[SOLVED] My Guitar sounds incredibly fuzzy, flabby, and frankly awful with modern high gain tones - what can I do to fix the sounds?

I'm interested in the details
These will get you started...

https://reverb.com/news/guitar-strings-materials-construction-and-benefits-explained
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-are-guitar-strings-made-of/
https://guitargearfinder.com/guides/ultimate-guide-to-guitar-strings/

Years ago, Ernie Ball's Slinky strings were the norm, and I hated them because they'd rust almost overnight and would break way too often, so I started experimenting with different brands and metals. Doing that showed me that the output, the sound of the pickups, and the feel of the guitar could change, even though the gauge was the same.
 
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Depends on the guitar.
All my Music Man guitars have pickups who are mounted directly to the wood and they Sound that good that I would never ever change that.

That's cool. I just feel like you are gonna lose some range and potential if you take that option away
in the build.
 
Do you consider scale length of your guitars when choosing string gauges?
When I got my Majesty, the 10's on it were a bit hard on me, since I was used to shorter-scale guitars (with 10's.) But I wanted the lowest action possible, with the least amount of fret buzz, so I left them on, and got used to the increased tension. As for the tone, I figured, JP's is just about my favorite guitar tone, so if it works for him, it'll be fine.
I did however switch to a 52 on the bottom to help with drop D, and I like the fact that D'addario makes a set of 10-52's.

If I was ever to buy another guitar, it would be another Majesty, but I'd string to a lower tuning, and just try to select the string gauge based on getting the tension as close to the numbers on a 25.5" guitar strung with 10's.

Get it!! :)

It's fun having multiple guitars that can stay in different tunings. I find different tunings
require their own unique setup to optimize tone and playability, so it is nice to have guitars
that can stay in a specific tuning most of the time. Grab and go!! :)
 
That's cool. I just feel like you are gonna lose some range and potential if you take that option away
in the build.
Maybe but when its good enough for Steve Lukather, it should be good enough for me.
I do professional live and studio music for more than 25 years and I was booked as studio and live musician as well.
All I can tell after my experience, nobaody cares which guitar you are playing, you just have to deliver in one ore two takes.
Everything came down to me to use one or two guitars for just everything.
So I use three Music Man LIII, one main guitar, one as a backup and one for a alternate tuning.
But I got your point, I was naver a different guitar type guy, just one guitar for everything, I like to keep it simple. ;)
 
Maybe but when its good enough for Steve Lukather, it should be good enough for me.
I do professional live and studio music for more than 25 years and I was booked as studio and live musician as well.
All I can tell after my experience, nobaody cares which guitar you are playing, you just have to deliver in one ore two takes.
Everything came down to me to use one or two guitars for just everything.
So I use three Music Man LIII, one main guitar, one as a backup and one for a alternate tuning.
But I got your point, I was naver a different guitar type guy, just one guitar for everything, I like to keep it simple. ;)

You forgot the mic drop at the end of that. :)

 
These will get you started...

https://reverb.com/news/guitar-strings-materials-construction-and-benefits-explained
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-are-guitar-strings-made-of/
https://guitargearfinder.com/guides/ultimate-guide-to-guitar-strings/

Years ago, Ernie Ball's Slinky strings were the norm, and I hated them because they'd rust almost overnight and would break way too often, so I started experimenting with different brands and metals. Doing that showed me that the output, the sound of the pickups, and the feel of the guitar could change, even though the gauge was the same.
Thanks! It's an interesting topic
 
In the late 2000s I bought an Ibanez that had the pickup selector switch wired backwards. I was just restarting guitar and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why my bridge pickup sounded so muffled and dark in high gain sounds. I went to a tech and had him look at it (that tech was a scammer and a moron who is thankfully out of business, but that's another story). Finally, I tapped on each pickup and realized that I thought I was playing bridge but was actually playing neck.
I had a similar situation in the early 90's when I was a teenager and didn't know anything about how guitars worked. I had bought a used American made Dark Purple almost looked Black Jackson Soloist Pro for a really good deal but the middle pickup stopped working a couple months later. I brought it to a repair shop and the guy told me the guitar wasn't repairable and the other pickups would stop working soon too but felt bad I wasted, so much money on it and offered to give me $100 bucks off any guitar in the store. I ended up with a cheap Samick and he took the Soloist :mad:
 

This video and the subsequent discussion here has been sorta a revelation for me, and as a result I have restrung 3 of my fave axes (been-thru-it -all 1977 SG beater, Silver Sky, and lovely Nystrum P90 offset) with 8-38s (slinky, but I will experiment), all 9 or 10s before, and I LOVE IT, especially as my ancient hands are increasingly arthritic My new battery-powered string winder also eases the pain…so thanks to all above…the III now is not unlike a very high-end modern component sound system, where the pristine A/D and algorithmic transparency, show bare naked every nuance of input, which can go either way for ya, and this string change does indeed make the synergy of guitar and III sweeter to my ears as well as my digits
 
I have restrung 3 of my fave axes (been-thru-it -all 1977 SG beater, Silver Sky, and lovely Nystrum P90 offset) with 8-38s (slinky, but I will experiment), all 9 or 10s before
I hope you relaxed the neck relief and adjusted tremolo tension and the intonation... dropping that much string tension and gauge can lead to extra fun a couple days down the road when everything settles in.
 
