Guitar Tone Workshop

Steve Shasta

http://guitargeek.com/rigs/img/s/seam_soo_1995.gif

And, er, failing that, my impression is that a lot of yr tonefreak types tend to swap out the stock pups on the Artcores. Nothing high-output (welcome to feedbacksville, population: you and everyone in earshot). (Though of course what you're playing through matters as well.)

For a nice, inexpensive option, you might look into the GFS "Retrotron" pups. They're 'buckers, but they're supposed to deliver more highs and bring teh jangle. http://store.guitarfetish.com/vintagestyle.html

If you don't mind wading through 35 pages of posts, there's an ongoing HC "Ibanez Artcore Posse!!!" thread that might be worth your time. Sounds as though plenty of folks have wrassled with this very question.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=776695

Roger: Yeah, I've been thinking about pickup replacement, so I'll definitely look over that -- thanks for the link. The Artcores are great in lots of ways, but I can see why lots of people would want to get more brightness out of them (especially if your idea of hollow-body sound is kinda Rickenbacker-influenced). I wonder what kind of sounds you could get from mismatching and blending two different pickup types.

Also, try not to dwell on eeking tones out of this guitar that simply aren't going to be inherent in the guitar (e.g. single coil). If you want single coil tone, get a tele or a strat. Putting soapbar pickups in your semi-hollow body will not rectify your dilemma.

Explain me Rickenbacker? (You may use the word "maple" if necessary.)

if i were in your shoes i would first try a HB-sized p-90 type pickup and see if i liked it. other than that i'd get the guitar that sounded the way i wanted it to sound, first and foremost. kind of the dickhead answer, but what do you love about it that isn't the sound?

and WHO'S rickenbacker has 'soapbar' pickups???

anyway, I think if you're spending time playing through a small SS practice amp (note: I have nothing against SS, I love me some JC's) your search for tone will be forever hindered. A verstile amp will probably help you more than anything(other than actually being really good). If I were you, I'd research module amps if you really want some versitility (not goddamn modeling amps, but that's a whole other rant, right?).

I would say a good number of jazz guitarists might disagree.

You could get into swapping pickups and the like, but you still might have a banana and be expecting it to taste like lobster.

It might be that your guitar is just not going to work with your amp to get the sound you want. Then it could be that no guitar might work with your amp to get the sound you want. I'd say invite a friend with a couple of different style guitars over for a jam and see how they sound through your amp. I'd try that out before buying a bunch of pickups or effects units.

Pedals into a solid state amp are a total crap shoot, especially something like a treble booster which were made for working with tube amps. An EQ is a safer bet, as some metal players use those with solid state amps. Those kind of pedals are pretty noisy and you will often see a noise suppressor right after them in a signal chain.

For what it is worth, I think some of the modeling stuff works better for clean tones than it does for distortion. If you don't have the space to get a tube amp cooking, maybe a Pod, Sansamp or something similar would work better for recording in your situation.

Yes, definitely.

**(not goddamn modeling amps, but that's a whole other rant, right?)**

Again, great advice.

I'd say swopping pickups is a lottery, and one with a high probability of disappointment. If I were in theis position I'd spend a couple of hours trying out guitars at a decent-sized store to see whether anything fits the bill. You should either take yr amp down there, or use something similar at the shop. I'd bet that a MIM Strat or Tele would give you exactly what you want. You can get a whole variety of different tones out of them as standard. If you have the money for one, that would give you a real contrast to the Ibanez. For me, the Tele's clean sound is a thing of beauty and the single-coil snarl with moderate overdrive is even better. I tried a MIM strat the other week and was really impressed with the neck pick-up sound - throaty and rich - but less so with the middle and bridge.

Things I like about this guitar that make me not want to just trade it in for a Jaguar = (a) play/feel, (b) a certain amount of depth that I do want to keep, (c) value for its price, since it would kinda trade in for a "worse" guitar, and (d) looks and love.

