Rio Grande TX/BBQ pickups are too muddy...

[MN_JDTele]

I am leaning towards trying a Seymour Duncan '59 set.  The reviews make it sound like a slightly brighter pickup...

 

[GoDrex]

I am leaning towards trying a Seymour Duncan '59 set.  The reviews make it sound like a slightly brighter pickup...

My guitar is quite warm and dark (all mahogany, chambered, rosewood fretboard) and I didn't like it with the Duncan Custom I started out with (11k, ceramic magnet). I tried a '59 and it was a huge improvement. Not only that but you'll have decent clean tones as well.

 

[Doughboy]

I am leaning towards trying a Seymour Duncan '59 set.  The reviews make it sound like a slightly brighter pickup...

My guitar is quite warm and dark (all mahogany, chambered, rosewood fretboard) and I didn't like it with the Duncan Custom I started out with (11k, ceramic magnet). I tried a '59 and it was a huge improvement. Not only that but you'll have decent clean tones as well.

I have a 59 & it's pretty good & gets a surprisingly authetic single coil sounds when split.

 

[Superlizard]

Even the OP'er said that the same p'ups sounded way better in his other guitar with different wood.  Or am i missing the point of your post entirely?

Yep, MN_JDTele stated he used the same pickups in a Tele with an all-maple neck, and they're great in that guitar:

I was really surprised how poor these pickups sounded in this guitar.  I love them in my JD tele...but that has a solid maple neck.

Maple is very bright:

It therefore makes logical sense that in a brighter-wood guitar, said BBQ buckers are a good fit from a tone standpoint.

...and in a darker-wood guitar, not so great.

 

[tfarny]

Sure, all of the differences between the two guitars, including the wood differences, may "push the tone over the edge" from midrangey to mud, but they won't take a dark pickup and make it bright or vice versa. There are a ton of differences there besides neck wood which as usual everyone ignores - solid v. hollow, tele bridge plate, bridge itself. Not to mention the fact that every piece of wood and every combination of parts is unique as well. A 6 lb and a 3 lb alder strat body are just not going to have the same "tone meter" setting. Ken Warmoth said a while back that the whole idea is BS and I guess he knows his stuff.

I have a hollow mahogany bodied Tele with a rosewood 24.75 neck, and it's true, it doesn't tend to be as ice-pick trebly as some teles can be, but there's no mistaking it for a les paul, because it has frickin TELE pickups and bridge.

 

[Soylent]

To quote Tfarny again, quoting Ken Warmoth, again,

We’re glad to
answer questions about woods and tones, but this can really
be addressed in rather broad generalities, since there is no
exact science to it. Not only does each individual piece of
wood have its own tone, but everyone hears things a little dif -
ferently, and the spectrum of pickups available is just huge. It
is much easier to work on the dimensional specifications of a
piece than on the tone.
- Ken Warmoth 2002

 

[Superlizard]

Sure, all of the differences between the two guitars, including the wood differences, may "push the tone over the edge" from midrangey to mud, but they won't take a dark pickup and make it bright or vice versa.

Nobody's saying that wood will change a dark pickup into a bright pickup.  What they are saying is use a brighter pickup with a darker-toned guitar to balance the tone... or vice versa.

A 6 lb and a 3 lb alder strat body are just not going to have the same "tone meter" setting. Ken Warmoth said a while back that the whole idea is BS and I guess he knows his stuff.

If he truly thinks the idea is BS, why would his website have tone charts for various woods?  

Reading Ken's excerpt says much more along the lines of "I cannot (and will not) give you exact tonality measurements found in wood as applied to guitars" rather than, "wood affecting a guitar's tone is BS".

Hence my previous statement in this thread about the Warmoth tone charts:

I have a hollow mahogany bodied Tele with a rosewood 24.75 neck, and it's true, it doesn't tend to be as ice-pick trebly as some teles can be, but there's no mistaking it for a les paul, because it has frickin TELE pickups and bridge.

