- Thread starter Rivers
- Start date
It's not lower as much as it's scooped. Because of the mid-range cut, it doesn't push the amp front end as much as 1/3/5. Also, the human ear is most sensitive to mid-range sounds, so to our ear it sounds quieter. I haven't measured it, but I suspect signal-wise it's comparable.
Practically speaking I usually wind up turning the volume up a touch in 2/4 if I'm trying to maintain a consistent crunch tone, otherwise the mid cut tends to clean the tone up a little.
Edit: The foregoing holds true as well for my Sabre, which is wired similarly, and for that matter, my Strat in positions 2/4. It's a common phenomenon.
Practically speaking I usually wind up turning the volume up a touch in 2/4 if I'm trying to maintain a consistent crunch tone, otherwise the mid cut tends to clean the tone up a little.
Edit: The foregoing holds true as well for my Sabre, which is wired similarly, and for that matter, my Strat in positions 2/4. It's a common phenomenon.
Ahh, the reason why I'm asking is I recently purchased the guitar very recently and can't seem to recall if the volume for both positions 2/4 with the stock DiMarzio Custom pickups were matched level-wise to the other positions.
I had a shop install a new set of Thornbuckers yesterday into the ASS and realized that positions 2 and 4 in the new Thornbucker setup is quite a fair bit softer (~5db signal difference) measured via than those in the other 1/3/5 positions and was wondering if it might be a wiring issue?
I had a shop install a new set of Thornbuckers yesterday into the ASS and realized that positions 2 and 4 in the new Thornbucker setup is quite a fair bit softer (~5db signal difference) measured via than those in the other 1/3/5 positions and was wondering if it might be a wiring issue?
DrKev
Moderator
It should be quieter. Two coils or pickups in parallel are a little quieter than either coil or pickup on their own. Part of that is reduced output current, part of it is frequency content (as Rivers mentions above). But the difference is often small enough that many people don't notice too much. However two coils in series are noticeably louder than either coil on their own, and therefore very obviously louder than the same two coils in parallel. That means positions 3 is close enough in volume to position 1 and 5 that we don't care or notice but positions 2 and 4 are noticeably different. That's just how the physics works and any guitar where one coil of a humbucker is used in parallel with something else will have a volume drop like this compared to the full humbucker.
