Wondering if anyone else has had experience with these pickups and what's normal and not normal functionality for them.

I got my SG off ebay about a year and half ago. Guitar was in great shape, hardly played, but one thing I noticed right away was that if the volume on the guitar was all the way up, and the distortion on my Rat pedal was too high, and I strummed hard (not ridiculously hard, but with some.. gusto) I'd get this sort of 'clipping' effect where instead of getting aggressive attack from the guitar, the note/chord would sort of clip out a bit initially and then quickly fade in. If I lowered the distortion knob to about 2 'o clock on the Rat, this problem went away, but so does some of the gain I enjoyed from it, of course.

At first, I figured this was the rat pedal. Last week, I got a Shoe Gazer fuzz pedal from www.deviever.com. One thing I noticed was that if I had both fuzz circuits running, and I strummed aggressively with this SG, the note wouldn't clip, per se, but it sounded noticably different in tone than it does when I play with exactly the same settings with my Jazzmaster. Sort of a touch of a fuzz octave effect that makes the distortion sound sort of synthy. This synthiness is not evident when I switch to the JM.

If I play the guitar completely clean, I don't really hear anything obviously suspect from it, though honestly I'm not sure I know what to look for. I know these particular humbuckers are supposed to be "hot" ... or something - is that what's causing this? The effect happens on both the neck and bridge pickups, and seems more prominent when switched to the bridge pickup, which is closer to the strings than the neck pickup is, but both of them do it to some extent.

Any suggestions/insights?

Bradley wrote:Any suggestions/insights?

it's broken. try hitting it.

that damned fly wrote:

Bradley wrote:Any suggestions/insights?

it's broken. try hitting it.

Thanks.

Bradley wrote:

that damned fly wrote:

Bradley wrote:Any suggestions/insights?

it's broken. try hitting it.

Thanks.

it was a bump since no one said anything. doin' you a favor.

Bump.

It's not the pickups. It sounds like a pre-amp issue.

Redline wrote:It's not the pickups. It sounds like a pre-amp issue.

If that's the case, why isn't the problem there when I'm using the JM? I should've mentioned that the 'clipping' effect doesn't happen with that guitar - basically the pedals work as they should with that guitar, which led me to the pickups in the SG being the issue.

If that's the case, why isn't the problem there when I'm using the JM? I should've mentioned that the 'clipping' effect doesn't happen with that guitar - basically the pedals work as they should with that guitar, which led me to the pickups in the SG being the issue.

The SG pickups have a higher output. It's not their fault they're strong...

Redline wrote:

If that's the case, why isn't the problem there when I'm using the JM? I should've mentioned that the 'clipping' effect doesn't happen with that guitar - basically the pedals work as they should with that guitar, which led me to the pickups in the SG being the issue.

The SG pickups have a higher output. It's not their fault they're strong...

So what'd be the best way to test this? Simply try a different amp?

The pickups on your SG are most likely considerably louder than the pickups on your Jazzmaster. This would account for the difference between the guitars in the same set-up.

Try turning the volume down to maybe 8 on the SG, and see if the problem still happens. If it does, it probably means the the pickups on the SG are too close to the strings. When a pickup is very (too) close to the strings, sometimes you can get a sound right out of the guitar that has a bit of distortion--usually right on the attack. If this is the case, you should be able to hear it when using a clean sound, however.

If the problem goes away when the SG is turned down a bit, then you're just hearing how your distortion pedals react to signals of different strength. For example, maybe the SG is loud enough to clip the input stage of the Rat, and the Jazzmaster is not, so you get a qualitatively different distortion out of the SG.

If you want to get rid of the problem of losing your attack, or having it subdued, I'd say just lower the gain on the Rat, as you have. Believe it or not, alot of people want that sagging attack, and a lot of fuzz pedals deliver it when the gain is turned up.

-Tom