Pickups that don't respond well to volume knob cleanup...any fixes?

[rjb]

Post 1

They DO clean up with the volume knob, but VERY slowly and not as well. They barely lose gain till they get almost 1/2 way down and they clean up to the degree others do on 5 at about 2 on the volume. By then they're too weak to be usable.

Post 31

When on 10 i actually like the tone a lot. But regardless of what treble bleed scenario i use and what value(s), as i turn down it seems like the pickup's inherent voice or EQ curve changes drastically. The sparkle in the highs goes away and some really dull sounding mid frequency that kills the attack on the wound strings starts becoming unbearable. In short, it just seems that on 10 it's a completely different pickup than 5 for example. Even turned down just to 8 it's already becoming dull.

I'm confused. Are all the above statements still true? Simultaneously?

It's crazy, but it changes so radically that theres no treble left for the bleed cap to pass apparently because no value up to .001 that i have used retains any of the sparkly top as i turn down. The cap no matter the value never passes any treble higher than maybe 1k, if thats even considered treble ! More like hi mids. But thats all that gets passed no matter the cap value. Yet on 10 i get plenty of sparkly top end. Use a 250pf cap and put it on a pot and i can spin it from one end to the other with the guitar on 5 and hear no difference ! 500pf.....maybe a tiny bit.

I suggest you try 2x to 10x that value (.0022 - .01 uF). Couldn't hurt.

[rjb]

With the 3+3 arrangement, have you noticed any dropout or tonal change when bending the 3rd string?

[daz]

Honestly, this is just futile because as i have said i've tried all the typical things and was looking for something different. It's NOT the pot, the treble bleed value or circuit, it's not about pedals or buffers etc etc etc. It's the pickups. How do i know? Well, besides the fact that there are legions of people with the same issue with these, this is the SECOND guitar i have had with them and the same issue exists no matter what i do. So none of the usual obvious things are going to work. I guess i shouldn't have posted this in the first place because no one is likely to know how to change the pickup itself or a simple inactive tweak in the guitar to change the resonant peak. And no, the pickups are not different than a normal HB in terms of coil size. The coils are the same size as a standard HB. It's the ORIGINAL WRHB from the 70's that had larger coils. And let me clarify what you see as conflicting thoughts that i posted. It DOES change with as little as 8 on the volume as far as TONE goes, but it hardly cleans up gain wise till way down on the volume. I have however found that using less gain at the amp than i want allows them to roll off the drive quicker on the rotation and it then works normally as far as GAIN roll-off, but the tone still gets muddy. But at that point i'm using the amp with less gain than i like. And no, i don't use too much gain for this to work, it's what i have always used with every guitar i owned and none have to be used with less gain to roll it off normally at the guitar.

It comes down to this....the pickup has a resonant peak that just doesn't work well when the volume is lowered. It's likely nothing aside from a rewind will work, so i suppose i'm stuck with them or i can try another pickup like that GFS version, which i probably will. At 10.5k vs 8k for my current ones, and the likelihood the wire is different either in gauge or type means the resonant peak is almost assured to be different. The only thing that will remain the same and could lead to the same issue IF it happens to be the reason for the issue, is the fact the coils are seperated by about 1/8 to 1/4" making for a wider string sensing spread. But then the originals had poles the same distance apart even tho the coils were bigger and they didn't suffer from this issue. Plus with 2 mags per coil that shouldn't matter anyways. And no....bending the G has no weird changes.

[big_teee]

The only way you will change things is by experimenting.
You say you know its the pickups?
Then experiment with the pickups.
I know of a bunch of things you could try.
Like I mentioned try another PAF type of pickup temporarily.
See what that sounds like.
If a PAF sounds to your liking?
Then alter the W.R. P/Us to be like a PAF.
Change back to steel poles, and try different bar magnets between them.
I would think A2, A3, A4, A5, would change the sound of things.
If you had the cover off the pickup, you could try some different bobbin winds.
Only experimentation will change it.
Yes, that is time consuming, and takes lots of effort.
GL,
T