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Hello, I am setting up a solid body Schecter guitar for playing mainstream jazz, as a backup for my hollow body jazz guitar.
It has typical heavy metal setup now. Can somebody tell me what will make it warmer without the treble crunch and peak?
Different tone control (250k ohm)? Different cap (.047)? Linear taper or something else?
Thanks. Engineering jargon will not help this non-electronics person, sad to say.
Jim
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11-06-2020 12:10 PM
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We would need more information about your guitar to be able to hazard a guess. Which model is it? Does it have single coil or humbucker pickups in the neck/middle and bridge positions? What does the knob layout look like (volume and one or two tones; two volumes and two tones, etc.)? What happens if you just turn the treble down on the tone knob? If you back the volume knob down to 5-6? Have you tried adjusting the pickup height?
Unless you have a guitar with only a bridge pickup, like Eddie Van Halen, most guitars can be tweaked to get a fairly warm and smooth tone without having to replace any parts. Although I will admit to having had a lot of fun over the years replacing the parts and seeing what that does!
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I favor the least technical method of darkening the tone...by lowering the volume a bit, then raising the amp volume.
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- Heavier strings.
Originally Posted by voyage
- Pick over the neck pickup.
- Don’t ‘snap’ the strings against the frets but aim to make the strings vibrate parallel to the fretboard.
- tone down the left hand vibrato
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What the other two said :
- heavier strings (0.11's) , try flatwounds
- jack up the action
- use the neck pickup, not too close to the strings
- work on your picking technique, experiment with type/shape of pick, picking angle
- turning down the vol. pot a notch often reduces the brightness - unless there's a treble-bleed circuit soldered onto the pot... you'd need to take that out.
- a different value cap for the tone control won't do anything but bleed MORE high frequencies to ground, resulting in a muddy, really dark tone without much "character" , won't be heard in a band setting unless you turn up.
An outboard eq pedal might be a very useful tool and not costly either. There's a 10-band eq pedal by MXR with an on/off switch with which you could taylor the mid + treble content.
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+1 on the graphic EQ - even the 6 band MXR will do a good job on taming strident trebles, as will lowering the volume level on the guitar. I use thus approach on my 1978 Ibanez MC400NT which can be very shrill (even with its on-board 3-band EQ)
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Many fine suggestions in the replies and I guess I have nothing new to add. So I'll indulge in some thread veering.
Christian gets a fine sound out of his guitars and, if I recall correctly, plays most often with a pick. Speaking as sometime who plays without a pick, bare fingertips, I would give you the opposite advice! Originally Posted by christianm77
A more full and warmer tone is produced when the string is set in motion perpendicular to the body of the guitar. I learned this in my classical guitar playing youth and find it remains true for acoustic and electric steel string guitars.
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Maybe that’s why you prefer a high action? Give the string more room to oscillate.
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It's a compromise. I try to let the amp do the heavy lifting for volume so my electric guitars are set up with very little relief and low action. It takes a light touch to make it work. Small and low frets preferred with 11 or 12 gauge strings.
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It also depends on the type of solid body jazz tone you like.
Among the alternatives are, the dark, hammond organ like tones of Ed Bickert or the more open and clear, brighter tones of Ted Greene.
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My experience with guitars ranging from an L5ces and ES175 over to a Telecaster and Jazzmaster is that NOTHING changes your tone to a more traditional jazz sound like going to nickel, flat-wound strings in the 12-54 range, like Thomastic Infeld Jazz Swing or the equivalent. That will get you far more than half-way there. Those strings on my Telecaster put it solidly in a jazz tone. I have no plans to mod the guitar at all.
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Lawson, Are so right. I put TI 12's on a Strat. When they broke in, they transformed the guitar into a Jazz Guitar!
Great advice buddy!
JD
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Plus it's cheaper than electronics changes and easily reversed. And with the original pickup and electronics, it still sounds like, well, a Fender. Just jazzed up. Originally Posted by Max405
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Here's my stock Telecaster strung with TI JazzSwing 12's. I've rolled off the tone about a third, playing through the Fender Tone Master Twin Reverb.
It's not a humbucker jazz gone, but it's a pretty decent single-coil jazz tone, IMO.
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Here's another demo I did with Gibson ES175, Fender Telecaster, Squier Jazzmaster, all "stock" and all with TI JA112 strings. I'm NOT saying they all sound alike, just showing what a mere change of strings can do to move a Tele or JM toward a traditional jazz tone.
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The telecaster jazz tone is kind of its own special thing. It doesn't sound like a humbucker, but its a great sound for jazz.
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Telecaster through a Princeton.... Old video, apols. Think I was using flatwounds here.
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Nice playing. Are the pickups noisless? Those stacked humbuckers right, sort of between single coil and humbucker sound. Originally Posted by christianm77
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Lower the treble side of your pickups. Play up on the neck area. Put a resistor in line to reduce output.
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They are noiseless I think. I just bought the guitar I liked, so maybe I gravitated towards that. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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