Dark sounding guitar vs bright/thin sounding guitar

SlopeSoarer

I'm looking to put some new pickups in my Vintage V6 (mentioned in a previous thread) and have been going round in circles about what to put in.

A few months ago I had I owned 2 V6's one was an ash bodied with a maple neck (now sold) and the other (which I still have) is american alder body with maple neck and dark wood fretboard (not sure what wood) and they sounded so different. So much so I was convinced they had different pickups in them but examination showed they were exactly the same. Ironically I much preferred the sound of the ash bodied one (the one I sold) but the one I have kept was much better finished and set up. One sounded warmer and clearer whilst the the other thin, brittle and a little duller sounding.

I've just read an article which talked about dark sounding guitars vs bright/thin sounding guitars which made me think the difference in sound wasn't down to the pickups. I'm guessing that the pickups would be mass produced on a CNC machine so would be near enough identical. Is it possible that the materials used in the body and necks are changing the sound so dramatically. In hindsight I should have kept the ash body V6 and spent some money on a fret dress.

So back to deciding which pickups, it seems if my thoughts are correct it makes it very difficult to choose just what pickups I want.

Am I over thinking this (quite possible)? Are there certain characteristics of pickups which suit certain woods better than others? Any other thoughts?

terada

People argue over it. But to me, the inherent character of a guitar is unique to the bit of lumber they used to make it. 

Whether certain woods can be reliably grouped together as sounding a certain way is another question. In general though there does seem to be some correlation between material density and audible  character. 

Im not one to swap pickups so I’ll leave that to another forumer. What I can say is that pickups have a huge impact on how a guitar sounds, but will not change the underlying character of the instrument. 

crunchman

It's predominantly the wood of the guitars.  I've seen it over and over again.  I've got two Strats.  One of them is a lot darker sounding unplugged, and it's a lot darker sounding plugged in.

I've seen it with Les Pauls as well.  I've owned 3 over the years.  The first one was very bright sounding plugged in - to the point of being harsh.  I swapped pickups in it, and it didn't help.  That one was also very bright sounding unplugged.  I sold that and got an R8 that just sounded much fuller sounding both plugged in and unplugged.

I've also seen it with PRS.  I had a rosewood necked McCarty for a while (the whole neck, not just the fingerboard).  The rosewood necked ones have a sound of their own.  I've played several of them, and they all have it.  You can hear it plugged in as well.

Talking of PRS, there is also a significant difference between a Custom and a Standard.   The only difference between the two is a great big thick maple cap on the Custom.  They are otherwise identical guitars, with identical machine wound pickups.

From my experience, changing pickups on a guitar that I didn't like the sound of hasn't made much difference.  I changed the bridge pickup on that first Les Paul and it still sounded thin.  If that's the situation you are in, you are probably better off cutting your losses on the guitar.

Having said all that about the wood, you have to be careful not to generalise too much.  Different woods are often thought of as having certain characteristics e.g maple lots of top end, not much mids, or mahogany being warmer, but don't take it too far.  You can find a guitar with a maple neck that sounds a lot fatter than some mahogany necked guitars.  You do need to play the individual guitar.

octatonic

Maynehead

Did you check if the pickup heights were exactly the same between the 2 guitars?

hyperben

crunchman said:

It's predominantly the wood of the guitars.  I've seen it over and over again.  I've got two Strats.  One of them is a lot darker sounding unplugged, and it's a lot darker sounding plugged in.

I've seen it with Les Pauls as well.  I've owned 3 over the years.  The first one was very bright sounding plugged in - to the point of being harsh.  I swapped pickups in it, and it didn't help.  That one was also very bright sounding unplugged.  I sold that and got an R8 that just sounded much fuller sounding both plugged in and unplugged.

I've also seen it with PRS.  I had a rosewood necked McCarty for a while (the whole neck, not just the fingerboard).  The rosewood necked ones have a sound of their own.  I've played several of them, and they all have it.  You can hear it plugged in as well.

