Pickup Cover:change in tone?

[ShotinDenial]

So I'm thinking of putting in a JB in one of my guitars but wanted to put an EMG style pickup cover and was wondering will this cause a change in my tone?
Thanks,
Sean

[Dreamland_Rebel]

yes slightly. the stock jackson pup that used to come on them in the 80's sounded great once you pulled off the plastic cover and cleaned the glue off the bobbins.

[ShotinDenial]

will it be a drasticly noticeably different tonewise?
Will putting a cover on decrease just the output only?

[toejam]

I thought I read somewhere that putting a plastic cover on made your tone a little warmer and muffled, while a metal cover made it brighter.

[fuel0707]

I found this info on the DiMarzio site in their description of the PAF Classic Bridge pickup:

Pickup covers are back! They protect pickups from damage and provide extra shielding against noise. There is one drawback: since all metal covers cause a loss of presence, some of the attack is gone. Using our patented Airbucker™ technology, we've created a pickup that sounds like the best humbuckers of the 50s without any compromise in sound.

[Sunbane]

In theory, a plastic cover should make no difference at all, except how close to the strings you can get the actual pickup. But I haven't analyzed the sonic differences myself to be able to tell.

[KBRR]

You will find a slight loss in output and the tone maybe also be slightly affected..but i wouldn't worry abut tone change too much if its a plastic cover.

[Axewielder]

I have two Jacksons with JB's. They have the same pickup height, string gauge, etc. Yet...the one without the pickup cover has a noticeably hotter signal. I can tell by my ears and also the clip LED on my POD Pro, it's a big difference. The hotter one has a 500K volume pot, I need to dig into the cavity on the other and verify it's the same as well (it probably is). Maybe I can shoot a 1 meg ohm pot in there to get a little more oomph.

[dg]

I have two Jacksons with JB's. They have the same pickup height...

Exact same height to the pole pieces? Or is the pickup cover set at the same height as the pole pieces of the uncovered pickup? That could account for big difference in tone & output.

[Axewielder]

Exact same height to the pole pieces? Or is the pickup cover set at the same height as the pole pieces of the uncovered pickup? That could account for big difference in tone & output.

It's hard to be exact, but I do have the covered one jacked up as high as I dare go. I don't think that's the issue.