless your into jazz, the bassier than necessary PU there is basically unnecessary. The positioning alone should pull some natural treble bite off.  It's at least worth a try.