Twosome musket side + high output pickups

[gunslinger_burrito]

Has anyone else played through the musket with higher output pickups? I play through Gibson 500ts and Dirty Fingers, which I love, turned all the way up (because the I like the (clean) tone that I get by doing so). However, I used to play with the guitar volume at about 7, but once I started to crank it all the way up, I noticed that the Musket started to get kind of clippy in the lows. I don't necessarily mind it, because I play noisy music anyways, but I was curious as to other peoples' experiences. The lows get REALLY clippy when I switch from the bridge pickups to the neck. I should probably also mention that I tune down two steps, so there is that....

[wsas3]

Where's the focus knob set? That could really make it or break it. The musket's knobs really intertwine with one another, I just got one and I've spent the past 4 hours fucking around with many different glorious sounds.

[Chaosmic]

Yep, like wsas3 said, the Focus knob should definitely clean up the mud on the lows. That's specifically what it's designed to do IMO. Also, I find if you turn the Pre down lower (CCW) that will help clean up the lows too. I also like to keep my Tone at noon or slightly above....that helps to bring some clarity as well.

[wsas3]

I also like to keep my Tone at noon or slightly above....that helps to bring some clarity as well.

This, this and 1000 times this. The musket is one of the few muff clones where you shouldn't be terrified of turning the tone knob past 12. In fact, many great sounds lie past that.

[gunslinger_burrito]

I pretty much always have the focus knob all the way up. And I have experimented with different combos of the pre and fuzz knobs.....I guess I'm just fickle with my tones. I've been getting some great sounds out of the fix'd side lately though. Really industrial sounding stuff.

[wsas3]

Yeah I was thinking you'd respond like that.
Everyth ing can't work with everything, it's sad but its true. High output pickups on a guitar tuned down two steps most likely won't work well with a muff. You putting the twosome on b/s/t then?

[gunslinger_burrito]

Ha! ^^^ It's modded into a Very Special, so I'm hanging on to it. Nice try though

I think it mayyy be a matter of playing style, amps, etc.... I know that Boris is two steps down and they use muffs, though Wata uses a Gibson LP with the stock pickups, not anything crazy. It's weird though, because it's not "muddy" when I play it, but it literally sounds like it's clipping. I suppose I can always just tweak the volume knob on my guitar as I play; it really doesn't take too much turning down to clean it up a bit. Just an extra thing to worry about.

[gunslinger_burrito]

Ok. Got it. Funny enough, it sounds BETTER when I lay off the focus some (about noon.) It's almost like it was cutting out parts of the bass frequency and not others while it was turned all the way up.

[Astricii]

have you tried moving the pups a little further from the bass strings? might help with the overloading.

[wsas3]

Yeah you could also mess with the bridge to your liking

[Chaosmic]

have you tried moving the pups a little further from the bass strings? might help with the overloading.

This +1000....that's exactly what I thought after posting here earlier. That can have a HUGE effect on your tone, especially with high-output pickups. Especially on a neck pickup where the string travel is much greater and bass response is generally greater. Definitely worth a try.

[gunslinger_burrito]

Yeah, I was messing with one of my guitars today because it had a noisy toggle switch, and I noticed that the neck pickup (Dirty Fingers on Neck and Bridge) had wayyyyyy more bass than the bridge when I was playing clean. I just hadn't played that particular guitar very much lately. I did adjust the pickup height a bit, but I might mess with it some more. I found a couple settings that sound really great in my room, but I haven't tried recording with a mic yet. That always seems to sound much muddier all over the spectrum, even though I've always read that you should get it to sound how you want in the room before adding the microphones..... oh well