Low response from a floating humbucker

[DC Ehm]

I recently acquired a 95 guild artist award, love the guitar, hate the pickup.

i have TI 10’s swing series on it,
the b string screams, the high e is muted and the bottom 4 are supper low in volume

advice and suggestions welcome

thanks

[Cunamara]

Is that one of those big nearly square humbuckers with no exposed pole pieces?

[DC Ehm]

That’s the one

[Franz 1997]

That’s the one

Yes I have had the same experience. The pickup is specially designed to give a low volume but acoustically pure response. Some people like the pickup, but many players change it to a more conventional floating pickup, such as the DeArmond 1000 or 1100, or a Kent Armstrong single coil pickup. No doubt there are many other suitable pickups, including floating humbuckers.

[jjang1993]

I have the same issue with my Ibanez AF71F which has a floater with no pole pieces. I have a Kent Armstrong style pickup with adjustable pole pieces of the same dimensions coming in the mail. My teacher Bruce Forman swears by the Kent Armstrong side mounded black PAF pickup. He had the single coil KA on his Sontagg guitar before.

[Cunamara]

The Kent Armstrong PAF-0 floating humbucker may be a good solution. It is a pickup with an excellent reputation; my experience with it was that it tends towards bright and clear rather than warm and woolly (I wanted warm and wooly at that time, my tastes have changed a bit since then).

[guido5]

I installed the side mount KA PAF-0 in my Eastman AR910 CES. It has a really wide range of tones even making this rather bright guitar sound quite warm and dark.