I hope you relaxed the neck relief and adjusted tremolo tension and the intonation... dropping that much string tension and gauge can lead to extra fun a couple days down the road when everything settles in.
Man, learning how to set up my guitars properly was the best time investment I ever made. I had to do all new setups on all of 'em at the start of summer since the higher ambient heat straightened out the necks a bit.
 
In the late 2000s I bought an Ibanez that had the pickup selector switch wired backwards. I was just restarting guitar and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why my bridge pickup sounded so muffled and dark in high gain sounds. I went to a tech and had him look at it (that tech was a scammer and a moron who is thankfully out of business, but that's another story). Finally, I tapped on each pickup and realized that I thought I was playing bridge but was actually playing neck.
It could have been wired backwards, or the switch could have been inadvertently rotated 180º if it was reinstalled; That's more likely on a Les Paul-type three position switch, but could happen on a Strat if the wires were long enough. Way back when, while working in a luthier shop, we'd occasionally get a Les Paul like that after someone screwed it upmessed with it.
 
Man, learning how to set up my guitars properly was the best time investment I ever made. I had to do all new setups on all of 'em at the start of summer since the higher ambient heat straightened out the necks a bit.
My Strats celebrate the advent of winter and summer by going through various stretching exercises leading to me ranting and then having a tweaking party. I have one that's an early 60s clone with the tension screw at the base of the neck, which required removing the neck to adjust it; I finally got tired of that and had the shop route the pick guard to fit the screwdriver.
 
I had a similar situation in the early 90's when I was a teenager and didn't know anything about how guitars worked. I had bought a used American made Dark Purple almost looked Black Jackson Soloist Pro for a really good deal but the middle pickup stopped working a couple months later. I brought it to a repair shop and the guy told me the guitar wasn't repairable and the other pickups would stop working soon too but felt bad I wasted, so much money on it and offered to give me $100 bucks off any guitar in the store. I ended up with a cheap Samick and he took the Soloist :mad:
You must have been walking all kinds of funny out of that store. Don't drop the soap. I was lucky as a kid. Two guys that owned my local music store were the complete opposite. Great guys.
 
How was this solved?
If you haven't read through the thread, a bit of backstory is necessary in that I'm trying to get a very tight, modern death metal sound with the III. All of the presets sounded like this and I couldn't figure out why. For what I'm trying to do, the answer was a bit of a mixed bag.

1) The strings I was using were muffling the guitar. I had read some reviews that the 12-60 set from D'Addario was overkill, but it got about the same tension as standard 10s in C Standard, so I thought it was something I'd like. I switched to 11-52s (which I am now slightly changing to 11-54s, a set I ordered from Stringjoy) and the clarity was hugely different.

2) I have a Seymour Duncan JB in the bridge and before I got this whole thing started, I just played the guitar in standard tuning through a Marshall DSL40C with an EP Booster in front of it. Quite a bit different characteristically, but there's a reason I bought an Axe-FX. The JB has a pretty bad reputation for deep downtunings like C standard, and because it's a "hot PAF" it doesn't really lend itself well to the tight low end and quick attack that something like a modern active pickup can give you. I would say most (75%+) of modern death metal players either use super high gain ceramic passives or active pickups like Fishman Fluence or EMG 81s. Also, something that I can't test simply because I don't have another guitar set up like this is that the bridge pickup is potentially way too close to the strings, causing a lot of unwanted flubbiness.

3) After using Leon Todd's video on creating a 5 minute 5150 tone, I determined that most of the high gain presets are either just quite subpar or were tracked using a guitar that isn't like mine at all. I have heard a lot of the tones were tracked on a Gibson style guitar with lower gain pickups. The Charvel that I have is practically the opposite of that, being a 25.5" scale length guitar made of ash with a maple neck and JB in the bridge. While the tone I made sounded a lot better than stock, it was clear to me that I need to wait to get the Kiesel I ordered to really achieve the tone I'm after.

As far as the ES-335 and the folk/indie rock stuff I play, I just needed to make some small adjustments. It turned out pretty well, but I can definitely spend a lot more time on a AC-30ish tone with tape saturation.

