Sgt. Death Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 I bought an Epiphone Gothic Explorer brand new but got talked into replacing the bridge p/up with a Bill Lawrence one (I'm a Dimebag fan, go figure), not realizing the guitar is made with a Swamp Ash Body and Maple neck, a combination usually associated with Telecasters, instead of Mahogany which I was seeking. That p/up ended up making the guitar sound too clean and clucky for my tastes, so I've experimented with a Seymour Duncan Invader, which works great in alder bodied Strats, but still sounds too thin in this guitar, although the p/up sits out of true due to the cable underneath the p/up not sitting flush, so it won't be picking up all the bass response frequencies it should. Still, if someone can suggest a more robust and chunky sounding p/up for this guitar, I would be grateful. This guitar has the best neck in my collection, plus the Floyd Rose copy and the tough as nails look suits me to a 'T', just the tone sucks for my usage.[img[<a href="http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/?action=view¤t=BW7Medium.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/BW7Medium.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>/img] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalhed717 Posted March 27, 2009 Share Posted March 27, 2009 mmmm well never had a guitar with the swapm ash and maple but im a big dimarzio evolution fan very versatile and amazing metal sound (im assuming youre a metalhead?). plus emgs of course. could give those a try Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Death Posted March 30, 2009 Author Share Posted March 30, 2009 Yes, you assume correctly, although I do have a very broad and eclectic taste in music, but I prefer to play metal related music as it's the only music that charges my batteries, other music tend to drag me down after a while. Anyway, back to the main subject, I've made adjustments to the Invader and the tone is quite ok now, plus I've changed what I run it through now (I finally decided to move into the 21st century and bought a Zoom G9.2tt which is awesome, I can take a combo amp to jams and small gigs, if that, instead of my full rack mount system and quad box, although for big gigs & sometimes recording, I use the Marshall power amp for live stereo, etc., love it). You are right about how good the DiMarzio's sound in Gibson style guitars, my favourite combo was the Super Distortion in my old '74 Les Paul Custom (sadly, I needed to sell it, and regretted it every day since), every frequency jumped down the throat of that pick and I could get that legendary sustain and cut with bite, balls and tone so thick you could carve it. Never tried the Evo's but I know someone who uses them on their 7 strings but their guitars are Alder bodied (for which either a Seymour Duncan Invader or a DiMarzio Megadrive would have been my choice) and therefore, whilst clear toned, a little thin sounding, perfect for technical 2 guitar stuff, very nice actually, I'll have to try one in a mahogany guitar, thank you. I also have a '59 re-issue Flying V made of Korina (or white Poplar, as I've been told is the timber's correct name), which used to sound and play terribly, always going out of tune. I changed the machine head/tuners, experimented with p/up combos, and the guitar has stated to age very nicely. It now has a very mean sound to it due to a Seymour Duncan '59er, which surprised me as it's only a slightly hotter PAF, but it works extremely well with this guitar. Anyway, I'd love to hear from any heavy rockers out there who manage to make their Swamp Ash guitars kick butt and how they achieved it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigneil Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 have you experimented with different brands of strings or different gauges of strings. lift the string height a wee bit and put some heavier strings on, harder work for fast solo's, but you will get more tone and sustain.... I used to use 'light top heavy bottom' strings, with a 9 guage high E and a 52 bottom E. it was a good combination for grizzly power chords and retained some playability for solo's. Another sugestion could be to install a neck pickup at the bridge? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigneil Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 sorry, i got my gauges mixed...... it's 9-46 or 10-52 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Death Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 have you experimented with different brands of strings or different gauges of strings.lift the string height a wee bit and put some heavier strings on' date=' harder work for fast solo's, but you will get more tone and sustain.... I used to use 'light top heavy bottom' strings, with a 9 guage high E and a 52 bottom E. it was a good combination for grizzly power chords and retained some playability for solo's. Another sugestion could be to install a neck pickup at the bridge?[/quote'] Yeah. I've tried a few guages, nothing really improved the tone, but I'm playing doomy stuff at the moment so that guitar is getting restrung with heavies and tuned to B. My Flying V sounds great in that tuning, but I want to bring the Floyd Rose (copy, it's a Schaller, actually) into play once we start rehearsing for the album proper, so it should meet my needs tuned that low. Thanks for the suggestion though, it has worked on other guitars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sgt. Death Posted March 31, 2009 Author Share Posted March 31, 2009 <a href="http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/?action=view¤t=meblindednotwasted.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/meblindednotwasted.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><a href="http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/?action=view¤t=BW7Medium.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/BW7Medium.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><a href="http://s57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/?action=view¤t=MerehearsalMay2006.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g220/Mudguts_2006/MerehearsalMay2006.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>I forgot to mention earlier that I love the sound of EMG's when someone else is playing them, but I don't like them when I'm playing the guitar, too synthetic or something, they just annoy me. Neck pick-ups are usually voiced brighter and quieter than bridge pick-ups so not worth the effort, thanks anyway guys. The guitar's sounding ok now, I just want to hear about people beefing up their tele style guitars and swamp ash guitars in general just out of curiousity. There's enough of them out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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