NUGD: 2021 Wood Library DGT!

guitar_man_man_man

NeW mEmBeR
Joined
Sep 9, 2022
Messages
89
Decided over the holidays to let go of my HBII and try out a DGT. Managed to score this beauty for a good price - my first green guitar and wood library (ebony fretboard and maybe special birds?):


Liking the control layout and the neck, but still getting used to the pickups. They’re a bit dark for my taste and have a tendency to get muddy with the profiles I like for my other PRS (with 58/15LT, 85/15, \m/, Santana). I’m also experimenting with using the volume knobs to clean things up which these pickups do really well. Any tone tips would be appreciated!
 
It’s got some really nice symmetrical figuring but unfortunately doesn’t have much movement at all under the light. Oh well, can’t win with all of em! My Santana is the opposite - looks dead in pictures but has great 3D flame and movement under the right lighting.
I’ve had guitars that didn’t look good either way! 🤣 It’s a win to get at least one!!
 
Man, that is a gorgeous shade of green! Love it with that ebony board.
Thank you! PRS says it’s a custom color, but that’s apparently just what they say about any color that isn’t part of the standard offering for that model. IMO it looks like a darker-than-usual Eriza Verde verging on the old emerald color with just a bit of yellowing.
 
At the risk of sounding like a twit, try lowering the pickups slightly and chnaging the tone settings on your amp. My gigging amps only have a tone and a volume. I can always get the sound I want for a single coil or humbucking PRS.
 
At the risk of sounding like a twit, try lowering the pickups slightly and chnaging the tone settings on your amp. My gigging amps only have a tone and a volume. I can always get the sound I want for a single coil or humbucking PRS.
Thanks for the tips! Have been messing around with doing just that - trying out different pickup heights and angles (lower bass higher treble side) and seeing what profiles work best. So far I’ve had the most luck with dumble style profiles, not as much with Marshall style. Still experimenting though!
 
One of the things Grissom harps on when he talks about his gear is that he dislikes bright, ice-pick sounds that make an audience cover their ears. He prefers a lot of bottom end in his sounds, and the reason there's a high-cut control on his DG30 Amp is to be able to reduce the treble even farther.

So it's entirely possible that, however much you like the look and feel of the guitar, it's not the right instrument for you, or at least, those aren't the right pickups for you.

My stock WL DGT sounds pretty darn bright to me with all of my amps, including the Marshall-Plexi-style HXDA. I have to turn down the treble with that one.

While mine has a Brazilian rosewood fretboard, ebony will be just as bright sounding if not more, so yours should sound pretty bright in comparison to most.

Which means...nothing. 'Bright' or 'dark' is an ear-of-the-beholder thing. It's all personal taste.

Since you're apparently using a profiler, is it not possible to put a virtual EQ item into the profile, use it to create a patch that boosts the highs a little, and use that patch with this guitar?

I don't know if you're a player who sits and plays through an amp, but sometimes when your ears are closer to the level of the speaker while sitting, it's shocking how awfully bright one's settings actually are.

That's one reason amps sound different miked up; the speakers are very directional in the higher frequencies, and you're hearing something different from when you're standing in a room; standing up, you're mostly hearing reflections instead of direct signal.

So if you haven't tried sitting with your ear closer to speaker level, i.e., closer to the floor, it might be worthwhile to see if that's a thing.

Also, a stage or studio with a hard floor and less furniture will often sound brighter than the room one practices in. Reflections from floor, walls, ceiling, absorption from furniture, etc, will affect what you hear in a room.

It is important, however, to remember that an artist-signature guitar will reflect that player's preferences and not yours. Ultimately the pickups might not be your thing.

Finally, try different strings. I don't know whether you're using the .011 ga. strings that come on the guitar; there are brighter or duller strings on the market you might try, and the gauge does matter.
 
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One of the things Grissom harps on when he talks about his gear is that he dislikes bright, ice-pick sounds that make an audience cover their ears. He prefers a lot of bottom end in his sounds, and the reason there's a high-cut control on his DG30 Amp is to be able to reduce the treble even farther.

So it's entirely possible that, however much you like the look and feel of the guitar, it's not the right instrument for you, or at least, those aren't the right pickups for you.

My stock WL DGT sounds pretty darn bright to me with all of my amps, including the Marshall-Plexi-style HXDA. I have to turn down the treble with that one.

While mine has a Brazilian rosewood fretboard, ebony will be just as bright sounding if not more, so yours should sound pretty bright in comparison to most.

Which means...nothing. 'Bright' or 'dark' is an ear-of-the-beholder thing. It's all personal taste.

Since you're apparently using a profiler, is it not possible to put a virtual EQ item into the profile, use it to create a patch that boosts the highs a little, and use that patch with this guitar?

I don't know if you're a player who sits and plays through an amp, but sometimes when your ears are closer to the level of the speaker while sitting, it's shocking how awfully bright one's settings actually are.

That's one reason amps sound different miked up; the speakers are very directional in the higher frequencies, and you're hearing something different from when you're standing in a room; standing up, you're mostly hearing reflections instead of direct signal.

So if you haven't tried sitting with your ear closer to speaker level, i.e., closer to the floor, it might be worthwhile to see if that's a thing.

Also, a stage or studio with a hard floor and less furniture will often sound brighter than the room one practices in. Reflections from floor, walls, ceiling, absorption from furniture, etc, will affect what you hear in a room.

It is important, however, to remember that an artist-signature guitar will reflect that player's preferences and not yours. Ultimately the pickups might not be your thing.

Finally, try different strings. I don't know whether you're using the .011 ga. strings that come on the guitar; there are brighter or duller strings on the market you might try, and the gauge does matter.
All great food for thought - thanks for all the tips and points to consider! I have been playing it with the stock 11s which I’ve found surprisingly enjoyable and mostly playing into headphones late at night (life of a bedroom guitarist with a newborn!).

I’ve been experimenting with profiles, EQ, and pickup height, and have gotten the treble pickup to where I like it and it sounds great. It can definitely get pretty bright and I like to run the tone at around 7. Still tweaking to get tones I like from the neck pickup, though I find rolling the volume down to around 5-6 will give me what I’m looking for rhythm tone-wise and back up to 8-10 gives a great lead tone.

I am definitely appreciating how this guitar has forced me to actually consider how to use the controls on it - the treble bleed makes the volume control really powerful for shaping the tone which is not something I’m used to doing.

So far I have no desire to part ways with it - I was looking for something for lower-to-mid gain styles (jazz, blues, rock) that I got along with better than my Hollowbody and that is more versatile than my Santana, and I think I’m getting there with it!

Edit to add: I also discovered yesterday that the tone pot was loose (not fastened properly to the body), so I’m unsure if that was affecting things. All I know is I was really starting to like the sounds I was getting yesterday after tightening it up!
 
Nice Grab! Everybody Raves About The DGT Pickups But If They Don't Work For You, Don't Be Afraid To Change Them For Something That Does Work For You.
 
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