58/15 LTs: How much variation in your experience?

[Herr Squid]

I'm the happy owner and player of two 594s: a very early doublecut, and one of the limited edition soapbar 594 singlecuts.

Being so happy with those two guitars, I was not able to resist a gorgeous quilted SC594 last year, and eagerly added it to my harem. Now I've heard the 58/15 LT pickups praised as very "clear," but on this particular guitar, I think the bridge pickup is somewhere between "offensively bright" and "shrill." The neck pickup is pretty good, but the bridge pickup is really bothering me.

It's way way brighter than the one in my DC 594, and I honestly don't know if it's the pickup itself, or the ebony fretboard on the SC (the DC is a rosewood board). The guitar doesn't sound much brighter acoustically than its siblings, so I'm inclined to believe it's the pickup. So my question: if you own multiple guitars with 58/15 LTs in them, do you notice much variability between the pickups in your guitars?

I have run the pole pieces up and down and tinkered with the pickup heights a fair amount. While I thoughtr it helped last Saturday while I was in the middle of it, I picked the guitar back up in the middle of the week and it seemed no better. Honestly, I'm about ready to plop a 57/08 in it to see if I like it better in that guitar.

 

[WA Paul]

Hmm...I had multiple 58/15LT briefly, but they were pretty close to each other. I had that experience with a bridge 58/15 regular though (the only 5x/xx variant I don’t seem to get along with - I blame my ears). Ebony board would be a little bit brighter, but the SC body versus DC body should offset that somewhat (more push in low/mids). Assuming both necks are mahogany?

Shrill is never a word I’d used to describe a LT variant.

57/08 would work well in an SC or...59/09

EDIT - I should mention the two 594s I had were about a year apart in production

 

[Black Plaid]

It's possible the pup is defective. Famously, the Joe Satriani pickup is modeled after one he had that was broken, but he liked the sound it created for his mixes (it's rather bright and 'edgy')

As a rough check, you could put a meter on it and measure the resistance of the coils compared to your other one.

 

[Bowtiefanatc]

I have my 58/15LTs in my SC Trem right now and they are fantastic. The neck used to be in my CU24 and it paired really well with the 59/09 bridge.

My favorite combo is definitely in the SCT they just sound incredible paired together.

 

[Herr Squid]

Hmm...I had multiple 58/15LT briefly, but they were pretty close to each other. I had that experience with a bridge 58/15 regular though (the only 5x/xx variant I don’t seem to get along with - I blame my ears). Ebony board would be a little bit brighter, but the SC body versus DC body should offset that somewhat (more push in low/mids). Assuming both necks are mahogany?

Shrill is never a word I’d used to describe a LT variant.

57/08 would work well in an SC or...59/09

EDIT - I should mention the two 594s I had were about a year apart in production

Yep, both are mahogany necks. Mine are 1 model year and 20,200 serial numbers apart.

 

[Herr Squid]

It's possible the pup is defective. Famously, the Joe Satriani pickup is modeled after one he had that was broken, but he liked the sound it created for his mixes (it's rather bright and 'edgy')

As a rough check, you could put a meter on it and measure the resistance of the coils compared to your other one.

All of 'em are about 7.8 Kohm, IIRC.

 

[WA Paul]

Short of switching the bridge pickup between the DC and SC to test this more, I would simply swap to a different pickup which is where you started out.

 

[11top]

I posted in another thread just the other day that I wasn’t crazy about the (bridge) LT in my 594 SC. It’s the only guitar I own with LTs so I’m not able to compare. However, I do have 58/15s in another SC, and I’m much happier with those.

 

[Herr Squid]

I posted in another thread just the other day that I wasn’t crazy about the (bridge) LT in my 594 SC. It’s the only guitar I own with LTs so I’m not able to compare. However, I do have 58/15s in another SC, and I’m much happier with those.

I'm very happy with the LTs in my DC, but no so much that one pickup in the SC. Once I get over this pestilential cough I brought home from Europe, I'll probably fire up the soldering iron. I have an ME2 pickup on the shelf. I also wonder if maybe I've got a pot that runs bright...