Santana III - Pickups ?

[Squege1]

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. I recently picked up a 2002 Santana III off Reverb. The guitar is fantastic. It is intonated beautifully and stays in tune very well.
The pickups are also very touch sensitive and very dynamic, which make the Santana III much more than the one-trick pony that some people try to portray it as...
I love the guitar as is but I was just wondering if anyone has removed the pickup covers on one of these older guitars from those years (again, mines a 2002)?
I think the pickups sound really great as is so any change would admittedly just to change the look (although adding a little 'air' or bite would be welcome).
I love the way other Santana models look with the Zebra uncovered pickups. It makes me wonder if the covers are removed on Santana III models are the bobbins just black or if they are Zebra under there?
Any reply's are very much appreciated!

 

[Alnus Rubra]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your Santana.

Would love to see some more pics, when you can.

Sorry I don’t have an answer for your pickup cover question.

I’ve kept the covers on mine.

(Fellow Santana owner)

 

[Glide-bpm]

I've often wondered if the pickups are splitable on the Santana III guitars if you wanted to add a couple of push-push or push-pull pots.
Congrats!!! We need some pic porn so we can admire and drool over it....

 

[Simon Says]

I don't think this will change much. As long as the covers are nickel, they should be relatively tonal transparent. It's a popular misconception that would be the case with chromed copper covers but not nickel ones.

Try higher resistance pots; one mega should pump more presence. You can always add a capacitor 10nF to 100nF in series with pickup hot wire and see if you like the results.

Or simply EQ the front of an amp with a pedal

 

[Lewguitar]

Every time i've ever removed the covers from a bumbucker the pickup got a little brighter and more trebley.

More presence.

You can also get the coils a little closer to the strings for a more aggressive rock tone.

Some dealers sell 550K volume pots now. They'll make your guitar just a tad stronger, clearer and brighter if that's what you're after.

 

[aamefford]

What everyone else said. Mine’s an ‘03, with pickup covers that I’ll never remove. I just like the look of covered pickups. I find mine touch sensitive ( make that responsive to various degrees of ham fistedness), and really responsive to both tone and volume knob settings. Yeah, it’s a rocker, but not only.

Edit - oh yeah, picks or it’s hello Kitty