piercing MFD pickups in classic asat tribute

Hi all

I'm a slide player who has an ASAT classic tribute, made around 2006. I'm running it through a Fender blues junior 3 with the following settings- volume- 11, fat switch off, treble- 2.5, bass and mid- 7.5, master volume- 2.5 reverb- 3.5. I'm running it through an xotic effects sp compressor pedal at low compression setting with the volume and blend knobs just past 12 o clcok and my slides are made from stainless steel. Very high action- string raiser on the nut, action on the bridge raised up to match with thick strings (0.13-0.56).

The issue I'm having is that I've always found the MFD pickups on this guitar to be way too bright- so trebly that there is a piercing quality to them- this is especially true of the bridge pick up, and there's a hint of it in the neck. So far I've turned the treble on my amp waaaayy down to compensate so I can leave the tone knob on full, and it's liveable, but it's still too bright. I'm told the MFD pickups in the asat classics are very bright by nature but this is a bit much. In the past I've had the treble set to around 6.5 or even 8 and rolled the tone knob way down on the guitar, but found this sacrificed a lot of the character of the sound.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this piercing quality in the treble frequencies of the MFDs? Is it a flaw? Are there any G & L pickups I could replace the MFDs with that would have less bite but give me that classic ASAT tone? Any help would be appreciated.

Mike

I might be wrong but i think you back the volume off to make it less bright,, if that doesnt work maybe a different frequency pass capacitor might need to be installed. The guys here will surly have the right answer though.
Cheers
G

do a search here for microphonic pick ups on a ASAT Classic , you should get a few hits , if the wax potting gets loose the pick ups may need re-potted

I had a similar issue with an ASAT Special Tribute (2010). Ended up re-wiring the controls to match a drawing on G&L's website called "ASAT (all 2 single coil pickup models)" . I was much happier with the high end tone after that.

You could add a 500pF-1000pF cap to ground, like the S-500's have, which will lower the resonant frequency and cut some highs. Also, consider using your tone knob more, and possibly even swapping to a smaller value cap, so you can roll off some of the harsher highs, without the guitar getting muddy.

And check this:
"Live" from the 3-way should go to the "10" end of the volume pot (of course) and also the "10" end of the tone pot as well. The tone pot should have both "Live" and one side of the capacitor at the "10" end, the other side of the cap at the middle (wiper), and ground at the "0" end.
If yours is wired like a Fender, with no connection to the "10" end of the tone pot, then that would certainly make everything pretty shrill. Someone may have thought this was an improvement....
And G&Ls do indeed like having their tone controls used.