GuildAAPlayer
Junior Member
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2006
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We talked about this in a thread started in Dec 08 -- viewtopic.php?f=3&t=10708
The issue, to my ears, is to get a more rounded sound from the post-DeArmond / pre-Benedetto Artist Award Model pickups. On both my amps, an Evans JE-200 and a JazzKat, I've normally had to set the treble control all the way down to zero to cut back on what is an overly bright tone.
I've been using a Benedetto S-6 pickup for the past few months and think it was a fine improvement, but the guitar is still too much on the bright side with flat tone settings on the amp. The Benedetto circuit installation instruction sheet specifies a 250K ohm potentiometer. The stock Guild AA pot is 500K (mine was actually 470K as measured). So, for the next step, I ordered a 250K (250K actual) mini-pot.
(It looks like 250K ohm is the industry standard for single coil pickups, and 500K for humbuckers.)
I've swapped back to the original AA pickup, but with the new 250K potentiometer. The difference is very significant; much more than I would have imagined. Amp treble controls can be left in mid-range and the tone is still warm and fat! Also, when backing off on the guitar volume control, the treble of the output tone is further attenuated -- and, I think, considerably more so than it was with the original AA volume pot.
I may someday test the Benedetto S-6 with the 250K volume pot, but with the stock pickup sounding so dramatically different, I'll probably spend a lot more time with it this way -- at least long enough to test it through a couple of my other favorite string sets. Honestly, if I'd discovered this simple tone alteration much earlier, I probably wouldn't have considered shopping for an aftermarket pickup in the first place.
George
The issue, to my ears, is to get a more rounded sound from the post-DeArmond / pre-Benedetto Artist Award Model pickups. On both my amps, an Evans JE-200 and a JazzKat, I've normally had to set the treble control all the way down to zero to cut back on what is an overly bright tone.
I've been using a Benedetto S-6 pickup for the past few months and think it was a fine improvement, but the guitar is still too much on the bright side with flat tone settings on the amp. The Benedetto circuit installation instruction sheet specifies a 250K ohm potentiometer. The stock Guild AA pot is 500K (mine was actually 470K as measured). So, for the next step, I ordered a 250K (250K actual) mini-pot.
(It looks like 250K ohm is the industry standard for single coil pickups, and 500K for humbuckers.)
I've swapped back to the original AA pickup, but with the new 250K potentiometer. The difference is very significant; much more than I would have imagined. Amp treble controls can be left in mid-range and the tone is still warm and fat! Also, when backing off on the guitar volume control, the treble of the output tone is further attenuated -- and, I think, considerably more so than it was with the original AA volume pot.
I may someday test the Benedetto S-6 with the 250K volume pot, but with the stock pickup sounding so dramatically different, I'll probably spend a lot more time with it this way -- at least long enough to test it through a couple of my other favorite string sets. Honestly, if I'd discovered this simple tone alteration much earlier, I probably wouldn't have considered shopping for an aftermarket pickup in the first place.
George