Wax potting adds capacitance. As a result, it drops the resonant peak and q factor of the pickups. This is easily measurable. That said, the benefits of potting outway the slight shift in resonant peak
How would you explain the sound of the new ones ?
Back in the early 80's I once played a Les Paul Custom (which was selling for $350. God, I miss the eighties) with a Mighty Mite in the bridge. I don't know if it was a 1300 or a 1400. It was absolutely amazing. Destroyed any Super Distortion I've tried. I've heard that Seymour designed them for Mighty Mite but I don't know that for a fact. If he did, maybe MJ could make one?
Yeah those old Mighty Mites are great. I like most the 1400 since it’s a bit more gritty sounding, but the 1300 and 1800 are pretty similar imo. I heard the current made MM’s are supposed to be pretty good too, but haven’t tried them. If they’re like most recent made pickups they’d probably sound a bland and lacking rawness vs vintage ones, but who knows. It’s cool that once in a while there are happy accidents where the copy ends up sounding better than the original like Might Mite vs Super Distortion haha
Unfortunately most recent made pickups I’ve had in general to me have sounded lifeless and boring to varying degrees. Just not fun. Those stock Bill Lawrence designed L6’s though imo are excellent pickups with great snarl and clarity. Not sure why he’d swap those out unless he needed something hotter or less noisy maybe
Yes exactly. I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a clone until I read that online lol. It’s just a great pickup regardless of how it relates to the DSD’s that I never liked
I think I read online that he did, but maybe someone else can confirm
I don't know why he made the change. Back when I was doing repairs, I once replaced the stock L6S bridge pickup with a DiMarzio Super 2 (DP104) and the customer loved it. He said that it had more bite and clarity.
Bill designed some amazing pickups. I LOVE the old L90's. (Anyone here tried the current L90's? I wonder how they compare) Never was a fan of the L500 series though. I swapped out the stock Dirty Fingers in my Les Paul XR1 (I think that's what it was called) and put in Lawrence L500's. Yecch. I yanked them and put the Dirty Fingers back in and was very happy.
Yeah the L90’s are some of my favorite Bill Lawrence’s too. I would overall also prefer the old Dirty Finger’s to 500’s, but I think the 500’s can be really good too in the right guitar and style of play, but some versions aren’t as good. The earlier chrome back ones always sounded better to me than the plastic back ones. Either way, I’ve found all those older pickups including the mighty mites make all the recent made hot pickups I’ve had come off very bland and uninspiring to play. They don’t have the rawness, feel or nuances in sound
With 100,000,000,000 different boost/od/eq pedals on the market I imagine you could find one that can closely copy a Gresco preamp,,,,and then your SD tone would be incredible too!
Yeah, I’ve always liked Super Distortions.