Help! JP6 BFR Pickup Change?!

[Ruedi]

Hey!

I`m not really confident with the Sound of my EBMM Petrucci BFR. I think the Pickups are the main problem. The Custom Wound sounds great, but both the Custom Wound as the D-Sonic are too "hard". There is no opportunity to get a crunchy Sound out of this guitar.

Has anyone changed the pickups of the JP BFR? Which pickups did you choose?

I know that there are some new pickups from JP, the Liquifire and the Crunch Lab. If you changed to those pickups, how would you describe the differences between the new and the old pickups?

Thanks a lot!

 

[beej]

Keep in mind, it's the whole package- pickups, cable, fx, amp.

 

[threeminutesboy]

One advise, you can experiment as much as you want but keep the original pups as long as you don't find a combination that suits you

 

[bdtunn]

How is the guitar sounding? I had a problem with mine when I got it. The pickups sounded very thin and "strat" like (if you get me). I thought to myself how could JP play such a thin sounding guitar and have such crunch. I changed the pickup to a Seymour Duncan SH-15, but still the same problem. I did end up sending it back to the factory and they found a problem with the bridge that affected the sound. I got it back with the d-sonic back in and man does it have crunch. This is not the BFR model it's the regular, but maybe before you start messing with buying new PUP's you should look into this. Customer service is great as many will attest to in this forum and they will help you out if need be.

 

[ScoobySteve]

A JP, being unable to Crunch is a ironic problem of massive proportions.

Call CS.

 

[Ruedi]

Hey, thanks for all your answers!

I think the guitar itself is okay, healthy ;-)
The guitar does not sound thin or strat-like (i know exactly what you mean)

And i`m also getting awesome sounds out of it. But it`s just not "allroundi"- you know?!
When i pull down the volume poti (which is often used to get a more dirty, crunchy sound out of humbuckers) the sound gets very "dull".

A JP, being unable to Crunch is a ironic problem of massive proportions.

Call CS.

What do you mean with that? That there IS a way to get crunch and blues sounds out of the guitar? What`s CS?! (maybe you did just a joke but my english is too bad to understand it?!^^)

 

[beej]

CS is "customer service", the folks at EBMM who help out if there's a problem with a product.

In this case, however, it sounds like your guitar is playing just fine. It's just not giving you want you want.

When you say the sound is dull when you roll down the volume- you mean that you lose a lot of treble? So you want the same tone from the pickups, just at a quieter volume?

This is a fairly common situation (again, depends on the other elements in your signal chain), but one thing that can fix that is to wire a small capacitor and resistor across the lugs of your volume pot. (If you google "treble bleed mod", you'll get a number of suggestions about it.) Essentially this lets the treble "bleed" into the output of your guitar, regardless of where your volume pot is set. I would certainly recommend trying this before swapping out a whole other set of pickups, which can be a little more work.

 

[Chaka5150]

I just replaced the Dsonic air norton combo from my jp6 bfr with the crunch lab and liquifire. wow!!! it was exactly what i was wanting, as i found the original set to be 'bland.' the way i can describe the difference is that the old p/u's sounded like playing with your tone knob turned all the way down, and the new p/u's sound like the tone knob has been turned all the way back up. it has more bite, definition and improved sustain harmonics. When stringing out a chord you hear each individual note played together in harmony and not all missmashed together as it sounded with the old set. Not slammin the older pickups but they just didn't perform the way i would expect for a petrucci guitar.

 

[Ruedi]

Hey, thanks for your comments!

Yeah maybe i will try this treblebleedmod thing. But i think i still want to change the pickups first.
Now i`ve heard a lot of good things about the new Liquifire/Crunch Lab. I think i have to try them ...

@chaka5150: What do you mean with Airnorton?! In my petrucci, it`s the custom wound and the dsonic...

The Dsonic is in my opinion way to bland. For metal it`s okay, but it has no "character".
The Custom wound is too dark, too dull... difficult to describe.
What do you guys think?

 

[Chaka5150]

yah, i mean the custom p/u that everyone seems to refer to as the norton...

 

[mojomkr]

Hey!

I`m not really confident with the Sound of my EBMM Petrucci BFR. I think the Pickups are the main problem. The Custom Wound sounds great, but both the Custom Wound as the D-Sonic are too "hard". There is no opportunity to get a crunchy Sound out of this guitar.

Try turning your amp up !