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Sheptones and Jensen caps - digging the tone

matei

Banned
Joined
Jan 2, 2004
Messages
158
Hi all... I recently got an R8 with Sheptones (not sure which model), and to my ears they sound like what I imagined a vintage PAF would sound like. Not overly aggressive or trebly, but harmonically rich and with a “dryness” that I don’t have in my other pickups. The neck pickup in particular sounds quite different than the Burstbuckers in my other guitars. Notes played through that pickup have an almost Fender-esque clarity and roundness.

The R8 also came with Jensen capacitors – so not sure how much is due to the Sheptones or the caps.

I’m now considering putting this combo in my other Historic, a 2003 R7 with the stock Burstbuckers but with RS audio pots and caps. It was always, to my ears, a mellow sounding guitar.

I dig the bridge Burstbucker – it sounds different enough to my other Lesters. With some tweaks to its height and pole piece height I’ve succeeded in livening it up a bit – but the neck pickup sounds too “biffy”, for lack of a better descriptive term. It is as if the tone control is still rolled off, it is very thick sounding – but with a strange hi-fi sounding hi-end.

How much do the caps affect the overall tone? I've only ever swapped out the stock faux-bumblebees for the RS stuff, so I've not experimented much.
 
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