Any examples of how to cut the shrill highs of just the B/High E strings?

bxlgotham

bxlgotham

Inspired
I have this problem in general, with tone knob, EQ, and I have fine dynamics. I just find the harmonics of these strings and their tone a bit shrill at times and if I roll off the highs, I end up with muddy and round Low E through G tonality. Although I find this issue is often on all my guitars, I'm more specifically focused on running into this with the main model I play, which is a 57 Les Paul Junior with a dog ear P90.
 
Try a PEQ post amp. You can make more precise cuts. Sounds like a nice guitar you have. 57 wow that’s an old one. Made before I was born and I’m turning 63 shortly.
 
bxlgotham said:
I have this problem in general, with tone knob, EQ, and I have fine dynamics. I just find the harmonics of these strings and their tone a bit shrill at times and if I roll off the highs, I end up with muddy and round Low E through G tonality. Although I find this issue is often on all my guitars, I'm more specifically focused on running into this with the main model I play, which is a 57 Les Paul Junior with a dog ear P90.
Click to expand...
Shrill B and E? Pole pieces are likely too close to the strings. Back those pole pieces off a half-turn or two, to reduce the shrillness. Then, raise the wound string poles a half-turn or two, to enhance the twanginess/clarity of the wound strings. Finally, adjust the pickup height and leveling with shims until the low strings and high strings are balanced, volume-wise.

HTH!
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
Shrill B and E? Pole pieces are likely too close to the strings. Back those pole pieces off a half-turn or two, to reduce the shrillness. Then, raise the wound string poles a half-turn or two, to enhance the twanginess/clarity of the wound strings. Finally, adjust the pickup height and leveling with shims until the low strings and high strings are balanced, volume-wise.

HTH!
Click to expand...
Trust me it's me. I see it this way with every guitar even a 68 Black Beauty. I just hear these strings as too high for me. The single coils are just worse offenders.
 
bxlgotham said:
I have this problem in general, with tone knob, EQ, and I have fine dynamics. I just find the harmonics of these strings and their tone a bit shrill at times and if I roll off the highs, I end up with muddy and round Low E through G tonality. Although I find this issue is often on all my guitars, I'm more specifically focused on running into this with the main model I play, which is a 57 Les Paul Junior with a dog ear P90.
Click to expand...

A few places to try calming the shrillness that I've found. Reduce the Bias in the preamp tube, or/and power tube section, in the preamp section there are frequency cuts for lows and highs, try reducing the highs to around the 5k to 7k region, if this doesn't feel right, go to the Cab Block, in there, there's also a preamp, the low and high cut knobs are especially sensitive if you have the preamp set to Tube, and in this section, go for a hard cut at 24db, then play around with the high cut from 5k to 9k to see how sensitive it is. Back to the preamp in the Amp section, the diodes, play around with them if they're set to 40k, try reducing the first diode down to 550hz just to see if it makes a difference, many times it does, I'll usually bring it back up to 3k to 5k to get near the target. Oftentimes the problem you've described and I've fought with can be dealt with the "speaker" section of the Amp, turn the "Resonance" to off, turn off compression, drive, thump, all of it. Then play with the eq in the speaker section, oftentimes for "body" I'll move the low frequency bump to 150hz, then lower the output by 3db and then widen the Q until I start hearing some 'bump' in the response, also try reducing the highs to curve off at around 5khz or so. I've found the 10 inch Prince speaker to be pretty fair across the frequency range, combine it with a large cabinet in the Cab section and you'll have a pretty good defined and full sound. Usually it's a combination of all these elements that works for me.
 
ApocalypticKatana said:
Lower the pickup for the treble side and or change pickups
Click to expand...
Lots of cool answers trying it out now. I really don’t think the guitar has a problem but maybe the actual guitar mod suggestions are still valid. We will see. I’d rather not much with the 56 but a reissue is no biggie.
 
bxlgotham said:
Trust me it's me. I see it this way with every guitar...
Click to expand...
does it bother you unplugged as well? ever tried different picks (size, material)? and in some cases it can actually just be the picking technique/angle with which you're hitting the strings...
 
bxlgotham said:
I have this problem in general, with tone knob, EQ, and I have fine dynamics. I just find the harmonics of these strings and their tone a bit shrill at times and if I roll off the highs, I end up with muddy and round Low E through G tonality. Although I find this issue is often on all my guitars, I'm more specifically focused on running into this with the main model I play, which is a 57 Les Paul Junior with a dog ear P90.
Click to expand...
Possibly preaching to the converted, but I have been using LP Juniors for a while now, and the issues you report feel like home ground.

I have LP Juniors from '55, '57 and '59, also a '57 LP Special, and a couple of P90 equipped Gold Tops (one reissue, one "uber" replica, the "student" models are all original). Obviously brass saddles aren't an option, as there aren't any saddles, but almost all my Juniors/Special now have MojoAxe wrap-over bridges. The improvement in intonation is clear, but kind of peripheral for me. The big deal is that the MojoAxe bridges throw off fewer harmonics, especially when playing on the lower frets with high E and B strings. Not cheap, but definitely good value for me.

Weirdly, for most amp models, I tend to control the rest of it with the tone and presence controls. The low E string, close to open, can give any amp or model a hard time, but rolling off the bass helps. I tend to try to control the highs as much with Presence as much as with Treble in the amp models, and the tone controls on the guitars get used in a way I'd never consider with humbucker equipped guitars or more "normal" single coils. I sometimes roll them back a long way further.

Liam

PS. I know you are not looking for guitar based solutions, but my favourite, the '55 LP Junior, ended up with '59 size frets in it a good few years ago. Massive mistake! A very lively guitar that ended up trying to play itself. I got it re-fretted back to exactly original '55 size wire, and immediately returned to the guitar I knew and loved. Weird to discover that some of the intricacies are more about the guitar than the player!
 
Last edited:
Input Eq in the amp block and the preamp eq in the speaker block is all you should need to cut the high end and the lows. Mine are usually set around 100hz for the low and 7500hz for the highs.
 
You can't apply anything in the Fractal to only certain strings.

Any EQ you apply will be applied equally to all strings...

Have you tried different picks? Might be the pick material.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom