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Not a fan of clowns & tight flames, so I bought one...

kats

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2005
Messages
274
What a tone journey! So I could never get on with the uncovered black bobbin. On this particular guitar, cream (IMO) would have looked better, though I do prefer covered. So I decided to take the PG102's off the 13' and put them on the R0. I figured I'd just put the Joe Perry Custom Buckers back on the '13, until I remembered I had a set of Throbak SLE 101 LTD's from like a decade ago lying around. So I put them in the Joe Perry for kicks. HOLY, what a great match! Couldn't stop playing.

Right then, the PG102's in the R0 were great but a little too hot, for an already loud guitar - notably in the neck pup. I also liked the "squawk" from the SLE 101s and figured the SLE 101 Plus MXV might be a good match for the R0 with the less loud neck pup and a UO A5 magnet to clean up the bottom end a bit. Turned out to be a really good compliment to the guitar as I had suspected it would.

Funnily, after tweaking these guitars to my liking, they are remarkably similar. The '13 is slightly less hot, smooth top end, and a bit loose in the bottom. The R0 is more aggressive, less smooth, but a tighter bottom end. Both have that similar "squawk". Almost pointless having both :hee With that in mind, simply turning down my amp ('67 Marshall SL) from like 6.5/7 to 4 or 5 gets the R0 into a similar gain area. The 5pf bright cap also cleans up the bottom end perfectly on the R0 as you roll the Marshall volume knob down a bit and the cleans on the neck pickup at 5 on the guitar volume pot are spectacular. It simultaneously improves the middle position. It's really perfectly the way I like my tone. Note to self: There are TWO volume knobs, one on the amp and one on the guitar. D'uh 40 years at this in every capacity and still having brain farts...

Last note, I believe Jon at Throbak has put very accurate descriptions of his pups and magnets on his website - my experience is completely reflected by them.


PS> Btw, I really like the new plastics - especially the inlays, subtle but the neck really looks great. Also, it doesn't look like I'm going to get colour bleed into the bindings. And again, the workmanship was flawless.
 
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