Modern Eagle II Pickups

[jcshirke]

I've got a 25th anniv. ME II with 57/08 pickups in it. I love the bridge pickup, but I find the neck and neck/bridge combo too muddy/bassy. Maybe it's just my guitar...I don't know. But if anyone else has had similar experiences, can you recommend replacement pickups that helped? Is there any way to try a different PRS pickup set in this guitar?

Thanks.

 

[gush]

Lower the neck pickup first. While not for everyone the 5708s are fantastic pickups. Don't give up just yet.

 

[justmund]

Perhaps try setting your amp so it sounds good (for your tastes) on the neck pickup, then try winding down the tone control on the guitar when you switch to the bridge pickup. You should be able to achieve a better tonal balance this way

 

[andy474x]

I find on many neck pickups that lowering the whole pickup, then raising the polepiece screws on the treble side, defeats the mud and adds clarity. I struggled with neck pickups behaving like this for a while too - if you're like me, you like a fat tone on the bridge pickup, which makes it hard to tame the neck. Another nifty trick is to add a small capacitor on the hot lead of the neck pickup, which filters out the deep bass. I've not done it in a while, so I can't remember the exact value, but I believe a 0.22 or 0.022 will do the trick. Quick and easy soldering mod, you can even rig some alligator clips up to see if you like it.

 

[jcshirke]

Thanks for all the advice. As for the amp, that one is a little trickier because a)I have a lot of amps, and b) I use multiple guitars with them. So, I don't really want to set up an amp so that it only sounds good with the ME II. I'd rather start with the guitar first, and see if some of these other tricks help, and then I can start adjusting the amp(s) to suit the guitar. That said, I still appreciate the advice. All of it is quite helpful. I'm going to mess with things a little later today.

 

[wardog]

As for as pickups go, the Dragon II is brighter to me than the 57/08 and could be what your looking for.

 

[Brad737]

I don't want to be the voice of dissent, but I find the Dragon IIs to sound muddy and flat. I'd follow Andy's advice. Lower the neck pickup and raise the polepieces. Works like a charm. Good luck!

 

[jcshirke]

I think I made some good progress by lowering the neck pickup more (it was already much lower than the bridge), and then raising the pole pieces under the top three strings. I also played around with the height of the treble pickup and raised the pole pieces of the top three strings on it, too. I had to find the right settings so my pickup settings still had a balanced output. But I definitely like the changes.

One other thing I noticed, though--with my vol. knob on 10 there was noticeably more treble present in the middle pickup setting, and in the neck position, too, although it wasn't quite as obvious. That leads me to wonder if the treble rolls off too much if my vol knob is in the 7-8 range, which is where I like to keep it. I'm really not trying to find an excuse to monkey around with this guitar, but I can't help but wonder if a different wiring kit (or some other change) might give me more treble at lower volume settings.

 

[wardog]

I don't want to be the voice of dissent, but I find the Dragon IIs to sound muddy and flat. I'd follow Andy's advice. Lower the neck pickup and raise the polepieces. Works like a charm. Good luck!

i hear you and it can be, but for some reason the ones I have in my SE SC are very bright compared to the 57/08 in my mc58. :dontknow: my be it is the fender blues jr, not sure.

 

[jcshirke]

Any thoughts on whether or not there's a significant amount of treble loss with these pickups as the volume is rolled off--even if it's just 2 or 3 notches?

Thanks.

 

[justmund]

IMO treble loss is more dependant on the circuit than the pickup. Chuck in a treble bleed (bypass) cap and it will completely change the way the volume pot interacts with higher frequencies (no matter what pickup is in there)