Are my pick-ups too hot on this guitar?

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Mbira

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2004
Messages
2,422
Location
Austin, TX
Hi guys,
Argh-I have a Gibson ES335 and I was doing some shows this weekend and I'm wondering if the stock pickups are "overwound"? See, I play a style that I need to have my guitar tone be clean-not solid state clean, but that nice tube warm clean. Anyway, I have found that with this guitar if I turn the guitar up to 10 and hit a thick jazz chord, it breaks up too much for my enjoyment. How can I determine how much winding these pickups have? Is it a matter of just measuring the oms? If I bring the volume knob down to 8 or so the cliping goes away, but so does some of the tone. Thanks for reading this longwinded question!

Joel
:guinness:
 
You could convert one of your tone controls into a sort of midrange control.

http://www.billlawrence.com/Pages/Pickup_Window/Q-Filter.htm

Well, that was a dazzlingly informative page. But anyway, you can roll off the mids and get a more single coil sound form your pickups for comping. (tightly voiced 7th chords won't woof out) and dial up the mids for single note stuff.

For 20 bucks it might work.
 
Hmm, OK
Let me rephrase the question. Is there a way to measure my humbuckers to see if they are wound very "hot" compares to another humbucker I could buy with a lower output?
 
:roll:

mmmm

welcome to a fundamental issue with specs.
you say you want less output ???
less power , less amplitude, less volts, just plain less ... and yet we would all love to have MORE from our guitars ???

I think what you realy want is more headroom at the pre-amp.

It is at this point I hear all the valve/toob guys yell MORE VOLTS please.

A possible solution is a FET DI box or pre-amp. Not for any gain but to provide a buffer to interface with the guitar correctly. Using a resitive pad at the guitar does cause a top end roll off and this is typical .... AS will a very long guitar cable - the jazz boys may like this.


Where was I ...?? ... BUFFER ... then provide a volume control to then enter your amp inside the available headroom.


Some guitar effect pedals have good level and headroom and some don't. Perhaps there is a higher voltage pre-amp, comp, EQ pedal that could serve as a buffer.


:roll: :sad:

get a real amp
Kent ... where are you ?
 
I have this problem with a bass. Old precision. I have to keep the volume on the bass turned down a little under max or it sounds awfull and distorts thru any preamp. ANY preamp.

Gustav
 
Hey buddy,everything can be measured,except maybe the typical DIY'ers creative intelligence...anyways,what I'd do is put a resistor accross the pot,given the result would be to lower the resistance slightly,input to ground,and then put a small cap to taste,500p to 1500p, from input to output and what you'll get it less resistance to ground for bass and mids and a treble bypass.You can quite easily tailor the response you want if what you've got is mostly what you want but if you have to start out with something new its the old grass is greener most of the time.You could measure resistance,inductance and capacitance on the pickup you have and possibly find something with similar values..but slightly less of but theres other things like flux patterns in the magnet material and style of winding pattern that makes it all too mysterious unless your a maths genius...or maybe you'll find an Allan Holdsworth Seymour Duncan.Hes a jazz guy isn't he? :oops:
 
I hate to pop in here with a solution that has nothing to do with electronics but if you think your pickups are too hot simply lower them. Making them further from the strings will lower their output.

Another note, if your playing a tube amp, especially one employing 6L6 tubes, as you turn up the volume, turn down the bass. This is a typical design flaw in especially Fender amps. There is no damping of the bass and the power supply is a poor design which translate to horrible distortion in the bass end as you turn up.

I have modded my Fender Bassman to run on KT88's and improved the power supply. It sounds fantastic and has as much clean bass as anyone could need.
 
[quote author="Mbira"]Hmm, OK
Let me rephrase the question. Is there a way to measure my humbuckers to see if they are wound very "hot" compares to another humbucker I could buy with a lower output?[/quote]

The conventional wisdom is that more windings = higher impedence = thicker tone and hotter output. That's how DiMarzio markets their pickups. However, people have come up with all manner of fancy-pants ways to wind pickups that hijack any preconcieved notions of impedance and its relation to tone or output.

Anyway, check out the Duncan jazz pickup, or some of their alnico offerings.

-Neil
 
Thanks guys for the input-
I don't think the preamp is the problem-I have run other guitars (with humbuckers) thru this amp for many years and haven't had this problem. I do know that people think of the ES335 alot of times as a "blues" or "rock" guitar so it makes me think that the pups in there are of a very hot variety. I also run a ES175 that I love the pups-I will just try to find out what those are and see if that makes the change I'm looking for.

I'll let you know.
Joel :guinness:


PS the amp in question is a fender hot-rod deluxe. Not the dream of an older deluxe reverb, but as real of an amp as I can afford right now-actually I really love it-it gives me a clean tone I'm really happy with.
 
