How to make an ASAT Classic bluesboy brighter?

[Jorg]

Hi guys,

I bought and ASAT classic tribute bluesboy a while back and overall love it. Amazing built quality and feel.
Especially for the price I paid.

The only issue I have is I find the neck humbucker to bassy.
It sounds great in the middle position and the bridge pick up, while quiet bright, gets its uses too.

Is there a way to make the neck pick up brighter? Is there a recommended alternative pickup that could help?

[Craig]

Hi guys,

I bought and ASAT classic tribute bluesboy a while back and overall love it. Amazing built quality and feel.
Especially for the price I paid.

The only issue I have is I find the neck humbucker to bassy.
It sounds great in the middle position and the bridge pick up, while quiet bright, gets its uses too.

Is there a way to make the neck pick up brighter? Is there a recommended alternative pickup that could help?

Did a quick search and found this post: Neck pickup sounds too dark - solutions?].
I know this topic has been discussed multiple times, so you might view the Knowledgebase sub-forums by subject or
use the Search function to search across the various forums on this site.

Hope this helps.

[Danley]

I chimed in on the other thread but I'll add some options; this should be the same pickup as in my Tribute Deluxe ASAT, which I don't think is *too* bassy myself (even if I do not prefer humbuckers in the neck position, for perhaps the same reasons as you.)

First: My real suggestion is make tweaks to the amp EQ/pickup heights first, and see if some combination of turning down the bass or lowering/possibly raising the neck pickup bass side doesn't fix it without messing with your bridge tone. You might even get a decent result from moving your amp away from a wall, or using an open-back cabinet if possible.

Wiring is an option - If the humbucker is four conductor (which I think it is, based on the fact that it is four conductor in my Deluxe) then you can either wire it in parallel (hum-cancelling) and see if that helps, or wire it for a split (no hum-cancelling) ; you can use a push/pull pot or switch to do this, or wire it that way permanently. I personally prefer spit to parallel, which can be sort of too 'quacky' for me.

You could also swap the pots up to 1 meg or 500k, assuming the ASAT comes with 250k. Most humbuckers tend to be used with 500k for a brighter tone - though that wouldn't necessarily reduce the bass, it might balance things with more treble. Again, this could possibly affect your bridge tone in a negative way so caution is needed.

I mentioned pickup swaps in my first post of the other thread; if I owned an ASAT Bluesboy I might not be able to resist swapping in a humbucker sized single (as-mentioned, the Rose pickup or possibly Duncan Phat Cat or similar.) Alternately I might try to find a regular ASAT pickguard and fit either an ASAT neck MFD, standard Telecaster neck pickup, or else a Strat neck pickup (since a lot of people find standard Telecaster necks dull/too dark anyway.) Should fit in the body route, but a Strat pickup might require some modification to the pickgaurd at least. Really I hope you can fix it with minimal effort and not need to go that far though - Good luck!

[Jorg]

Thanks for the tips!!

Have those Picasso pickups been discontinued? Cant find them anywhere to buy.

[Danley]

I think I got the name wrong on the pickup, because the Picasso is a humbucker. It looks like Ken temporarily closed his web store due to a high volume of orders for the holidays, but he makes a great product; I have many of his pickups.

As an alternative, companies like Seymour Duncan, Novak, Sentell, Lollar, Creamery will all make singles in a humbucker size (or have done it.) The Seymour Duncan Jazz is probably one of the brightest humbuckers, but I actually think it’s pretty similar to the stock pickup - may be a close imitation by design in fact.

https://www.rosepickups.com/store-closed-for-holidays/

[Jorg]

Thanks for the info!

I found this one which apparently sounds bright.

https://www.andertons.co.uk/seymour-dun ... nMEALw_wcB

I'll keep looking around

[redpaul1]

As chance would have it, I started messing about today with the pole heights on my ASAT Tribute Bluesboy, along the lines suggested by this blog post from Haze Guitars https://hazeguitars.com/blog/how-to-set ... ece-height



The idea being to get the strings (the unwound 'G'-string in particular) balanced in terms of volume.

I say "along the lines" of that blog post because you can't lower the pole-pieces on the Seth Lover humbucker below the surface of the cover. So basically, I mimicked that profile by raising all bar the 'G'-string piece above the cover plate; and then fine-tuned for string balance, starting with the D & G strings. I couldn't quite iron out the differences between the wound & unwound sides but I did manage to get the 3 treble strings balanced with each other, and likewise the 3 bass strings (I used Audacity to check to relative amplitudes, as well as my ears).

I then set the height of the whole unit with reference to the distance between the tops of the two 'E' pole-pieces and the bottom of the two 'E'-strings, just like you'd do on a (SSS) Strat. According to this recent post, http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/FORUM/viewt ... kup+height, the recommended pickup heights for a Bluesboy are 3/32", treble and bass sides, for both neck & middle, so that's what I set the heights at. Bear in mind that because the lower 'E'-string pole piece stands more proud of the cover-plate than the top 'E', the unit as a whole still slopes down from treble-side to bass-side.

I was going to use that 3/32" recommendation as a jumping-off point, but no need. The neck p/up with adjusted pole heights sounds literally brilliant at that height setting. Brilliant meaning bright and shiny. Couldn't believe it.

I went on to adjust the pole-pieces in the MFD bridge p/up too, again setting the heights of the 'E'-string pole pieces to 3/32" once I'd finished adjusting (again, they can't be lowered, only raised), but ended up at 1/8" (4/32"). Makes an appreciable difference but no nearly as much as it does with the SL humbucker on the neck.

So that would be my recommendation. Adjust the pole-pieces for string balance, and then set the height of the whole unit at 3/32" from the top of the 'E' pole-pieces to the bottom of both 'E'-strings. It'll only take a few minutes, and if you don't like it, it's a matter of only a few minutes more to return to factory settings. :-)