:icon_scratch:

You're incorrectly trying to correlate the "dark vs. bright humbucker" discussion we're having with a "single coil (tele) vs. humbucker (les paul)" statement
to attempt to prove your point.  

One is same type of pickup (humbucker), different tone - yours is different type of pickup (single coil), different tone.

So, of course - if I were to replace my humbucker with a single coil, the tone would change (to thinner/brighter typically)... even on a 24.75" scale Les-Paulish wood-config (mahog etc) guitar.  Such is the typical tone of a single coil - thinner and brighter than any given humbucker.



This thread itself contains 4 real-world examples of the same exact pickups (not humbucker vs. single coil) fitted to different guitars.

- Of the 3 brighter-wood guitars (1x maple neck tele, 2x wenge+ebony), the BBQ Bucker works great.

- Of the lone darker-wood guitar (mahog hollow body+all Indian rosewood neck), the BBQ Bucker is muddy.

I mean, the facts speak for themselves; very simply.

 

[Superlizard]

To quote Tfarny again, quoting Ken Warmoth, again,

We’re glad to
answer questions about woods and tones, but this can really
be addressed in rather broad generalities, since there is no
exact science to it. Not only does each individual piece of
wood have its own tone, but everyone hears things a little dif -
ferently, and the spectrum of pickups available is just huge. It
is much easier to work on the dimensional specifications of a
piece than on the tone.
- Ken Warmoth 2002

Like I've mentioned - Ken's statement is purely non-committal - he is not
saying "people who claim wood affects a guitar's tone are full of sh!t".

Hence the creation of guidelines (wood tone charts) - we cannot measure
the effect precisely, but we can certainly hear a difference and therefore
make a ballpark guesstimate.

And of course, just because we cannot measure the effect precisely does
not mean we throw everything out the window and stamp it "BS".

 

[jalane]

Sure, all of the differences between the two guitars, including the wood differences, may "push the tone over the edge" from midrangey to mud, but they won't take a dark pickup and make it bright or vice versa. There are a ton of differences there besides neck wood which as usual everyone ignores - solid v. hollow, tele bridge plate, bridge itself. Not to mention the fact that every piece of wood and every combination of parts is unique as well. A 6 lb and a 3 lb alder strat body are just not going to have the same "tone meter" setting. Ken Warmoth said a while back that the whole idea is BS and I guess he knows his stuff.

I have a hollow mahogany bodied Tele with a rosewood 24.75 neck, and it's true, it doesn't tend to be as ice-pick trebly as some teles can be, but there's no mistaking it for a les paul, because it has frickin TELE pickups and bridge.

To quote Tfarny again, quoting Ken Warmoth, again,

We’re glad to
answer questions about woods and tones, but this can really
be addressed in rather broad generalities, since there is no
exact science to it. Not only does each individual piece of
wood have its own tone, but everyone hears things a little dif -
ferently, and the spectrum of pickups available is just huge. It
is much easier to work on the dimensional specifications of a
piece than on the tone.
- Ken Warmoth 2002

I hear what you're saying, but speaking in general terms, say you built 100 of your hollow mahogany teles, and then compared them with 100 hollow ebony body teles with otherwise identical specs to your axe. sure, each of the mahogany and each of the ebony pieces are going to yield slight tonal differences between the other bodies of the same wood type, but are you really saying that you don't think there would be generalizable differences between the mahogany bodies compared to the ebony?  Would it really be a giant leap to say that, IN GENERAL, mahogany is a warmer-toned wood than ebony? I agree that people can take the Tone-ometer thingies a bit too far at times, but Warmoth put them on the website because they can be helpful guides for the GENERAL tone differences between each type of wood.

 

[pabloman]

Go with the Suhr Doug Aldrich pups. They are hot but not muddy.

 

[MN_JDTele]

Anyone looking for gold 4-conductor TX/BBQ pups? 