Also, I mentioned Devin Townsend (probably one of the best metal guitarists/vocalists right now and potentially all time) talking about strings. He mentions how "too high of a gauge doesn't crunch" and he is absolutely correct, at least in my limited experience.
 
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I've never been able to get the bright clear tones from the Factory presets with the Axe-Fix II XL+ or Axe-Fx III Mark I that are demoed on many YouTube videos. I had better luck with the III because it had better IR's and I've tried many other FAS and 3rd party IR's but have always struggled with getting clear tones. I get tones similar to the OP @JayWillyMF

Why is a Seymour Duncan JB SH-4 muddy/flubby? The specs show it has a low cut.

I have a Seymour Duncan JB SH-4 in the bridge of my Ibanez RG421, a Custom Custom SH-11 in the bridge of my Ibanez RGA42FM and a Full Shred SH-10 in the bridge of my Charvel Pro-Mod DK24 HH HT M QM Purple Phaze. I also had a Epiphone Zakk Wylde Les Paul Custom Camo with an EMG 81 in the bridge. I use Ernie Ball 2222 Hybrid Slinky strings which are 9's for the top 3 strings and 10's for the low 3 strings: 9, 11, 16, 26, 36, 46. I get similar tones from all 4 guitars.

JB SH-4: https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/jb-model
View attachment 86814

Custom Custom SH-11: https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/custom-custom
View attachment 86818

Full Shred SH-10: https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/full-shred
View attachment 86819

I don't know the technicalities of it, but I would think frankly almost all of it has to do with the magnet type. Ceramic has a much better low end reproduction and in general feels "tighter" with super high gain sounds. It's funny how much flak ceramic pickups get (there's an article somewhere about this - essentially ceramic is cheaper to make so some super cheap guitars have them and there's a kind of "taste aversion" as a result) considering the EMG 81's somewhat legendary status as a metal pickup. I think it totally just depends on what kind of metal you're playing. When I was a high schooler playing a ton of thrash, something like a JB was perfect, but now that my tastes of matured (not saying there's anything wrong with thrash metal, I just want to play something a little bit more subtle guitar-wise) the JB is not-so-perfect anymore.
 
I don't know the technicalities of it, but I would think frankly almost all of it has to do with the magnet type. Ceramic has a much better low end reproduction and in general feels "tighter" with super high gain sounds. It's funny how much flak ceramic pickups get (there's an article somewhere about this - essentially ceramic is cheaper to make so some super cheap guitars have them and there's a kind of "taste aversion" as a result) considering the EMG 81's somewhat legendary status as a metal pickup. I think it totally just depends on what kind of metal you're playing. When I was a high schooler playing a ton of thrash, something like a JB was perfect, but now that my tastes of matured (not saying there's anything wrong with thrash metal, I just want to play something a little bit more subtle guitar-wise) the JB is not-so-perfect anymore.
Yeah ceramics are where it's at tone wise for me. I actually find they have a much better top end, and although they have a bad rap as 'cheap pickup material' I've found them much more balanced and sweeter overall
 
Yeah ceramics are where it's at tone wise for me. I actually find they have a much better top end, and although they have a bad rap as 'cheap pickup material' I've found them much more balanced and sweeter overall

Anything other than metal I prefer passive, alnico pickups. I find that they do sound a little warmer than a ceramic. I have actually mostly been a single coil player, and I have a really cool guitar that has a Tele bridge and bridge pickup but a Strat middle and neck. For blues that thing can't be beat.
 
I had a similar situation in the early 90's when I was a teenager and didn't know anything about how guitars worked. I had bought a used American made Dark Purple almost looked Black Jackson Soloist Pro for a really good deal but the middle pickup stopped working a couple months later. I brought it to a repair shop and the guy told me the guitar wasn't repairable and the other pickups would stop working soon too but felt bad I wasted, so much money on it and offered to give me $100 bucks off any guitar in the store. I ended up with a cheap Samick and he took the Soloist :mad:

That dude deserves an ass whooping. Wow! Why not inform you rather than take advantage
of your youth and naivete'? :(
 
You must have been walking all kinds of funny out of that store. Don't drop the soap. I was lucky as a kid. Two guys that owned my local music store were the complete opposite. Great guys.

That dude deserves an ass whooping. Wow! Why not inform you rather than take advantage
of your youth and naivete'? :(

I'm even more mad now because I just looked up how much the guitar would be worth if I still had it :mad: It took me a few years to realize I had been ripped off after I had learned how to replace my first pickups and all the electronics. The guy was fired because he had ripped off a bunch of other customers and the store by keeping trade-ins for himself and not paying the store the amount he had deducted for the trade-in towards other gear in the store.
 
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