I decided to make my G&L ASAT Bluesboy semi-hollow into a bit of a project guitar; replacing both the neck HB and the bridge single-coil pickups and all the electrics as well. (I always found the ceramic MFD a bit on the shrill side for my tastes and, regardless of how I set it up or EQ it, I didn't like the low bass notes out of the humbucker.)
Initially I thought I'd go for some custom pickups from thelittleguitarshop, a local independent and, coincidentally, G&L merchant. However, not being 100% committed to the guitar, or being entirely sure what I wanted from it, I decided to go with lower cost (not cheap, as everyone seems to say about them) Toneriders. I chose the TRT1B for the bridge, a classic/vintage sounding AlNiCo V single-coil and their Classic II, AlNiCo II PAF style Humbucker for the neck. I was basically after a more subtle/vintage but not 'twangy' tone. (No doubt ASAT/Tele purists will say "What!")
Before starting this project I was aware that swapping G&L pickups on these ASAT models can create phasing problems. However, anyone thinking of changing just their bridge or neck pickup might be interested to know that, apparently, Toneriders 'Fender replacement pickups' are also wound to be out of phase with Fender pickups, this from Andrew Cunningham at Tonerider ....
"The issue is with Fender’s telecaster pickup standard winding style, which is out-of-phase with Gibson pickups, and Duncans, and Dimarzio’s and ours. So we wind the tele’s to match Fenders, as so many guys expect to able to install a Tonerider in the neck or bridge of their Fender or Squier and still maintain phase and RWRP hum-cancelling in the mid position."
Which was a help to know until I also wanted to install one of their humbuckers in the neck ... which meant that the bridge and neck were still out of phase. Fortunately, as no doubt most of you will appreciate, being a humbucker with an earthed cover I could just reverse the humbucker hot and earth wires to get them both back in phase.
In terms of wiring, having tried a few options with caps and treble bleeds, I decided to remove the treble bleed altogether, stick with a .022µF cap, add a push-pull dpdt to the Volume (250k) pot so I could switch between series and parallel wiring in the humbucker and changed the tone (250k) pot to a no-load one in the hope of curing the bass notes issue I have with the neck humbucker. Oh yes, as the no-load pot is a Fender one, with that funny short shaft, I treated the guitar to new, larger/heavier, screw on knobs. The results are ...
Bridge - Overall sound is bright and punchy, not vintage in my opinion, but slightly mellower than the MFD. Tone wise it works for me with the volume on anything from 7 to 10 and the tone around 7. The amp I use most has two channels and I spend most time going through the clean one, so adding a bit of bite to it through the gain channel or by just adding a Blues overdrive still works well at these settings. I don't use the No-Load tone setting on this pickup ... way too shrill for me ... ughh!
Middle - was always my favourite position as the guitar came from the factory and it still is with these new pickups. (Problem is, of course, should that be so ... do we really buy guitars for a mixed pickup sound?) Using the Volume at 7 and Tone at 7 works well here and switching between series and parallel makes only a barely noticeable difference to the tone and only a relatively slight drop in volume. It is noticeable but not massive. Moving the tone round to no-load, doesn't make a huge difference compared to if it were on 9. Which I suppose isn't too surprising given that it's a mixed pickup sound.
Neck - This pickup is powerful and has great treble and mids but, and perhaps it's just my hearing, the low bass notes still sound overpowering/out of kilter with the rest of the fretboard; again despite using a myriad of EQ settings. Sticking with the Volume at 7 and tone at 7, switching between series and parallel again gives a slight drop in volume, but there's nothing dramatic to it and I'd even say it's nothing that couldn't be compensated for by heavier picking if you wanted to. Where there is a change is in the tone. In parallel mode I can best describe it as more airy. You don't get anything like a single-coil sound, more like a low-powered humbucker, which is of course exactly what's supposed to happen. (Coincidentally, I've got an old Epiphone Les Paul Studio, the humbuckers in that I've measured at 5.5k!, now - all other things being equal - the Tonerider in parallel sounds pretty well as loud as the Epiphone ones.)
Move the volume up to 10 and, again in both series and parallel, the tone stays steady. Move the tone pot to no-load and it will take some of the bass out of the low end, but in all truth, it's not making a massive difference. Across the mid and treble ranges, again no significant difference to the tone really.
(I have a no-load tone pot on my Amer. Std. Strat ... and I really do like it there, but on this, very different, guitar - in my opinion, it's not worth bothering with.)
Net result of all this is, next time the control plates off - I'll most likely revert back to the standard wiring, still not using a treble bleed as, with a new 'height' set-up, I'm most likely going to use this guitar for slide work, pretty well permanently using the neck pickup in full humbucker mode.
However, I would commend trying the neck humbucker series/parallel switching on this guitar, as, depending on your playing and gear, it could well open up a whole new world of options.
Question - could the low bass note sound I don't like be a consequence of ... ash body + semi-hollow + neck humbucker?
Finally, with no sniggering at my feeble attempts please
... sound clips ... First, the rant .... I personally hate it when listening to sample clips of ... hey, I just installed this/that/the other ... only to then hear someone trying to out play some death-metal/thrash guitar hero with OTT fuzz and distortion or even worse chorus(!) etc. So, these are really boring with not even a hint of reverb and, as close as I can do it, all the same. So, this really is what the pickups sound like
They're all Em pent from 12th fret high E to low open E and an open A major and another A major in the E shape at the 5th fret ... so hopefully you can compare like for like! They're all recorded from the clean channel of a Blackstar HT5R, volume and tone at 12 O'clock. But, they'll all be horribly compressed over the internet, not to mention that I'm not exactly sitting in a state of the art recording studio and with absolutely no idea regarding all the various sound-cards etc out there that might be used to listen through! Anyway, the table below shows what you're listening to for each track, so here's hoping it all works properly.
The 'table' below, before the Soundcloud link, states what you're hearing for each track.
Sample .............................. Switch Position .. Volume.... Tone
A - Parallel Humbucker ......... Neck ................... 10 ........ 7
B - Parallel Humbucker ......... Mid ..................... 10 ........ 7
C ....................................... Bridge ................. 10 ........ 7
D - Series Humbucker .......... Neck .................... 10 ........ 7
E - Series Humbucker ........... Mid ..................... 10 ........ 7
F - Parallel Humbucker ......... Neck .................... 10 ........ No Load
G - Parallel Humbucker ......... Mid ..................... 10 ......... No Load
H ....................................... Bridge ................. 10 ......... No Load
I - Series Humbucker ............ Neck ................... 10 ......... No Load
J - Series Humbucker ............ Mid ..................... 10 ......... No Load
Hopefully the following will take you to the first (A) sound clip, then go through to SoundCloud to hear the others, we'll see? ....
Finally, here's the obligatory photo ... and the trio of beauties I own.
Best wishes for now - Chris
