Brightening Santana III sound with SD Slash set?

[iec]

Hi,

I have a Santana III and I absolutely like the looks, feel and the playability of the guitar. The pickup sound is quite ok, but for me it seems to be perhaps a bit too dark and perhaps a bit too muddy at the bass strings. I've tried to adjust the pickup heights and pole pieces and now I'm wondering that does anyone have experience about Seymour Duncan Slash-set (Seymour Duncan APH-2S Slash Alnico II Pro ZB) compared to Santana original pickups? It seems that the woods in this guitar are more darkish-sounding compared to for example my chambered Les Paul Studio 2007 with Burstbucker Pros.

Any other kind of pickup suggestions are welcome as well. I had a Seymour Duncan Hot Rodded set (Jazz&JB) in my previous Epiphone LP and I'm trying to find something that is not that modern sounding but still a bit more trebly and with a bit more bite than the stock Santana 3 pickups. (Oh... almost forgot... The previous owner removed the chrome covers from the pickups and it still feels that I'd like to get more brighter sound).

I got the tip about the Slash-set from one guitarist who has owned a lot of different type of guitars, including PRS guitars. According to him the SD Slash -set would not change the nature of the Santana 3 sound too much.

Thanks in advance

-iec

 

[Toby]

A question which answer I'd like to hear, too!

*sits down and grabs a bag of Popcorn*

 

[iec]

A question which answer I'd like to hear, too!

*sits down and grabs a bag of Popcorn*

These Slash pus with zebra color would also look nice . Very close to the model where everything started with Paul Reed Smith ( If I'm not totally wrong).

 

[Solteroblues]

Personally, this all subjective, of course, I don't find the Slash set being that bright. If I wanted to brighten it up some, I'd go with something Alnico V's, they are much brighter than Alnico II's...at least to my ears... And I own a set of Slash pickups in a couple of my guitars...my personal favorite pickups...

 

[László]

In interviews about his tone, Santana has stated that he likes the treble rolled off so that he doesn't have an ice-pick-in-ear sound.

I suspect his pickups were developed and chosen with that in mind. He goes for a fat, midrange tone. He sets up his amps that way, too.

I haven't kept up with aftermarket pickups in the last few years, but you might want to investigate PRS' 59/09s and \m/ pickups?

 

[CatStrangler]

Personally, this all subjective, of course, I don't find the Slash set being that bright. If I wanted to brighten it up some, I'd go with something Alnico V's, they are much brighter than Alnico II's...at least to my ears... And I own a set of Slash pickups in a couple of my guitars...my personal favorite pickups...

Agreed. I wasn't sure If I was the only one who heard them that way.

 

[iec]

Thanks for the answers. I knew that Alnico V would be brighter than Alnico II, but how about the muddiness in the bass strings with Slash set? In my opinion the SD JB and Gibson Burstbucker Pro (both Alnico V) are quite percussive (thinking about styles like Ozzy, Whitesnake, Gary Moore). The Santana III pickups tend to get really muddy if playing that style of rhythm with 5-chords. Can you give opinion about the Slash bridge pickup in that focus? And I'm also suspecting the same as LSchefman that the Santana pickups are darker-sounding than other PRS pickups, and in that sense if the Slash set would be even a bit brighter it would be nice.

EDIT: To clear thigs up what I mean with the Gary Moore style of strumming (Song "Friday on my mind" and about 20:20 in this youtube album):

It is sometimes diffcult to express myself in english, but a sound sample should be more explanatory

 

[yankeebulldog]

The Slash set is actually fairly dark compared to most other pickups. His amps are very bright so the pickups help to tame that a bit. They are also not as hot as the Santana pickups so that's going to make a difference. I have a 59/09 bridge, 57/08 combo in my DC245 Trem, similar to a Santana as far as woods, scale, trem, etc. and its certainly no brighter than any of my other guitars.

 

[iec]

Interesting... I was thinking that the Santana III pickups are not very hot. At least compared to my LP Studio with Bustbucker Pros. Based on that and Seymour Duncan web page I would have assumed that the Slash set is hotter than Santana III set.

 

[yankeebulldog]

Interesting... I was thinking that the Santana III pickups are not very hot. At least compared to my LP Studio with Bustbucker Pros. Based on that and Seymour Duncan web page I would have assumed that the Slash set is hotter than Santana III set.

According to this, the Santana III bridge is fairly hot at 12k

 

[Solteroblues]

the slash set is not very hot, IIRC, around 7-8k even for the bridge. They are basically PAF clones.

 

[G-Man]

I have the Alnico II's in my CE 22 and they are mellower than the HFS and Vintage Bass in my other guitars which are much brighter. The Slash versions are very similar to the Alnico II's, very PAF'ey.

 

[iec]

OK. Based on the comments about Alnico II and Slash set it is starting to sound like I'll get the good old Jazz/JB set from Seymour Duncan, although I was thinking to try more vintage ones. I also listened to many clips form SD website and Youtube. Anyway I had really good experience about the Jazz/JB-set with my Epi LP with this same Fender Supersonic 22 Combo few years ago. I know that that pickup combination sounds bright enough for me and is definitely not muddy. I made also a comparison between my three guitars and I got the best bridge humbucker sound for my taste form either Gibson Burstbucker Pro with Gibson LP Studio or singlecoil-sized JB Jr with Ibanez Roadstar II. I also had (before this Made in USA Santana III ) PRS SE Eg with JB in the bridge and I liked the sound. I think the decision is made and case is closed on my side Perhaps I'll record some sound samples with the Roland Quad Capture before and after the pickup swap and post a link.

 

[Mixstar]

FWIW - If you're on Twitter contact @SeymourDuncan, explain exactly what you need, as above, and they will give you their suggestions, usually within a couple of hours. I've used this method twice and they were spot on both times, one for my LP and another for my Tremonti SE.

 

[iec]

Jazz & JB set (Hotrodded set) in Zebra color in on it's way from a Finnish webshop. Suprisingly cheaper than from Thomann in Germany. With the pickups swap to zebra the guitar should look a bit more like the first guitars Paul made: http://www.prsguitars.com/30/img/paul_then.jpg

 

[iec]

I got the SD Jazz&JB set (Zebra color) installed yesterday. Now the sound is on par with my Gibson LP Studio with Burstbucker Pros, or even better I was able to test only with Vox AC30-style headphone amp due to the fact that the pickup swap operation was finished very late in the evening (about 11:30 PM), but in comparison between the Gibson and PRS it sounded like the brightness and attack is good with hotrodded set. No muddiness at all. I'll have to test today with Fender Super Sonic 22 Combo to study the difference properly. I also recorded the sound with the original pickups with Roland Quad capture before the swap and I'll do the same with the new pickups with exactly same pick (green Dunlop Tortex) and Fender custom shop 10 feet cable. I plugged the guitar into the Roland with Hi-Z switch on in order to have more similar input impedance like with a typical tube guitar amp. I'll send the links to the samples as soon as the comparison is done.

The first impression is anyway very positive.

 

[bodia]

I got the SD Jazz&JB set (Zebra color) installed yesterday. Now the sound is on par with my Gibson LP Studio with Burstbucker Pros, or even better I was able to test only with Vox AC30-style headphone amp due to the fact that the pickup swap operation was finished very late in the evening (about 11:30 PM), but in comparison between the Gibson and PRS it sounded like the brightness and attack is good with hotrodded set. No muddiness at all. I'll have to test today with Fender Super Sonic 22 Combo to study the difference properly. I also recorded the sound with the original pickups with Roland Quad capture before the swap and I'll do the same with the new pickups with exactly same pick (green Dunlop Tortex) and Fender custom shop 10 feet cable. I plugged the guitar into the Roland with Hi-Z switch on in order to have more similar input impedance like with a typical tube guitar amp. I'll send the links to the samples as soon as the comparison is done.

The first impression is anyway very positive.

Sweet!

 

[iec]

Here is the link to spectrum analysis between the stock pickups and JB&Jazz set:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/kza54zsjqued9wx/AAAcMAULNCceCJSj2Us7kONna?dl=0
I played only treble E string at the 12th fret and analyzed the spectrum. It is easy to see that the Seymour Duncan set has brighter tone. Especially in the neck pickup and bridge pickup comparison. Higher frequencies are more attenuated with Santana III bass and treble pickups around 3 to 4 kHz than SD pickups (compared to the picked string base frequency, which is around 663Hz). I'll edit the actual sound samples and add those as well (when I have a proper timeslot to do it).

EDIT: Now I've added some sample tracks. There are two audiofiles in the folder mentioned above. In bot of those files the first of the similar riffs is always the original pickup and the later is the Seymour Duncan pickup. The brightness difference is quite easy to hear (at least even with my low price Panasonic headphones). Unfortunately I didn't record through my amp with similar settings and some crunch to demonstrate how much the improvement was. Anyways the Hotrodded set is much more percussive and brighter and less muddy. I'm happy with the outcome. The clean channel of my amp sounds much better as well as the crunch and distortion sounds with Jazz in the neck and JB in the bridge position. If you need brighter and less muddy sound with Santana III, I can definitely recommend these pickups. And of course - get the Zebra versions Perhaps the Slash set could be nice too, but I wanted to play safe and stick with the pickups I already know.

 

[Lewguitar]

the slash set is not very hot, IIRC, around 7-8k even for the bridge. They are basically PAF clones.

I have the APH-2 Slash set in one of my PRS SE Singlecuts. They are quite a bit hotter than the APH-1 set. Especially the APH-2 bridge pickup.

7.92K for the neck compared to 7.6K in the APH-1 set...and 8.53K bridge compared to 7.85K in the APH-1 set.

The APH-1's are not what I would call a PAF because the copper wire is more similar to what would have been used in a late 60's or 70's Gibson T-Top. Same gauge wire but a thicker insulation which would mean that the actually copper wire would be further away from the layer wound over it.

This gives the APH-1 pickup a clearer, more spacious tone compared to say, a Duncan Pearly Gates which uses the same 42 gauge wire but with a thinner, enamel insulation like what was used in 50's PAF's.

BTW, I have Pearlys in my other PRS SE Singlecut. Those are my favorites. Especially for Santana tone...and for Peter Green Supernatural tone.