Silver Sky bridge pickup seems thin-sounding

[Molly]

The bridge position pickup on my Silver Sky is sounding thin and has an almost 'out of phase-like' tone.

Any thoughts as to what might be the cause? Was thinking I should maybe try re-soldering the connections?

Thanks.

 

[dmatthews]

When did this start happening?

 

[Herr Squid]

Are you comparing it to another PRS with a bridge humbucker? 'Cause those sounds are going to be worlds apart. If it sounds more or less like a Strat bridge pickup (which are really thin and bright sounding), it's probably fine.

 

[Molly]

Spent a few days researching and have come to the conclusion that it's supposed to sound like that.. Neck and middle on the SS are just fantastic but I can't live with the bridge pickup. Strat bridge pickups are, I reckon, hardest to hit the target but I'll work on it a while and if all else fails I'll go down the pickup rabbit hole.

Other observations. The volume taper is very steep and it's all but off by 5. And the holes in the trem block, being so deep, might usefully have a chamfer to assist in threading new strings through. Small stuff on an otherwise great guitar.

 

[Silver Sky Surfer]

Strat or my Silver Sky bridge pickups have always sounded thin clean to me, this is why I only use it alone with overdrive or fuzz and never clean. Try lowering it some, that will fatten it up but you will have to lower the others to balance the volume between them all and turn up your amp some.

 

[Herr Squid]

SSS makes a good point, I've habitually avoided fuzz and distortion pedals like the plague.

However... I'm an Axe-FX III player and it's slowly dawning on me that some of the virtual fuzz pedals in there do really good things for the SS bridge pickup. Like really good. Maybe guys like Hendrix and Gilmour were really on to something when they plugged their Strats into fuzzes into 4x12 amps..!

 

[pallajt]

Spent a few days researching and have come to the conclusion that it's supposed to sound like that.. Neck and middle on the SS are just fantastic but I can't live with the bridge pickup. Strat bridge pickups are, I reckon, hardest to hit the target but I'll work on it a while and if all else fails I'll go down the pickup rabbit hole.

Other observations. The volume taper is very steep and it's all but off by 5. And the holes in the trem block, being so deep, might usefully have a chamfer to assist in threading new strings through. Small stuff on an otherwise great guitar.

If you end up going down that rabbit hole... I have a Squier Classic Vibe 50's Strat in which I installed a Seymour Duncan Billy Gibbons Red Devil in the bridge and I love it. Still sounds Strat-y in my opinion, but a little thicker than a typical single-coil.