Duncan Custom SH5: muddy?

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cardinal

cardinal

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Just picked up a guitar and am trying to sort it out. Most of my pickup experience is with Dimarzios. This one has a Duncan Custom SH5, maple neck and mahogany body.

Is this combination really muddy? The Duncan site says the pickup is perfect for drop tuning without mushing out, but tuning to B sounds pretty muddy on the low strings. Just wondering if someone else is going wrong or if the pickup is just this muddy.

Thanks!
 
Muddy would be the last thing I would associate with a custom. One of my favorite pickups. Very tight with a nice upper mid attack.

Could be wiring. Keep in mind Dimarzios and Duncan's use different wiring schemes.
 
No not muddy.

Tight as a frogs ass underwater.

User error.
 
Hmm, ok thanks guys. Really strange. Guitar is brand new, so if the wiring is screwed up, it's from the factory. Into the same rig, the pickup seems muddier than the rest of my guitars, which have various Dimarzios (Air Norton or Crunch Lab mostly). WAY muddier than a mahogany-bodied guitar with EMG 81, but that's not a huge surprise.

I'll try backing the pickup away from the strings. Maybe that's contributing. Not sure how else I could be using it wrong...
 
The wiring should be red & white together, black to hot, and green & bare to ground.

Ive used that pup for 15 years, quintessential hard rock tone.
 
I'm pretty confused. Most of the internet says the SH5 should be almost too bright. What I'm hearing is a lack of attack and what seems like a tubby low end. Doesn't seem to make any sense. I'll play with it some more tonight.

Is this a pretty high output pickup? I wonder if it's driving the amp more than I realize.

Now that I think about it, last time I had a guitar with Duncans, I didn't like them until I lowered the pickup about as far as it could go. Guess I'll try the same thing.
 
Custom brdge is 14.1K

The JB is 16.4K

The JB was always spongy/mushy in the bottom to me.

Cut the bass on your amp and/or try an EQ and roll back the tone knob of the axe.

The SH-5 has a pronunced midrange attack.

The Duncan Distortion always had a fizzy top end to me as well.

https://www.seymourduncan.com/comparetones
 
I don't think its the amp EQ, because the amp sounds fine with other guitars. If the SH5 is muddy when other pickups aren't, that's what I'd call a muddy pickup.
 
Custom worked best in mahogany/maple guitars for me.

Alder/Basswood not so much.

Custom is a pup that either speaks to you or not.
 
I've never considered the Duncan Custom to be muddy. I have it is several of my guitars. It's one of my favorite Duncans. You may just have a muddy guitar. I've had a couple of guitars that were just mud city no matter what pickup I tried. Perhaps, your new guitar is one of those.
 
Yeah, you hit on why I started the thread. If the SH5 isn't supposed to sound like this, I worry it's the guitar itself. I have a ton of pickups I could try to swap in to test that theory, but I don't really want to go through all of that when I could just return the guitar and move on.
 
Something's wrong. But the fix should be cheap. Maybe the pickup selector was mounted or wired backwards. How does the other pickup sound, if there is one?

Otherwise check the wiring and the pots and tone cap to make sure they match SD's recommendation. Should be 500K pots if I remember correctly. Could also just have a bad pot. I have a guitar that sounded dull with an SH5. Swapped the pots out for new ones and it made a huge difference.
 
Neck pickup is a SH10 Full Shred. No tone knob.

Pickup selector is working right. Neck position sounds like a neck pickup. I haven't opened it up, but presumably the factory installed the proper pot. Would be incredibly strange if there's a 250k pot in there.
 
I recently put a SH-5 into an Ibanez tuned in B standard. I love it!


I wouldn't call it muddy, but it definitely has a chunkier, more thumping low end than my Dimarzio Tone Zone or Crunch Lab. Those pickups are more compressed on the low end. That can make it seem more muddy even if it really isn't.
 
SFW":2oggiw01 said:
I've never considered the Duncan Custom to be muddy. I have it is several of my guitars. It's one of my favorite Duncans. You may just have a muddy guitar. I've had a couple of guitars that were just mud city no matter what pickup I tried. Perhaps, your new guitar is one of those.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. I had a Jackson Dinky, mud city. Les Paul Classic, tight as shit. Same holds true with the JB. It's either going to shine, or suck.
 
adjusted something that helped a bit. I just bought this guitar, but the low B strings saddle was WAY too far forward. I moved it back and set the intonation, and the low B tightened up a bit.

It's still not what I'd consider a tight pickup, but it's at least tolerable now (before it was truly bad). Lowering the pickup reduced the output but didn't really make it tighter.

It seems really bass heavy and kinda round on the low end. Not a dark pickup at all, but the low end seems hyped up a bit.
 
SH5 is definitely not muddy...killer pups...try setting your bass end at 3-4/16
 
TX6Strings":1e3l7nga said:
SH5 is definitely not muddy...killer pups...try setting your bass end at 3-4/16
Click to expand...
this....people put pickups way too close usually :thumbsup:
 
One thing to clarify is that I'm using the 7-string version of the SH5. Not sure how it differs from the 6-string version (even if they tried to wind it the same way, the longer bobbins mean more wire and more resistance).
 
Well, I think I figured it out. The guitar has a somewhat steep neck angle (from a non-recessed but still floating Floyd) but pickups that are mounted parallel to the body. That puts the SH5 slug coil closer to the strings than the screw coil, which I think maybe throwing the pickup off balance. I raised up the screw-coil poles and it made a huge difference. Now it's a pretty tight pickup. Sounds pretty awesome, actually. Suddenly really happy with the pickup. Surprised it made such a difference.
 
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