Talking of PRS, there is also a significant difference between a Custom and a Standard.   The only difference between the two is a great big thick maple cap on the Custom.  They are otherwise identical guitars, with identical machine wound pickups.

From my experience, changing pickups on a guitar that I didn't like the sound of hasn't made much difference.  I changed the bridge pickup on that first Les Paul and it still sounded thin.  If that's the situation you are in, you are probably better off cutting your losses on the guitar.

Having said all that about the wood, you have to be careful not to generalise too much.  Different woods are often thought of as having certain characteristics e.g maple lots of top end, not much mids, or mahogany being warmer, but don't take it too far.  You can find a guitar with a maple neck that sounds a lot fatter than some mahogany necked guitars.  You do need to play the individual guitar.

100% this ^^^^^

SlopeSoarer

octatonic said:

Sorry!

Thanks for the replies though: )

With regard to pickup height, I did match them and have also played around with height.

All being equal (as should be in this case with regard to pickups) is it possible to get a duff set of pickups?

It does make me wonder whether to bother with swapping out the pickups, I'll spend more time practicing that browsing.

Having said that I've got some nice new CTS pots, switch and soldering iron to play with: )

ICBM

crunchman is right. It's the wood, and particularly the neck. Not necessarily the species of wood - although that does make some 'general' difference - but the resonance of the individual pieces. The body and fingerboard (really) do make some difference, but much less.

Anyone who thinks it isn't really doesn't have much experience with guitars, and yes it *is* something you can scientifically prove.

545454

I had a Vintage V6 a while ago, and it seemed really bright - when I opened it up, it had 500k pots in it. When I swapped them out for 250k ones, it sounded much more balanced - might be worth checking what's in yours

octatonic

ICBM said:

crunchman is right. It's the wood, and particularly the neck. Not necessarily the species of wood - although that does make some 'general' difference - but the resonance of the individual pieces. The body and fingerboard (really) do make some difference, but much less.

Anyone who thinks it isn't really doesn't have much experience with guitars, and yes it *is* something you can scientifically prove.

Amp and speaker make more of a difference.

ICBM

octatonic said:

Amp and speaker make more of a difference.

They certainly do! Although I find you still can't completely hide the basic sound of the guitar, unless you're using extremely high-gain or very heavy EQ. But you can get close.

SlopeSoarer

545454 said:

I had a Vintage V6 a while ago, and it seemed really bright - when I opened it up, it had 500k pots in it. When I swapped them out for 250k ones, it sounded much more balanced - might be worth checking what's in yours

Yep I'll have a look, I took a photo when I had the scratchplate off but no clues that I can see. 

carlos

Any chance you can try putting EQ before any other pedals or amp and tweak it there? Bit of a mid boost, take a bit off treble and overall boost to the level could do the trick in getting this dark sound you're looking for. If you have a compressor with EQ then I'd do it on the compressor.
There are also the tone knobs on the guitar itself but with single coils like these taking tone off usually takes off a lot of volume.
Wood density and species doesn't seem that important here since you aren't going to change those in your circumstances anyway as they'd affect the playability which you treasure so much.

SlopeSoarer

carlos said:

Any chance you can try putting EQ before any other pedals or amp and tweak it there? Bit of a mid boost, take a bit off treble and overall boost to the level could do the trick in getting this dark sound you're looking for. If you have a compressor with EQ then I'd do it on the compressor.
There are also the tone knobs on the guitar itself but with single coils like these taking tone off usually takes off a lot of volume.
Wood density and species doesn't seem that important here since you aren't going to change those in your circumstances anyway as they'd affect the playability which you treasure so much.

Yep, I can do some of the tweaks you suggest and it does change the sound closer to what I'm after but somehow it still lacks the sparkle that the other V6 had without having try to fine tune. As you say I love the playability of this Vintage V6, it does feel so right to me: )

I'll check the pots and change if they are 500k but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have the value marked on them so I'll have to get the multimeter out.

carlos

Since you seem quite handy with tools and soldering, perhaps you can use this guide to suggest some new pickups? https://www.dimarzio.com/pickup-picker

And yes, changing those will make a big difference to your sound.

crunchman

carlos said:

Since you seem quite handy with tools and soldering, perhaps you can use this guide to suggest some new pickups? https://www.dimarzio.com/pickup-picker

And yes, changing those will make a big difference to your sound.

