PRS McCarty Korina a little too bright

[paintballnsk]

I grabbed a PRS McCarty Korina. I absolutely love it.

However, the bridge McCarty pickup is a little too bright.

I play mostly rock and metal of various kinds. Most of my guitars have 59/JB in them and that's always been my go-to pickup combination. However, I'm wondering if something a little darker than a JB would be better to balance out the brightness of this guitar.

Can anyone give any suggestions? I was thinking Duncan 59/Custom Hybrid.

Thanks

 

[László]

Couple things to think about:

PRSes have very good volume and tone controls, and are really made to use them. I've always found that it pays to set my amps up with the guitar's volume and tone rolled off a bit, as opposed to setting the amp up with the controls on the guitar full up. You want to be able to control the tone from where you stand and play, ideally.

Actually, it's not PRSes alone...Bonamassa and other artists often talk about doing this, using the guitar's controls, etc. In fact, Bonamassa has said that he rarely turns a guitar above "6" on the volume. Yet his tone is certainly not dull, because he sets the amp up to sound good that way, and then he has lots of tone choices. I'm merely using Joe B as an example, lots of other artists do this as well.

As you roll down the volume and tone controls a bit, of course, the guitar becomes less bright. The nice thing is that when you need everything maxed out, it's there, controlled from the guitar. That's a good thing!

On a different note, it might be good to experiment a bit with pickup height, and even with the height of the pole pieces. It makes a huge difference. It's possible that your pickups became out of factory adjustment, or of course, it's possible that you could find a better height for the pickups to suit your taste and needs. I'd do that before swapping them out.

 

[paintballnsk]

Ya, I just want different pickups. Any suggestions? Seems to be a huge lack of information on PRS pickups tonal comparisons. Like how does a McCarty compare to a Duncan JB? Maybe I'll do a shootout video when I decide what to use.

It's a Korina guitar, weighs 6lb 13oz. It's fantastic. So I dont know if the guitar is bright in nature, or if McCarty pickups are just bright in general.

Just played for 3 hours and no matter how much dialing in I do, There's just something a little bright about it, and trying to compensate by dialing things back just doesn't work for me. I like using the tone and volume knob to dial things back, but wide open, it needs to be my main tone.

 

[WEDGE]

Research on YouTube for the pickup shoutouts that crgtr did, you might find your answers there. Chris basically tested a jillion pickups in an all hog DGT so you can get your sound samples there.

 

[László]

Ya, I just want different pickups.

Ha! Now I get it.