Dean Wareham's a really good reference point here, actually -- I spent a while last night playing with just that single-coil pickup emulator on, and I was getting exactly what I wanted, and it was a lot like the sound on the first couple G500 albums. (I dunno if Wareham ever used the Les Paul back then or just the hollowbody, but still.) That's a definite hollow tone on those albums, really full and warm and sustainy -- but you can also feel that the guitar's really responsive. He can light-touch on a string and still really get a clear, bright, kinda grand response out of it, especially when the gain's up for his solos.

So between that and the widespread pickup replacement among the HC Artcore people ... well, I think I either need to get higher-output, significantly brighter pickups, or just hang onto this little box for the sole purpose of the single-coil emulator.

I'd try an EQ pedal (to boost your mid-hi warmth/brightness) and a compressor/sustainer (for sustain and to give your 25W amp a little more depth/versatility).

Fair, but aren't the toasters pretty similar to P90s?

oh and a guitar-geek friend of mine was raving about the GFS pups.

And they do just happen to make a humbucker-sized P90...

We need N/A to drop by this thread -- he plays the same kind of 335-style semi-hollow, and he gets terrific tone. Wonder what kind of pickups and amp he has ...

One simple question - please don't be insulted - have you checked to make sure the tone controls are working properly?

(P.S.: like I said, it was only a couple minutes playing around on the Twin -- those things are shiny enough that I'm sure a little fussing could have gotten me closer to what I'm looking for. But I'd bet the low output and too-soupy distortion things would still have been issues.)

and, i'm glad i brought up dean then. es-335, stock pickups, into a twin reverb. thats all. do i think that tonally the wood of the gibson is better? maybe. but the pickups are definitely better in the gibson. try some bright humbuckers and see how that works for you.

I've never played an Artcore, but I would imagine/hope that the PUs have more range than that! Even if the tone controls do work to roll off highs, something might be off with them. it's very strange.

Nabisco, can you try out similar guitars in the store to see if they have this problem? I would start at the pickups and tone controls first...long before going to an EQ pedal. start at the source.

But before you get the vox, please give us the pleasure of a "recommend nabisco facemelting toob amp" thread!

Weird note: I lowered the bridge a little, for unrelated reasons, and this actually seemed to make a significant difference with this problem. So I suppose the part that makes it feel so "muddy" might be more the low output than any lack of high-end tones -- just dropping the strings ever-so-slightly closer seemed to perk up the clarity quite a bit.

(Granted, at this point I've been thinking about this too much, and I may in fact be hearing things that do not exist.)

Nothing weird about it - surprised (and frankly chagrined) it didn't occur to any of us to try raising the pups!

Try this. Get a little metal ruler (machinist style) press down the string at the last fret, and measure the gap between the bottom of the string and the top of the pickup pole piece (both the 6th and the first string). This gap should be about 1/8" on both sides. If not, raise pickups until it is.

But remember, you don't want 'em so close they pull on the strings :)

I dunno that it'll solve everything -- I lifted them from the get-go, and they're gonna be low-output no matter how close in I bring them -- but this could be a whole lot of help in the end.

One trick that absolutely will work would be to rewire the thing so that the two coils of the HB are in local parallel rather than the default series config. This will tend to make them sound a lot more like single-coils. They won't be quite as hot in this configuration but will have much more open highs.

Another idea would be to add "treble bleed" capacitors to your wiring scheme. This is basically a built-in high-pass filter.

I can help you with resources on how to actually do these things if you need them.

I have an Ibanez AM-73 Artcore, and find I need to keep the treble on my Fender Deluxe Reverb at about "7" to make it sound clear. The original Artcore pickups were medium output ceramic magnet pickups that sounded a bit harsh to my ear. I replaced them with a pair of pickups originally from a Gibson SG and find the Gibson pickups to have a bell-like sound that is very pleasant.