Post
by Puckhog » Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:06 pm
This is a tuff one, because descriptors like "nasally" and 'mid-heavy' can mean different things to different people, and because there are so many different factors that come into play besides the pickups themselves.
Over this past year or two, I've spent a fair bit of time evaluating and upgrading the electronics on a number of guitars including three Epi's (e.g., Blackback LP, Sheraton-II, Wildkat), and if I've learned anything in the process, its that pickups aren't the whole story. In fact, in my experience, just about any pickup, even total junk in many cases, can be vastly improved with upgraded components, and given the relatively low cost of new pots, caps and/or wire, it just seems like a logical first step before spending a hundred or more on a replacement pickup. I have no direct experience with SG's specifically, but if the pickups are factory originals, then I highly doubt that they're "junk" or low-grade offerings like some of the Epiphone's, and to me, this is even more reason to focus on the other electronics. From looking at the standard SG schematic, it looks like each pup employs an 0.022uF tone cap with 500k audio taper tone and volume pots, which shouldn't produce an overly dark or mid-rangey tone. But who's to say that those pots and caps are all healthy? Or that the solder points are all solid? It can become a real crapshoot at-times.
If you own one, I think I'd start (as others have suggested) by throwing a multimeter to the amp-end of your instrument cable (when connected to the SG with volume pot dimed) to determine the present output of your existing bridge HB. Its a very small piece of the puzzle and not an accurate indicator of true output, but it'll give you some idea of where you're at with that particular pup. In my experience, some of the crispness and top-end sparkle is lost as the output increases, so if the output of your bridge pup is unexpectedly high for some odd reason, this could be part of the problem. If that's the case, a simple swap of tone cap (e.g., 0.022uF to 0.010uF) might do wonders. How dramatic is the sweep of brightness on the current (bridge) tone pot? Does it seem largely ineffective or strange in any way? Also, if its super "nasally" (as you seem to be describing it), then you may have a phase issue somewhere, in which case, the three-way would be my first stop.
