Pickup help for hollow droptop T,

[kurt1981]

Hey everyone, it's been a while for me, but I have a question. My droptop T has an H-1 in neck and an H2+ in bridge. I'm not really feeling these pickups anymore, the bridge feels a bit too hot and I'm wanting more midrange in both positions, whereas I feel like the stock pickups tend to accentuate more of the lows and highs right now. I wondered if anyone has ideas for replacement pickups, something not too hot, that has a bit more midrange.

[Rhys]

What's the wood on your droptop? Unfortunately the hollow is taking some mids out. I always thought mids came with more output; if so I don't know what could get you less hot than H2+ but also more mids. Could be the hollowness and wood type that's giving you the scooped sound you're hearing.

[pipedwho]

I know what you mean about the 'hollow' taking out some of the mids. But, I find with my HCS it's not the same mids that the H2+ adds back in. I find on my guitar that it's the lower mids that are scooped, and I needed to move the M1 neck pickup closer to the strings to compensate. But, the H2+ in the bridge seems to work well at any height.

I have an HW2, HO2, HN2+, and an HO1+ that are sitting here waiting to go in to see which I like better. Becoming a dad this year has significantly reduced my 'tinker time' ... and my sleep. :) So it might be a while before I get a chance to do a proper ABCD comparison/swapout.

Don't get me wrong, I do really like the tone of the H2+ in the bridge, but I play this guitar mostly clean and I get the feeling a lower output 'bucker would probably suit it better. I still have my DT with an H3 for the high gain stuff.

[Pietro]

Buy a new amp.
:p

[kurt1981]

No new amp here, my rambler is just fine!! I feel the same, I do a lot of clean work, and feel like the H2+ is too much sometimes. The H1 in the neck sounds kind of thin to me, so I'm trying to figure out what to try. Maybe switching the pickups, I don't know. Do the Ho's sound much different from the regular H's?
Thanks guys for your help,
Kurt

[pipedwho]

No new amp here, my rambler is just fine!! I feel the same, I do a lot of clean work, and feel like the H2+ is too much sometimes. The H1 in the neck sounds kind of thin to me, so I'm trying to figure out what to try. Maybe switching the pickups, I don't know. Do the Ho's sound much different from the regular H's?
Thanks guys for your help,
Kurt
The HOs are more PAFish and even sounding. The Hs tend to have that characteristic mid heavy humbucker sound - which works well for lead and rock/blues style rhythm, but can have a little too much midrange (upper mids / honk) for clean solo work.

In my DT (maple neck / maple on basswood body / floyd) the H3 in the bridge is perfect. It splits extremely well to match with the SF1s in the neck middle position, and the humbucker sound is pure rock.

My HCS (solid rosewood neck / maple on mahogany body) has an H2+ in the bridge, but I'm leaning more towards the HW2 (which is supposed to sound like an HO2, but made with H style construction). When I was speccing this guitar with Roy I was a bit unsure as to which pickups would suit me best as I had only heard the H3 in my DT. At the time, I was thinking I'd use this guitar for distorted sounds, but have since found it works beautifully for cleans.

[kurt1981]

Thanks so much, that helps a lot. I'm trying to make this the guitar to grab for most stuff, so I want a nice clean sound over most else, but I do like the nice overdriven bridge tone for soloing. I had a gig with another guitar player last night, and he's got a duncan holdsworth pickup in the bridge, it gave a nice balance of mids but wasn't too hot, that's what I want, and the neck just doesn't sound full enough to me, it sounds kind of scooped. The guitar is a hollow droptop T with alder body and maple top.
Thanks for your help.
Kurt

[bruce]

If you are experiencing a scooped thing with the H1 and H2 + then you are not going to get more mids with the HO's. You also are a candidate for a solid body.

[pipedwho]

If you are experiencing a scooped thing with the H1 and H2 + then you are not going to get more mids with the HO's. You also are a candidate for a solid body.
I complete agree with this - however, there are still a few avenues to explore before succumbing to the raw energy and cut of a solid-body. ;)

I haven't done the comparison yet with my Andersons. But with my Schecter, I found that the Duncan JB actually 'felt' more scooped than the Alnico II Pro I ended up replacing it with. It was almost like the upper mid boost of the JB made the guitar's natural lack of lower mids more pronounced. The more even toned Alnico II Pro seemed to 'round' out the sound a little more and the guitar sounded more balanced. Even though it had less humbucker 'honk', it seemed to have more definition in the mids.

I'm assuming that may be what Kurt is hearing. It's sort of like putting super hot pickups into a 335 - it just sounds a bit wrong. I've heard the HO1-/HO1+ combination in a 335 and it sounded great. That's what I'm hoping to get with the HW2 in my HCS - more a case of the right humbucker for the job, than just a more/less mids thing.

I'm not sure what the H1 sounds like though, so I can't really comment there. But, I will say, that the M1 neck in my HCS sounds a bit 'scooped' when I dial the amp in to get the H2+ sounding right for my clean sound. This could be a case of dialling in the amp for the bridge, and the neck is not quite keeping up. A lower output bridge might bring the whole guitar back into balance and not require changing the neck pickup at all.

Kurt, it might be worth trying to dial in your amp for the neck pickup only and/or maybe raising the neck pickup so it's closer to the strings. This will tell you if there's even a problem at all with the neck pickup. It took me a while to realise that my hollow Cobra S needs to be dialed in very differently to my solid body Drop Top. Once I worked that out, I was much happier with my tone.

[kurt1981]

I'll mess with that and see, thanks for the ideas guys. I had one other question, I'm not really happy with the middle pickup, the SD1R. I want more of a true single coil sound in there, I feel like that may be part of my problem too, I don't like the sound of either humbucker with the middle pickup. I've messed around with parallel and split options, and I'm not sure exactly what to do, I just want more of a traditional stratty sound. Thanks, sorry for being so unclear!!
Kurt

[pipedwho]

An HSH configuration will never sound super stratty. But, it can get close depending on how well the humbuckers split. Also, the guitar being hollow and a T shape are also pulling the tone away from 'plinky' stratness.

IMO, a lower output neck/bridge humbucker with a VA1 or SF1 in the middle would move you from the modern higher gain '80s sound to something a little more traditional.

[ducmike]

Have you tried playing with the height of the H2+? I thought mine was a little too bright and harsh played clean. But, I liked the cut it gave with my OD channel, or with my fuzz. I was even toying with the idea of changing it to a H02 like I had in my HDT. I brought it up about 2mm, and now its perfect on the cleans, and still cuts with OD. Not sure which way (up or down) to go for your situation, just give it a try and experiment.

I have SFs in the mid and neck. Pretty low output and vintage tone. I dropped my middle down some to get more of that quack in the mid/bridge position. That's the key to good quack. The middle has to be lower than the others.