The Biggest Problem with SG Basses solved- That Mudbucker is too damn muddy!!

[DavidEdenAria]

Love it.


I think that's the whole reason why I would want one. That's the sound, for better or worse.


The room can definitely have a lot to do with it. Or, it might be that it's just not going to be your weapon of choice for live performances.


If the strings are making it worse, maybe try some different strings? I've always been a firm believer in finding the right set of strings for each bass. I love TI flats on my P bass but can't imagine putting them on a different bass and then saying "I don't like these strings on this bass, so I'm going to rewire the electronics". Maybe try some strings with a less pronounced low end... something like GHS Brite Flats or PressureWounds might help it cut through more.


I have wired a passive bass cut circuit in a humbucker-equipped strat and loved it. So much more useful than the standard two-tone strat circuit. I stole the circuit from a G&L Legacy diagram. Never tried it on bass.

Great ideas! Pressurewounds are great!

 

[DavidEdenAria]

I don’t know about major rewiring, but a couple thoughts…..
If you lower the volume knob on the bass it can help. Those are hot pickups (at least my EB-0 has hot pickups). Then you can increase volume with the amp. You’ll get a cleaner less bassy sound.
Also I just turn the bass eq way down on the amp. Easy! It takes an extreme eq setting.

GHS brite flats or other ground wounds are often recommended. Seems like a good idea to me, more old school than round wounds with that growl, but also more mid range content than flats.

I’d expect a high pass filter pedal like the Broughton would do the trick. Kill off some of those extra lows.

High pass filter!

 

[DavidEdenAria]

I love the look of this bass in the seafoam green. I've owned an original Gibson EB-0, and EB4L and currently have a Gibby SG.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong - to me, the Epi discussed here (and I have one) is their EB-0 not an SG. To me, an SG has the mudbucker and a mini humbucker bridge pickup. No varitone like an EB-3 has either. I've seen them sold as Epi E-1 as well, still one mudbucker only.
Moving on.... I admire the efforts put in by gucdude to dial in the tone he wants. I agree that EQ is the way around this problem. I would try an EQ pedal - Boss, or perhaps better if necessary, rather than try to make the bass sound better. I say that because in the Epi, more than a Gibson, just about any Vol + Tone combination with caps isn't going to make this bass sound like you want it to. It's just reality.

Semi parametric EQ makes all the difference....ive tried common EQs with mudbucker basses it wont let you dial in the same.

 

[Giraffe]

Wide humbucker, with an aperture way too wide.

The pickup, especially that pickup, is way too far from the bridge.

Mahogany neck on many/most variants.

Short scale.

What do you expect?!?! That right there is a recipe for a giant mudslide. Someone could get killed!!!

 

[NKBassman]

Wide humbucker, with an aperture way too wide

Not necessarily true. A true Gibson EB pickup is a sidewinder humbucker, and only has one set of poles for a very narrow aperture.

Also I’m pretty sure that the Epiphone SG basses are standard 34” scale.

 

[mcnach]

Not necessarily true. A true Gibson EB pickup is a sidewinder humbucker, and only has one set of poles for a very narrow aperture.

Also I’m pretty sure that the Epiphone SG basses are standard 34” scale.

No, the EB-0 is short scale. It's the EB-3 (2 pickups) that's long scale.

 

[icefly]

Yes... Epiphones:
EB0, short scale left
EB3, long scale, right

 

[mcnach]

For completeness... there are some short scale EB-3 too, although rare. They have dot markers, which helps spotting them.

 

[sunbeast]

A little while back I bought an Epiphone SG bass. It was in quite a state, but was a good deal for a project bass and came with a hard-shell case. I had it shipped up from Florida. When it came the neck's scarf joint was cracked. The previous owner (who will be left unnamed) decided to "route" a bridge pickup hole with hand tools. He also painted this bass flat hardware-store black without sanding or finishing any of the bumps or wood putty he had added. On top of this he had "modified" the bridge to add a third post which is really unnecessary, and looks terrible. On top of this the electronics were a complete clustershag... 6 way switchable capacitors, extra pickup electronics, the damn thing was like a spaceship and completely destroyed the vibe that I always thought the SG bass was supposed to exude.

