Les Paul too bright

[Gibsonman63]

I have a 1976 Les Paul Custom with original pickups. I have had this guitar for the better part of 25 years, ran Seymore Duncans for a while in the eighties in and at some point I changed to pots out. I ended up putting the original pickups back in the guitar about ten or fifteen years ago.

I have played my 1979 SG (stock pickups) for the last few years because the other guitar player in my band played a Les Paul and I wanted the sound to be a little different between us. Now I am back to playing in a three piece band and the sound of my Les Paul is very bright and thin compared to the SG, so it just doesn't get played. When I roll back on the tone, it loses clarity.

I am not sure if I subscribed to the hype and put 500 ohm pots in the LP or not when I changed them, but I can check this evening. Maybe 250 ohm is the way to go for the volumes for more warmth?

Any ideas on how to get a warmer, more usable sound out of this guitar, preferably using the stock pickups?

[guitician]

yeah, lowering the resistance will take some of the treble off. Also, using a bigger value of cap. Like going from .02 to .033 or .047 will effect the highs even when the tone control is full on.

[billyz]

Perhaps it is a bad pickup. like only one coil working. or the pickup has been rewired incorrectly and is out of phase. it is even possibly it was that way from the factory. I had a mid 70's Custom and it was not thin and bright sounding.

Were the covers ever removed ? I have seen damage done that way. Maybe the magnets have been exposed to a high field or excess heat.

While it is true a 250K will sound a little darker and less powerful. It is not like night and day.

I think you have another problem.

Pull the pickups and send them to Possum, you will not be sorry.

Also, it probably had 500k pots originally at that time .

[Gibsonman63]

You may be on to something

You may be right. In the early eighties, when I was younger and more impressionable, I thought it would make me more Page-like if I took the covers off. I seem to remember they were hard as hell to take off and I am sure I was using much cruder tools back then. At some point I put them back on, but I don't remember when.

Come to find out, the Page sound had nothing to do with pick-up covers. All I needed was a decent Marshall and enough time to wear out a couple of copies of Zeppelin II.

I will search the forum for some contact information on Mr. Possum.

[billyz]

Possum is
Dave Stephens of SD Designs.

Home: SD Pickups, Custom-Made Hand-Wound Pickups by Dave Stephens, Stephens Design

He is a regular in the pickup makers forum. Ask him about the PAF screws too.

I am sure there are many other fine pickup guys . but I have personal experience with his work and it is above and beyond.

[guitician]

If one of your coils opened the pickup wouldn't work. And with single conductor wiring, it's hard to mis-wire it out of phase. It's usually the heavy, less resonant, guitars that sound bright. Is yours heavy?

[Gibsonman63]

Heavy is an understatement

This is by far the heaviest Les Paul I have every played. Even people who own Les Pauls are astonished when I hand them mine. I am certain that the pickups are not wired out of phase and it shouldn't matter much anyway becuase I generally use only one at a time to punch through the mix better.

I did a little research on a Les Paul forum. The prevailing opinion seems to be that you cannot change the primary tone of the guitar in a major way with electronics. So bottom line, this may just be one of those super bright LPs.

...But the action is incredible and it sustains for days. As it sits, I could use it for studio work with the right amp settings, but it's not practical for gigging.

[guitician]

Well, if your amp had an effects loop, and you ran a 31 band graphic EQ through it, you could change the tone your getting with electronics. But there will always be that fundamental tone the guitar has going into the front end of the amp and that would set the character of the "Drive tone", since amps put the loop after the pre-amp. I've heard of people using overwound pickups to "Darken" a bright LP. But, then your getting higher output, and a different sound.

[Mike Sulzer]

You have two degrees of freedom to work with:

1. Loading down the resonant peak. That is what changing to lower value pots does because it changes the load across the pickup. It is also what turning down the tone control from 10 does because the cap is like a short at the resonant peak. (The cap matters most as you get closer to zero when the resistance is pretty small.)

So you have already done this one, and do not like the results.

2. Changing the resonant frequency. You can do this by putting more capacitance across the guitar. A longer cable, or two or more cables in series with an adapter makes this easy to try.

If you try this, make sure you also adjust the tone control to see where it sounds best.

[Gibsonman63]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.

This gives me some things to play with this weekend. BTW, I am already using 35 feet of cable. 15 feet from my TS9 to the amp and then another 20 from my guitar to the TS9. It seems like a lot of cable, but it makes for a much better show.

I will start with the volume pots and lowering the pickups to see what that gets me. The EQ in the effects loop sounds like a fun experiment as well, so I will give that one a whirl too.

