J-85 kinda trebly but.....

[jdr94]

has anyone tried runnin a .022 capacitor inline with the hot lead? Or any capacitor for that matter. I was just thinkin about it and wondered if anyone has already gone thru different capacitors and what the final decision was.

[jdr94]

Ok I guess no ones tried it so can someone tell me, in order to make this idea work, would I take a capcitor and put one end to ground and have the hot lead from the pick up touch the other end then run to the vol pot?

Edit-the main goal is to cut some of the highs in the j85, but not affect any other pickup.

[straycat]

Just lower the pick up.I have a J-85 and its thick sounding.

[jdr94]

Ill give it a shot, but I had it low cause of the higher output to begin with.

[DonP]

has anyone tried runnin a .022 capacitor inline with the hot lead? Or any capacitor for that matter. I was just thinkin about it and wondered if anyone has already gone thru different capacitors and what the final decision was.

Capacitors used to be called "blocking filters" in the old days. They block DC (0Hz) and low frequencies. If you put the .022 inline, you would really be blocking the bass and letting through the treble. Opposite of what you want.

The way the Tone control works is that the Capacitor "blocks" low frequencies from being grounded out (and cancelled), but lets higher freqencies through to ground. So it takes out the highs as you turn the tone knob.

[jdr94]

By taking out the highs as you turn the knob you mean as I turn the knob to 0 right? So in order to take out the highs id have to use my tone knob strictly runnin from the j85 then to the switch and vol pot?

[bratfink]

I know what your thinking of, never tried it personally. I imagine the result is going to be basically the same as a tone pot except you will have no control over the bleed off. For sure you are going to lose picking definition in the sound. But it might be worth a try.

[DonP]

By taking out the highs as you turn the knob you mean as I turn the knob to 0 right?

Yes.

The opposite of the Capacitor is the Choke. if you put a choke inline with your hot lead it would kill the highs. But you need to shield it becuase it would pickup noise like a single coil.

[neptoess]

You can google filters and figure this all out. I hate tone knobs though. If a single 500k vol is too bright, use a lower value (350k, 250k, etc..). Also. proper pickup height when fretting the last fret according to Bill Lawrence (who knows his stuff) is a gap about as thick as a US nickel between the bottom of the high E and and the highest point on the bridge pickup below the high E and a gap about twice that between the bottom of the low E and the highest point on the bridge pickup below the low E. Neck pickup should then be adjusted to match the output of the bridge. This is of course just a general guideline though. EMGs for instance should be as close to the strings as possible without touching. With passives though, I'd never go higher than the nickel/2nickel guidelines. What's your setup out of curiosity? I'm pretty sure Alexi used the J50BC through a 5150 and his tone wasn't overly bright.

[jdr94]

I dont want to use a lower pot cause then it would also affect the mid and neck pickup. I guess its just a dumb I dea. I know about pickup string spacing, I was just tryin to figure out a way to make the j85 more desirable. Everyone is so big on j50, j90,etc and there just isnt alot of love for the j85. I had em in alot of my dinky reverses and always ended up swappin em out cause they didnt sound heavy enough(seemed to either lack low end or had too much high end) so maybe an active eq or something would be an option but its alot easier to just get another pickup. Lol.

[neptoess]

If you don't want to affect the neck and mid pickups, and have a master volume pot, you can wire a resistor (470K probably) from the trebly pickup's hot (the lead going into the switch) to ground. This way, it's like the pickup is always going through a 500K pot fully open. Then, whenever you flip the switch to a position that uses that pickup, it will be put through the 500K master volume. This gives R1*R2/(R1+R2) ohm equivalent resistance. 500K*470K/970K = 242K. This will make the bridge pickup sound like it has a 250K volume, while the rest sound like the regular 500K volume.

[neptoess]

As for making a pickup more desirable, I'm much less of a fan of something like an onboard active preamp when external EQs exist like the Boss GE-7. I'd still like to know your setup btw lol

[jdr94]

My setup sucks ha ha. I wont even admot what it is. Last setup was a carvin v3 w a gmajor in the loop. Before that a marshall jvm410 w the gmajor in the loop and an ns2 infront. Before that a dual rec w a ge7 in the loop and an ns2 infront, before that a single rec w the same setup. Always running to a v30 cab. Either an avatar 212 or mesa 412. Nowadays I just borrow my buddys triple rec and drawerfull of pedals running thru his ground control setup. I dont play out anymore just jam every now and then.

[neptoess]

Pretty nice setups. I only asked because I get tired of people saying x pickup sounds too harsh or y pickup sounds too muddy and it turns out they're playing a pod through a set of computer speakers.

[jdr94]

I hear ya. I pretty much know what I like, but I like to experiment and come up with crazy or silly ideas sometimes