Cutlass BFR after 9 months - not ideal

[wannarock8]

I listened to the audio clip of you going back and forth from the neck single coil to bridge humbucker. I see a few others have commented saying it sounds normal. It sounds like a bridge humbucker to me. Most of the energy is in the midrange. The high end is not as open sounding, and less low end because it’s by the bridge.

Some Music Man guitars have internal trim pots to actually adjust the output of the pickups. Some players want no volume drop when switching to their single coil pickups, others do. The Luke 3 has such an adjustment. Maybe your Cutlass does. I don’t know.
There are certain humbuckers that have a more clean, open tone, not just like a single coil but maybe closer than the pickup you have. A Dimarzio Steve’s Special, or the Air Classic for a more PAF output level.

Doesn‘t the Silhouette HSS come standard with a Dimarzio Virtual PAF or Air Classic at the bridge? Rather than modding a BFR guitar, I’d be considering trying out a Silhouette.

 

[DrKev]

Some Music Man guitars have internal trim pots to actually adjust the output of the pickups. Some players want no volume drop when switching to their single coil pickups, others do. The Luke 3 has such an adjustment. Maybe your Cutlass does. I don’t know.

No, the Cutlass does not. The Luke III has a volume adjustment only for the 2 and 4 "in-between" pickup positions, because parallel pickup combinations sometimes have a volume drop. This is especially noticeable on the HH version of the LIII because only one coil from each humbucker is involved (and half a humbucker is lower output than the single coils).

Doesn‘t the Silhouette HSS come standard with a Dimarzio Virtual PAF or Air Classic at the bridge? Rather than modding a BFR guitar, I’d be considering trying out a Silhouette.

Silhouette and Silhouette Special have DiMarzio virtual PAFs, which was replaced a good ten years ago now by the 36th Anniversary PAF. But there is no problem modding the electronics of a BFR guitar "under the hood". If it was a 60 year old Fender, sure, leave the solder joints intact, but on a modern instrument it's really not an issue, particularly on the Cutlass, where swapping a pickup means just two easy solder connections.

 

[beej]

On an unrelated note, those Air Classics are pretty good I put one in the neck of my Steve Morse a while back and have been pretty happy.

 

[milosjak]

I've find a youtube video where the guy swaps a SD JB for a thornbucker, and gets the change in sound that I hope to achieve. I'm not sure it's apples to apples comparison to my original cutlass humbucker, although I do have a JB in a Jackson Rhoads, so I'll see if I can compare it to the Cutlass humbucker this weekend.

I'm not that fussed about "modding" it, as DrKev said, it's really just two solder points that will be touched. I do intend to keep the original humbucker in the case. I'm still torn between getting an uncovered humbucker and getting the original cover on it, or if I should just get the blacked out covered humbucker, which does have a satin finish, compared to the glossy plastic from the original. The hardware on the guitar is already a mix of sating/matte and glossy black anyway, so I wondering how much I would be bothered by the glossy singles vs a sating humbucker. If I could choose, I would in fact prefer satin black single covers as well, but I don't think anyway produces those.

 

[DrKev]

Yes, nobody does matte finish single covers. But the covers are cheap, you could just buy some and take some steel wool or micromesh to them and see if you can make a matte cover that doesn't look sucky. Honestly, my uncovered DiMarzio on my Silhouette Special is matte and the singles are shiny. The Luke III has shiny singles and matt black covered humbucker. I don't think anybody has ever complained or commented about it here, ever!

 

[milosjak]

The Luke III has shiny singles and matt black covered humbucker. I don't think anybody has ever complained or commented about it here, ever!

Interesting, I actually had a look at the Luke 3 in olive pearl and thought how singles are much less glossy looking than the ones on my cutlass. It's probably just the way the photos were taken, as I'm guessing music man doesn't use multiple types of black single coil covers

I'll probably just leave the original pickup alone and go with matt for humbucker.

 

[loocnmad]

I love the JB but it's high output and I think you may wind up with the opposite issue of it overpowering the singles. If you like Duncan's I'd suggest looking at their low-mid output designs. Possibly a Duncan Custom or a Jazz.

DiMarzio has a few low-mid options you might consider, too. The EJ Custom is known for having a lot more clarity. The Bluesbucker is a HB that is supposed to be voiced similar to a P90 if you wanted to try something a little different.

 

[milosjak]

I love the JB but it's high output and I think you may wind up with the opposite issue of it overpowering the singles. If you like Duncan's I'd suggest looking at their low-mid output designs. Possibly a Duncan Custom or a Jazz.

DiMarzio has a few low-mid options you might consider, too. The EJ Custom is known for having a lot more clarity. The Bluesbucker is a HB that is supposed to be voiced similar to a P90 if you wanted to try something a little different.

To be clear, I'm not looking of putting JB into the Cutlass. I meant that replacing the JB for thornbucker got that guy in the video the change in sound that I'd like to get by swapping from stock pickup to the Riff Raff.

 

[beej]

With regards to the humbucker, it sounds normal to me. It's supposed to be different than the single coils. Personally I didn't love it, either. So I agree with Kev- put something you like in there

So I'm going to backtrack on my own statement here. I don't remember why I didn't like it before- I ended up putting the original humbucker back in my Cutlass last night and I have to say it's pretty great. It's not high output, but it really blends well with the other pickups in that guitar.

 

[milosjak]

So I'm going to backtrack on my own statement here. I don't remember why I didn't like it before- I ended up putting the original humbucker back in my Cutlass last night and I have to say it's pretty great. It's not high output, but it really blends well with the other pickups in that guitar.

I'm sure it depends heavily on the amp you use. For me, with my Marshall Astoria Custom, where the gain staging is quite old school in that it happens throughout the whole amp, and with a pretty heavy low-mid voicing, the single coils cut much better through it than the stock humbucker which appears to compress more, to the point of actually making the humbucker record 1-2db quieter than the single coils.