[Glass Snuff]

I did a little research on a Les Paul forum. The prevailing opinion seems to be that you cannot change the primary tone of the guitar in a major way with electronics. So bottom line, this may just be one of those super bright LPs.

Is is. With a three piece maple neck and ebony board you're going to get a snappy attack that will make a Telecaster jealous. As far as the "primary tone" thing goes, that's just a polite way of telling people they bought a piece of dead wood. It happens. If a guitar has no resonance and no highs, there's nothing for a pickup to 'pick up'. In your case, however, things can be done to tame the treble content.

...But the action is incredible and it sustains for days. As it sits, I could use it for studio work with the right amp settings, but it's not practical for gigging.

Sounds like it's worth a bit of work to get it right.

The night I got my '75 Custom home, I replaced the pickups. The guitar came alive, and I've never looked back. Of all the pickups I've tried, my preferred set is a Duncan JB with an alnico 2 magnet in the bridge, and a '59 in the neck. Other tweaks include an aluminum tailpiece that is raised to find the "sweet spot" and .015 Black Beauty caps with 'modern wiring'. Natch, the pups make the biggest difference, but the other things just make it that much sweeter.

Yes, its still a very bright guitar, but I roll back the volume a touch and turn down the tone, and it rumbles classic rock tones from my Marshall like most kids dream of. If I ever need to cut though the mix, I have plenty of treble in reserve.

Oh, yeh, be sure to use nickle wound strings, not nickle-plated.

[pdf64]

I spent a weekend last year trying to identify why 2 very similar jap strats (my tokai and a friend's MIJ fender) sounded so different. Mine had a chunky meaty tone, his had a thin scratch tone.
I swapped over bridge assemblies, scratchplate assemblies and generally chased my tail recording sound samples with each combination of body, bridge, scratchplate. I thought I'd found the cause of the tone difference when I found that the tokai had a steel bridge block, the fender's was the cast non-magnetic stuff - it seemed to be in the bridge assemblies.
But on the off chance I swapped over the strings also and that was it. The bridges sounded the same, the difference was in the strings.
I was amazed that a horrid sounding guitar could be turned around, and my tokai could sound so thin, just by changing the strings.
The scratchy tone strings were GHS Boomers 9-46, the chunky ones were EB Slinky 10-48.
So, as per above advice, try going up a gauge and some different brands, types.

[billyz]

I spent a weekend last year trying to identify why 2 very similar jap strats (my tokai and a friend's MIJ fender) sounded so different. Mine had a chunky meaty tone, his had a thin scratch tone.
I swapped over bridge assemblies, scratchplate assemblies and generally chased my tail recording sound samples with each combination of body, bridge, scratchplate. I thought I'd found the cause of the tone difference when I found that the tokai had a steel bridge block, the fender's was the cast non-magnetic stuff - it seemed to be in the bridge assemblies.
But on the off chance I swapped over the strings also and that was it. The bridges sounded the same, the difference was in the strings.
I was amazed that a horrid sounding guitar could be turned around, and my tokai could sound so thin, just by changing the strings.
The scratchy tone strings were GHS Boomers 9-46, the chunky ones were EB Slinky 10-48.
So, as per above advice, try going up a gauge and some different brands, types.

You'll get a similar result by going to a heavier GHS boomer as well. There is not a huge tonal difference between Boomer's and Slinky's of the same gauge. Now if you go from a nickel plated to pure nickel that is a different story. A Set of Pure Nickel 10-48(46) strings is going to sound darker and richer, meatier, than a set of standard 9-42 plated strings. however, the plain strings are the same steel (and sound). it usually only the wrap that is different.

Everything affects the tone. Bridge, nut, frets, wood, laminations, pickups, pickup adjustment, even the pick, guitar cord, amp, speakers ,room, humidity, finish, glue, joint, etc. Some things you can't change or they are very costly for the degree of change. But pickups offer a big change for a fair amount of money.

[David Schwab]

If one of your coils opened the pickup wouldn't work.

You can have an open coil, and still get sound. The windings are capacitively coupled, and you end up with a very thin bright tone. The output is lower.

And with single conductor wiring, it's hard to mis-wire it out of phase. It's usually the heavy, less resonant, guitars that sound bright. Is yours heavy?

If they are two different make pickups they can still be out of phase, but of course that only happens when both pickups are selected.

Every guitar sounds different though, so when switching between two guitars it's often necessary to change tone settings on the amp.

[axpro]

250k pots will help, darker pickups (with a less pronounced bite)
but as was said, if it is a 3 piece neck with an ebony board, you are fighting a losing battle. maple necked LP's (especially with ebony boards) will always be bright. great attack if that is your thing, but not the traiditional LP tone. nothing i know of will change that,