After I fixed these issues and refinished the body in Sea-foam Green and polyeurethane, I was pretty pleased with the results. I swapped the stock pickup for a replacement from Ebay that sounded much more defined! My only problem now was... I still didn't love the way it sounded. It had so much bottom end it either distorted my tube head instantly, or was so brimming with low-end that it didn't even function in the setting of my indie band, Citrus Maxima. We rehearse in a pretty large room and super low-lows just sound terrible in there, and in many of the clubs we play. For studio purposes it fits the mix really well with a bit of saturation, but it just doesn't cut it live unless it's distorted, which is not our vibe. cutting highs with any standard tone knob just makes it sound comically low-endy I don't play in a Dub band, but if I did this bass would be perfect for it. I use La Bella Flats, and that especially makes this bass unusable in any live setting. I know those in this forum may disagree with me, but for the style of music I play I need a non-traditional wiring setup that would allow me to cut low lows so that I'm not distractingly boomy in a live setting. It's a great little bass and I'd hate to see it be condemned for studio use only.

I have experimented with a multitude of wiring harnesses for this bass. I have used a STC BO preamp from Seymour-Duncan that cuts or adds lows at 60hz and 3k. This did not work very well as I never needed to add lows, and just cutting still used up the battery. On top of this, even with 3k boost cranked I didn't like the amount or type of definition in sound it brought me. I am fine with keeping the tone roughly the same, but realized that I could just use a passive tone circuit to cut low end AND high end on one concentric knob.

The circuit I am currently designing has a CTS Master Volume (1M for overall high-end clarity, like on a Jaguar), a CTS Concentric Tone Pot (top knob is treble roll-off with an Orange Drop Cap (can't remember what capacitance), and bottom knob is a Blue Drop 2.2 nf), and a mini-toggle for humbucker vs just south pole just for tonal variation.

Here is my scrawled diagram. I'll post an update when I get it wired up, and will send a tone demo too.

I'm sure there are purists and haters in here that will not like what I am doing, but I can't help myself from modifying my gear to suit my needs as best as I can. Also they should keep in mind that some of the original SG basses had strangle switches too. For those of you who are interested, I am excited to get this done and update! and you can check out my blog for more music related information and postings, I just started it and am doing a bit of fun experimentation in the studio. maxgucinski.com/blog

I’ve wired similar “bass-cut” circuits into chunky sounding basses to good effect before. G&L L1000/L2000 basses have similar circuits, though you may find a typical audio pot puts most of the sweep in the wrong place tonally (the G&Ls use a reverse-audio 1megohm pot for the bass control which gives an improved sweep). I had a J-bass with ceramic Thunderbird humbuckers that was similarly boomy and benefited greatly from a 500K bass cut with a .01uf capacitor (IIRC)- I wired it backwards to get the sweep how so preferred (full bass-cut with the pot turned all the way up). The effect was somewhat subtle heard soloed, but very obvious when loud in a room or band mix! A “strangle” switch with right value of capacitor as found on some vintage basses would be a less fiddly and more predictable way to go about it (just have to experiment to find the right cap).
One thing to note is that what you may be experiencing is simply a lack of cutting high-mids (which make the low-mids more prominent) rather than too much actual bass.

If it’s a dual coil pickup you can mess around with keeping one coil full-range and cutting the highs from the other coil then running the coils in series. This has a dual benefit of thicker midrange with less phase cancellation in the highs and high-mids so you get a tone with both more fat than a single coil and more clarity than a series humbucker. This is how vintage G&L basses wired the series pickup option (they called it “single-coil with bass boost”, many people on the net these days refer to it as “OMG mode”), with a .1uf capacitor to ground at the series connection of the two coils (from experimentation I’ve found .1uf all the to .022uf can work well in this application for different tones). Keep in mind that this mod will decrease the humbucking properties of the pickup to some degree!

