Having a weird pickup issue

[sheehanje]

So I'm on Majesty #3 - and it plays beautifully. However, I'm having a bit of a sound issue with this one. My bridge pickup is great - and the guitar sounds very smooth with just the bridge pickup selected. Things go a little wonky with the neck pickup. In cleans, it sounds OK (but a little distorted) if it's the only pickup selected - in any gain channels it starts exhibiting harshness. If I have both pickups selected, it sounds like I have fret buzz all over the neck - and the problem is worse if I coil tap the pickups. Boost is not on in any of the positions I have mentioned.

The first two Majesty's both had neck issues but they didn't have this characteristic with the pickups.

For what it's worth - I'm playing through a Mesa Mark V

Also - I replaced the batteries (even though the ones in it were showing an almost full charge). All quality cables - not having issues with any of my other guitars.

 

[sheehanje]

Here is a clip of what I'm talking about.

https://soundcloud.com/john-sheehan-21/pickup-test

I did this using a high gain channel - you can hear the difference clearly, but obviously the distortion covers it up a bit. The first 15 seconds are the bridge pickup, the rest is both pickups with coil tapping engaged.

 

[joshua_helm]

To me, it sounds like the pickup splitter is engaged... Push in the middle (tone) knob to disengage..

 

[sheehanje]

To me, it sounds like the pickup splitter is engaged... Push in the middle (tone) knob to disengage..

It is engaged - but I don't think it should sound this harsh. I will get another clip of it on a clean channel. It doesn't sound nearly as good as the other two majesty's I had, or anything like the demo's I've seen with the coils split.