Sire L7 pickup issue

[Monte Blue]

Can anyone help me with this? I'm a keys player who occasionally plays a bit of rhythm guitar. My standard guitar has always been an Epiphone LP but I put Seymour Duncan pickups in it. Using a Fractal FM3. Each patch just sounds right. But I always felt it was a slightly cheap guitar. Never felt entirely right to play although it sounded great. Was very unforgiving considering my limited technique. 

 

On recommendation I bought a Sire L7. I much preferred the build quality, the feel of the neck etc. It felt more comfortable to play. But it sounded so harsh compared to the Epiphone. Bright, thin, slightly empty sounding and way way too much drive.

 

So I swapped the Seymour Duncans into the L7 (got a guitar tech to do it of course) and... nothing - no change whatsoever. Still that same nasty, thin sound with too much drive. 

 

An example would be Fractal's Alex Lifeson 'Limelight' patch. On the Epi with the Seymours it sounds right. Easy to play, warm etc. On the L7 with the Seymours it's thin and so much drive that each and every slide of the fingers on the strings, every slight overtone is amplified. Very hard to play. 

 

Is there something wrong with the guitar? Should there not be a world of difference between the Sire pickups and the SDs?

 

Very grateful for any advice!

[ezbass]

34 minutes ago, Monte Blue said:

Can anyone help me with this? I'm a keys player who occasionally plays a bit of rhythm guitar. My standard guitar has always been an Epiphone LP but I put Seymour Duncan pickups in it. Using a Fractal FM3. Each patch just sounds right. But I always felt it was a slightly cheap guitar. Never felt entirely right to play although it sounded great. Was very unforgiving considering my limited technique. 

 

On recommendation I bought a Sire L7. I much preferred the build quality, the feel of the neck etc. It felt more comfortable to play. But it sounded so harsh compared to the Epiphone. Bright, thin, slightly empty sounding and way way too much drive.

 

So I swapped the Seymour Duncans into the L7 (got a guitar tech to do it of course) and... nothing - no change whatsoever. Still that same nasty, thin sound with too much drive. 

 

An example would be Fractal's Alex Lifeson 'Limelight' patch. On the Epi with the Seymours it sounds right. Easy to play, warm etc. On the L7 with the Seymours it's thin and so much drive that each and every slide of the fingers on the strings, every slight overtone is amplified. Very hard to play. 

 

Is there something wrong with the guitar? Should there not be a world of difference between the Sire pickups and the SDs?

 

Very grateful for any advice!

Sometimes, original pickups are just as good as premium replacements. I once had a PRS SE singlecut and swapped the pickups for a set of Seymour Duncans and then a set of Bareknuckles, neither were better than originals, which I put back in. However, in your case you have a set of good sounding pickups in one guitar that sound bad in another. Whilst construction may alter the tone slightly, having them fall off a cliff seems improbable. More likely is that the wiring loom is very cheap and nasty, with one of more components being faulty and therein lies the seat of the problem for both the SDs and the original pickups.

[Monte Blue]

Thanks very much for your reply. Even with my minimal knowledge of these matters I did wonder if it was something like the wiring. Coincidentally I ran into a guitarist friend a couple of days ago and he too had bought a Sire L7, was unhappy with the pickups (P90s in this case) and put Bareknuckles in. He's very happy with the result.

 

Also, I swear that a couple of times playing through stuff with the L7, I've noticed the sound changing suddenly as if something's faulty. Wasn't sure if it was the guitar or something else but now I'm wondering.

 

But you've confirmed my gut feeling: a set of pickups that sound great in an Epiphone sound a bit cheap and nasty in a Sire and that can't be right.

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, Monte Blue said:

... So I swapped the Seymour Duncans into the L7 (got a guitar tech to do it of course)...

 

Take it back to the guitar tech (maybe both guitars and all the p/u's..?) and get him/her to sort it out so that you get the sound you want from the guitar you want. He/she should be able to find the root cause of the issue and fix it, whatever it is. If it's duff electrics, it's simple. It's not rocket surgery. 

[Kiwi]

First thoughts are whether the coils in the new pickups are wired in series or parallel.  Parallel can sound a bit bright if the guitar is made from something like maple and ash or alder.  Second thoughts are comparing the woods in the neck between guitars.  Mahogany normally gives a nice mellow sound with warmth in semi hollows.  Third thought is a connection issue in the wiring harness or maybe even a short somewhere.  I've just swapped out some favourite Armstrong PAF's from my Yamaha (see profile pic) and replaced them with Dimarzio Mo Joe and PAF Joe pickups.  I was expecting a bright lively sounding guitar with plenty of harmonics but found the clarity in the Dimarzios had been blunted quite a bit in order to make the harmonics jump.  So I will eventually go back to my faves because the neck pickup is lucious.  The Armstrongs also went previously into another, near identical Yammie, that was about 400g lighter and brighter sounding.  It was very harsh by comparison.  That was mostly due to the differences in mass not the pickups as they were fitted with quick fit connectors.