Circuit Upgrade, Distortion vs Clean

It’s very interesting what role distortion or clean makes on the tone. Here’s some important facts that will help your best use your new circuit and what to expect from them.

OVERALL, WHAT TO EXPECT

The type of pickup has a huge impact on how it reacts to different wiring changes. One thing you can expect is the following:

• Overall the wiring will reflect the sound of the pickups and change the wiring will not COMPLETELY change the way a set of pickups sound. So if you hate the “raw” sound of the pickups, changing wiring won’t make you like them. (note: Low output pickups love series arrangements)
• A Dual Coil arrangement that doesn’t have an RWRP  or noiseless pickup(s) will NEVER be noiseless or sound like a noiseless humbucker (even if it fattens up a bit)
• Depending on the output of a pickup, adding one in SERIES does the following
  • Ups the output voltage
  • Slightly compress the signal (depending on the starting values of the coils)
  • Tames the highs
  • Changes the tone and shifts the frequency response
  • Slight more bottom
• Depending on the output of a pickup, adding one in PARALLEL does the following
  • Thins the sound by removing some of the bass but adding more sparkle and span
  • Lowers the output
• Distortion will hide the sonic quality of the change in pickup wiring and in some cases will sound more compressed (because some distortions really boost the signal on a pregain stage).  A good distortion pedal will act more like an really good overdrive.

CLEAN

You can hear every nuance of your pickup(s) and the change in wiring. The best way to examine the sounds produced by your new wiring is to turn off ALL distortion and hard compressors and listen to tones clean while switching around. Get used to what the controls do and how each one interacts to sculpt your sound.    You’ll get the full jazz sound when you series wire pickups and it will sound amazing. You can hear the tonal quality change in your sound as well.

DISTORTION

Distortion sounds the best when not too compressed. Surprised? Don’t be, the distortion adds a ton of color, sustain and drive to your sound.  It will DOMINATE the output tonal quality and you will hear LESS difference between the switch settings. Noiseless pickups do REALLY well with distortion but won’t have that “Single Coil” sound of distortion.  Lower output pickups also do well with distortion. Heavy distortion actually works the best with a BASS TAMER since you can control the amount of bottom end driving the pedal which will tighten up the sound.

Not all distortion pedals work well with all pickups. You have to play with the distortion and choice of pickup to get the sound YOU are looking for.

OVERDRIVES

Overdrive also play really well with wiring modifications since the pure tone of the pickups tends to come through a lot better.  Almost all situations work well with overdrives and boosters when properly setup. Overdrive and booster love noiseless pickups as well.

CIRCUIT MODELING

Circuit Modeling really makes the point mute on changing the wiring. So when running a modeling pedal, worry about the modeling setup and leave your pickups in stock mode. The modeling totally dominates the sound produced.