Axis Pickups...Just Not that Impressed

[headcrash]

Capacity of cable?

Hi boogieslide. I have an ASS and have had an AS. I both used em with or without Tone pot connected. There's not too much difference (btw. I play a DIY amp based on ENGL Blackmore).
But what I did notice once I bought a new cable: different cables can alter the sound. Especially when used with hi output pickups.
Explanation: Every shielded cable has a capacitance; its value depends on the cable length and construction details. If we connect a cable to the guitar, then the impedance of the pickup and the capacitance of the cable build a low pass, which is nothing different than the standard tone circuit of a guitar (resistor and capacitor in a row connected from signal output to ground). And: the bigger the pickup's resistance, the lower the cutoff frequency of this lowpass, and the more treble is bypassed to ground.
Assumed, you mostly use boutique pickups that are more or less in the PAF territory, which have a pretty low impedance (DC resistance in the 8k Ohms range), you might never have encountered this issue, whereas the Axis pickup has more than double the impedance than the average PAF-like pup (pretty unusually high). And I have had cables with which my Axis's sounded a bit dull and muddy and lost some of the dynamics. I measured the capacitance of these cables with my simple multimeter which confirmed what I had guessed.
So be sure to use very low capacitance cables, no longer than 20ft with your Axis.
Since I got aware of this, I always had an eye on capacitance of cables. And I also love those pickups...
Hope this helps.

 

[luke2joey]

Hi,

I have found that, every time you change guitars, you have to change the settings on your amp too.
As others have written here, it is all about woods, pu's, even cables.
I did not like the sounds of my Luke....at first. Until I rearranged the settings of the amp (very easy with Triaxis....). Now the possibilities are endless. Great sounds, whatever style I want to play.
I think you have to start all over: leave the settings you used with the LP's. Back off all volume, gain, etc. and start from scratch. Just use your ears when you start to dial up.
I can not imagine that you can't find the tone you are looking for, with the gear you are using.
Of course, it is possible you may want to change pu's in the end.
Good luck.

 

[SCman]

That's exactly what I do. I lower the guitar tone knob to about 7 and keep the presence and treble on the amp very low (2 - 3). I'm using an Engl amp and 4 x 12 cabinet and I'm getting awesome tones that easily rival my Les Paul Standard! Best of luck...

Ok, so I had much better results last night.
I dropped the presence and treble all the way down (we were in a super bright room) and lowered both my mids and bass (I usually run the mids pretty high). I also backed off the gain even more. If anything, I wasn't getting quite the saturation I like, but the clarity was much better. Still had great sustain too.
Still a work in progress, but I am feeling better about making the stock pups work for me. Thanks to everyone that threw out some ideas.