 

[gucdude]

Edit:

A little while back I bought an Epiphone SG bass. It was in quite a state, but was a good deal for a project bass and came with a hard-shell case. I had it shipped up from Florida. When it came the neck's scarf joint was cracked. The previous owner (who will be left unnamed) decided to "route" a bridge pickup hole with hand tools. He also painted this bass flat hardware-store black without sanding or finishing any of the bumps or wood putty he had added. On top of this he had "modified" the bridge to add a third post which is really unnecessary, and looks terrible. On top of this the electronics were a complete clustershag... 6 way switchable capacitors, extra pickup electronics, the damn thing was like a spaceship and completely destroyed the vibe that I always thought the SG bass was supposed to exude.

After I fixed these issues and refinished the body in Sea-foam Green and polyeurethane, I was pretty pleased with the results. I swapped the stock pickup for a replacement from Ebay that sounded much more defined! My only problem now was... I still didn't love the way it sounded. It had so much bottom end it either distorted my tube head instantly, or was so brimming with low-end that it didn't even function in the setting of my indie band, Citrus Maxima. We rehearse in a pretty large room and super low-lows just sound terrible in there, and in many of the clubs we play. For studio purposes it fits the mix really well with a bit of saturation, but it just doesn't cut it live unless it's distorted, which is not our vibe. cutting highs with any standard tone knob just makes it sound comically low-endy I don't play in a Dub band, but if I did this bass would be perfect for it. I use La Bella Flats, and that especially makes this bass unusable in any live setting. I know those in this forum may disagree with me, but for the style of music I play I need a non-traditional wiring setup that would allow me to cut low lows so that I'm not distractingly boomy in a live setting. It's a great little bass and I'd hate to see it be condemned for studio use only.

I have experimented with a multitude of wiring harnesses for this bass. I have used a STC BO preamp from Seymour-Duncan that cuts or adds lows at 60hz and 3k. This did not work very well as I never needed to add lows, and just cutting still used up the battery. On top of this, even with 3k boost cranked I didn't like the amount or type of definition in sound it brought me. I am fine with keeping the tone roughly the same, but realized that I could just use a passive tone circuit to cut low end AND high end on one concentric knob.

The circuit I am currently designing has a CTS Master Volume (1M for overall high-end clarity, like on a Jaguar), a CTS Concentric Tone Pot (top knob is treble roll-off with an Orange Drop Cap (can't remember what capacitance), and bottom knob is a Blue Drop 2.2 nf), and a mini-toggle for humbucker vs just south pole just for tonal variation.

Here is my scrawled diagram. I'll post an update when I get it wired up, and will send a tone demo too.

I'm sure there are purists and haters in here that will not like what I am doing, but I can't help myself from modifying my gear to suit my needs as best as I can. Also they should keep in mind that some of the original SG basses had strangle switches too. For those of you who are interested, I am excited to get this done and update! and you can check out my blog for more music related information and postings, I just started it and am doing a bit of fun experimentation in the studio. maxgucinski.com/blog

So after a ton of research and experimentation I decided to go with running my mudbucker in Parallel instead of series, and that cut down on the boomy low mids I was trying to tamp down. I finally got the low cut and high cut concentric knob working, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Ended up going with a 0.047 cap like in a rick, and did the job just fine. Roll off isn't perfectly musical because of the pot type, but I mainly want either full blast or all cut anyway. Now I just have a spare producer switch installed that I need to find a use for...

Here's a link to my tone demos of this bass as is! I think this is problem solved for me. This article also has some links that I found very helpful if anyone else wants to follow my setup.
Thanks for all the great info, dudes

Link Removed