 

[Superlizard]

Anyone looking for gold 4-conductor TX/BBQ pups?   

:icon_jokercolor:

 

[GoDrex]

I hate to agree with SL on anything but I've got to in this case.

When I got my guitar I didn't think wood mattered as much as I do now. I tried my trusty JB in it and it was awful. There's nothing odd about the guitar other than the wood choices I made. I'm nearly certain that if I slapped a maple neck on my LP the JB would suddenly sound awesome on that guitar.

 

[tfarny]

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm saying there is no frickin recipe for it and that you have to go case by case. All of us have put highly recommended pickups in and changed them around for whatever tonal reasons, it happens all the time. Pickup selection is guesswork, and the tone of the instrument is colored somewhat by that other stuff but primarily comes from the pickup. Just follow the actual signal chain - a string vibrates, the pickup translates that vibration into electric current, the current heads on out to the amp. Everything else is acting secondarily on that chain of electrons. No way that wood choice matters 1/4 as much as, say, magnet type or even string material and thickness.

It's kind of nostalgic to have this debate, ain't it? We haven't bashed our heads against each other for a while. Go Obama!  :icon_jokercolor:  :evil4:

 

[GoDrex]

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm saying there is no frickin recipe for it and that you have to go case by case.

. Pickup selection is guesswork,

I disagree. There are certain known combinations of woods that will get you in certain ball parks. And knowing what I know now about pickups and woods, I'm far more confident now (as compared to a couple years ago) about what kinds of pickups will "work" to certain degree. And by work, I mean work for me. But it does depend on how picky you are about it, and what you think works and what doesn't.

here's some examples:  I had an Ibanez iceman - hard pancake body with maple neck, rosewood fretboard - loved the JB - I swapped the body to a basswood body and the tone and feel changed, but it was still killer.

my warmoth LP - hates the JB - -sounds good with bright low resistance humbuckers, but is still dark.

Parker p-42 - mahogany body, maple neck, ebony fretboard - loves the JB - bright and thin guitar - thin body and thin neck


all are TOM bridge guitars. The only real differences are the wood types involved


are you going to tell me I can't learn anything from that? Look at a gibson black beauty - known for being dark and muddy. why? it's all mahogany - not enough hard bright woods.

 

[spauldingrules]

So have you tried the parallel wiring?

 

[MN_JDTele]

Alright, swapped the TX BBQ pups for a set of Duncan '59's,  and man what a difference.  Not knocking the Rio Grande pickups, they just weren't right for this guitar.  The duncans are a perfect match!  I've got the TX/BBQ pups for sale if anyone is looking.  Like I said, they are some killer pups in the right axe.  I've got a set in a tele, and they scream!  Wicked tone.  They would be perfect in a brighter sounding guitar...

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=14026.0

 

[Superlizard]

Alright, swapped the TX BBQ pups for a set of Duncan '59's,  and man what a difference.  Not knocking the Rio Grande pickups, they just weren't right for this guitar.  The duncans are a perfect match!  I've got the TX/BBQ pups for sale if anyone is looking.  Like I said, they are some killer pups in the right axe.  I've got a set in a tele, and they scream!  Wicked tone.  They would be perfect in a brighter sounding guitar...

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=14026.0

:icon_thumright:

(This info will be filed away in the murky, cobwebbed database of my brain, dude... for future reference)

 

[pabloman]

I like how the OP says they sound poopy and muddy and dookieish in this thread but in the for sale thread they are phenominal and just a little too ballsy. arty07:  I do that all the time with stuff when I sell it. It doesn't work for me and I hate the junk but it really is quality stuff so I make all kinds of positive statements cause for the most part it's true.

 

[MN_JDTele]

I have a set in my JD signature telecaster, and love them.  They scream in that!  But they weren't right for my VIP, and I have no other guitar to put them in.  So I was not making anything up  :icon_scratch:  Not sure where I said they were poopy and dookieish?  Just that they were to muddy for this guitar