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recently (July) purchased a 04 r9. I love the guitar -but- it sounds very muddy when run into a clean amp (think blanket over your amp). I'm not sure where to start; pots (pic attached)? pickups?
I am amazed by how many guitars get sold (by competent retailers and in private transactions) with clearly no technical attention. Locally there is one for sale- it came from CME as one of their special orders- and the bridge saddles are in a dead-straight line. No way they would intonate.
Jon if you read this that was a killer video.
I dub thee with the moniker "Puts the Hyphen In Anal-Retentive Man of Detail". The plaque will go out next week.
Thank you for that- it is what I do, except when I do it I forget stuff and it takes days.
I went through a similar process with my Standard. Here's what I learnt makes a difference:
1. Pickup height: As you've already seen demonstrated. My neck pickup is now much lower than it originally was
2. Pole pieces: I've raised mine and found it added a bit more top end sparkle
3. Amp volume: How loud are you playing? I've found what sounds muffled at lower volumes can sound completely different when you open it up.
4. Amp type: I found a big difference in how muffled a 1x12 combo sounds compared to a 2x12 head and cab at lower volumes. It didn't seem to affect other guitars as much as the Les Paul (even a two humbucker semi hollow).
Here's another thing that absolutely can muffle the sound of your guitar - pots. More precisely pot values. I'm not 100% sure which kind of pots they used in Rxs 2004 (even though I did own a 2003 R8 and R9, but forgot), but Gibson had a phase where they used 300k volume pots (definitely in their standard models, not sure about the Historics, I'd guess not), which would add considerable mud to the sound. Looking at your picture, yours seem to be CTS pots, most likely spec'd to 500k.
Same with cap values - if you want to clear up the sound of your guitar, you could try higher pot values (~ 550 or maybe more) and maybe lower values for your capacitors (aka 15 nF for the neck, 18 nF for the bridge).