Like Tim C. posted lower your pickups. Also think of the adjustment screws as a tone control. you can adjust the bass to treble by adjusting an angle. The bass lower than the treble etc.

Another mod for fender amps is to change the cap to the phase inverter to a lower value. A 470pf ceramic might help. Yes ceramic! class 3 its flaws work to a guitar amps advantage in some spots in an amp.
 
Third on lowering the pickups. I often like my pickups ridiculously low by other people's standards - I think you get more of the wood to translate through instead of just focusing in on the strings, and I like to hear the amp working more than I've ever liked hearing any hot pickups working. Added benefit - less magnetic pull on the strings means longer natural sustain, though this is typically more of an issue with strats.

And it's absolutely true, the bass knob on Fenders is the enemy of a tight bass response. Great for doing that wooly, loose thing, though.

Bear
 
-You may already find that this particular guitar's pickups are closer to the strings than the other guitars you're comparing it to... if so it will reinforce Tim Campbell -and everyone else's- suggestion to lower the pickups.

Raising the pickupw also makes things brighter and more sparkly, so lowering them is at least as much a tonal thing as it is level. -They get very dull and muffled when they're too far away!

Keith
 
[quote author="Tim Campbell"]This is a typical design flaw in especially Fender amps. There is no damping of the bass and the power supply is a poor design which translate to horrible distortion in the bass end as you turn up.[/quote]

off topic, but worthy of a comment- file this in the one mans garbage is another mans gold file: thats the primary reason why I love fender amps so much. You get the meanest flappiest bass mess while still retaining some kind of clarity in the upper mids. Ive always had old fender amps so I think Ive based my whole recording style around those amps. I can never seem to use any of my cool tricks on other amps, I always wind up with a buzzy top, but never on a fender. The tremolux's with the tube rectifiers are among the worst with this phenomenom, not only do you get the bass mess totally ruling the amp, but at the top there is SO much sag from the rectifier its just amazing. I could see how most people would hate that though, most certainly for any kind of controlled jazz playing...

dave
 
Your pickups may be overwound. There was a lot of marketing hype about this in the past, but a hot pickup does not necessarily mean a good sounding one.

When a pickup is overwound it will lose top end and become woofy (?) sounding. Why? A few reasons:

1) as the number of turns in the pickup windings increases, the resistance of the pickup increases. The treble frequencies are more easily quashed by resistance than the bass frequencies, so even though the output is hotter, you'll lose a lot of high end.

2) As the number of windings increases the inductance of the pickup increases, again, resulting in loss of highs.

3) As the number of windings increases the capacitance of the pickup increases. So, some of the treble is lost because it is essentially shunted to ground by the capacitor effect of the extra windings.

So, there is a balance between bringing up the signal level with enough windings versus killing the tone with too many windings.

My $0.02 .....

Other thoughts on pickups can be found in this article that I wrote for my web site:

http://www.treblebooster.com/brian_may_pickup_mod.htm
 
I had the same problem with some Fralins on my strat.
Couldn't dial out the dirt.
Measure the dc resistance of your pickups.
You can do this right at the chord.
Flip the pickup selector to get to both pickups.
8 k is a typical value, 10k would nmean hot.
You could take turns off, but your magnets might be the culprit also.
You might just have to swap them for something more mellow.
cj
 
You could take turns off...

I've unwound pickups, too, and it can greatly improve the sound.

If your guitar sound seems to lack detail or sparkle, unwinding might be the cure.

Just for reference, Strat pickups measure about 6 to 7 kOhms, as do Gibson mini humbuckers. Regular humbuckers and P-90s measure about 8-9 kOhms.

The type of magnet and strength of the magnet also contribute to the sound.
 
Hmmm, well the pups measure at about 8K, so I guess they are "average" Gibson told me they are the stock 59' reissue types. It confuses me that the higher the resistance of the pup, the hotter it is, but then when you reduce the volume knob, the resistance is also increased but lowers the volume. Why would more resistance on the pup make for more output?
Thanks!
Joel :guinness:
 
Hi Joel,
I would agree with the others who say that lowering the PUPs will of course lower your output, but, doing so also changes the attack and presence significantly....things get more washed out and dull sounding. This may or may not be to your liking, but I'm guessing this is probably not the solution for you. Your best bet would probably be to try some aftermarket pickups that are not wound as hot. Fralin's and Duncan's come to mind as very good pickups. Personally I don't much like the present day stock Gibson PUPs...I find them to be kind of harsh and characterless.
Just my humble opinion... :sam:
Freddy G
 
Check the tech of the rangemaster at www.geofex.com. I have built them in a Si version. A rangemaster might be what you need for your pickups and your amp type. It is a very musical treble booster.

Also check www.ampage.org amp and pickup sections.
 

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