If it's a fundamentally thin sounding guitar, no pickup change will redeem it.

It is worth checking the pot values, but it's probably not that given that another guitar of the same model sounded fuller.

Like I said above, it's predominantly the wood [and construction].  If it's a bright, thin sounding guitar, changing the pickups won't change that.  Overwound pickups might remove some top end, but at the expense of dynamics.  The sound the pickups produce it dependent on the way the guitar vibrates.  That's why an SG sounds different to a Les Paul, even with the exact same electronics.

Wonky

I absolutely think pickups could help you get the sound you want.  I've changed loads of pickups in loads of guitars over the years and whilst wood density, resonance and construction make up part of the sound a guitar makes, the pickups can be like a sort of EQ/filter/boost that can really change tone.  I think you can make a dark sounding guitar sound lighter with pickups, but that's just my experience.  

SlopeSoarer

carlos said:

Since you seem quite handy with tools and soldering, perhaps you can use this guide to suggest some new pickups? https://www.dimarzio.com/pickup-picker

And yes, changing those will make a big difference to your sound.

Thanks, I'll take a look.

crunchman said:

carlos said:

Since you seem quite handy with tools and soldering, perhaps you can use this guide to suggest some new pickups? https://www.dimarzio.com/pickup-picker

And yes, changing those will make a big difference to your sound.

If it's a fundamentally thin sounding guitar, no pickup change will redeem it.

It is worth checking the pot values, but it's probably not that given that another guitar of the same model sounded fuller.

Like I said above, it's predominantly the wood [and construction].  If it's a bright, thin sounding guitar, changing the pickups won't change that.  Overwound pickups might remove some top end, but at the expense of dynamics.  The sound the pickups produce it dependent on the way the guitar vibrates.  That's why an SG sounds different to a Les Paul, even with the exact same electronics.

That makes perfect sense to me: )

Wonky said:

I absolutely think pickups could help you get the sound you want.  I've changed loads of pickups in loads of guitars over the years and whilst wood density, resonance and construction make up part of the sound a guitar makes, the pickups can be like a sort of EQ/filter/boost that can really change tone.  I think you can make a dark sounding guitar sound lighter with pickups, but that's just my experience.  

Again it makes sense to me, I think I scared of spending a load of money on pickups and being disappointed. I realise I can buy secondhand but it is waiting for when they become available!

carlos

If I were you I'd buy a used strat set on ebay/here/reverb and try that out. If it's not for you, you can sell it again for same price or at worst 10%-20% less than you bought it for. Really no harm done in trying that route.

rossi

I'm not a great believer in wood adding a huge amount to tone rather than say sustain or resonance  ,I thinks its mainly pickups ,caps ,pots and amps to be honest .I will say as a old time coil winder  machine setter and line supervisor in the electronics industry that winding any two coils identical is almost impossible at a commercial rate .We had one job where the spec was so tight I spent most evenings on overtime testing and rejecting most of that days production.We had very pricey German coilwinding machines .Dont even go there of the hand wound stuff .That was all over the place and had wide max/min specs.

crunchman

rossi said:

I'm not a great believer in wood adding a huge amount to tone rather than say sustain or resonance  ,I thinks its mainly pickups ,caps ,pots and amps to be honest .I will say as a old time coil winder  machine setter and line supervisor in the electronics industry that winding any two coils identical is almost impossible at a commercial rate .We had one job where the spec was so tight I spent most evenings on overtime testing and rejecting most of that days production.We had very pricey German coilwinding machines .Dont even go there of the hand wound stuff .That was all over the place and had wide max/min specs.

The difference between a PRS Custom and Standard is not down to the pickups.  If it was, you would hear the same difference between 2 different Customs, and you don't.  They each have their own character.  I've heard enough of them to know it's not a one off.