Muffled tele humbucker neck PU

sorbz62 · July 2023

I bought an excellent 3 pickup Tele of TFB a while ago and am finding the neck BKP Mule to be almost unusable now, as it is very muffled. I'm not sure about the wiring per se but it has a 5 way switch with Strat style wiring I think and a pull pot on the tone control adds the neck pickup to any other configuration.

I would guess that the vol pot is 250k as the 2 x single coils sound great. Maybe this is not allowing the Mule to output its max tone?

Waddya think?

Cheers,
Jim

Funkfingers · July 2023

Don't guess. Check the pot resistance values and the solder joints on any switches.

For example, select the neck pickup. Operate the push-pull "seven sounds" switch. Does this alter the sound from the BKP Mule neck pickup?

How old are the strings? They could have tarnished over time. (I know a bloke whose corrosive sweat can kill off all of the treble from new strings in a matter of days!)

sorbz62 · July 2023

Cheers for the answer. To reply:

The sound when on the bridge and middle pickups (in all settings) are very nice, clean and treble.

The push-pull switch works well just adding the neck to the othe rpickups. It does not change the sound of the neck pickup on its own.

The strings are new. Thats not an issue. The Mule is muffled when selected by itself or in any combination.

Dave_Mc · July 2023

Very hard to advise because your idea of "muffled" might be very different than mine (plus I've never tried a Mule... I think they have the rep of being fairly bright, though), but in my experience I would doubt that 250k pots with a bright/vintage output humbucker should lead to "muffled"-ness. It's quite subtle- don't get me wrong, someone who's well-used to the correct value pots will likely spot it instantly, and it's enough of a difference that most people will have a preference, but it's more "that's a little darker/more held-back than it should ideally be" rather than a night-and-day "muffled" difference. As I said, I could be wrong and obviously it's hard to quantify tone opinions... but it sounds to me more like there's something wrong somewhere.

Although I suppose next to the single coils with (presumably) the correct value pots (for the single coils), it may sound far too dark...

sorbz62 · July 2023

No. It's definitely muffled, muted, lacking in treble and clarity, compared to neck HBs in all my other guitars. Its very noticeable to me.

SteveRobinson · July 2023

Eliminate everything else, connect the pickup directly to the jack, that will tell you whether it's the pickup or the controls at fault.

Then add components one by one: volume, tone, switch, until you encounter the fault.

FelineGuitars · July 2023

I'll put money on the 250k pot adding too much load and the ton control network if it feeds from the INPUT of the volume pot, and resulting in treble loss on the mule.

Take the mule out of circuit and send it direct to jack or add a jack to the lead and plug in to see what it sounds like out of circuit. if it sounds good then you know that the pickup is fine and it is just te combination of wiring and values robbing the high end

ICBM · July 2023

If it sounds muffled even in combination with the single coils, the load resistance is less likely to be the issue - in such a combination the lower-impedance pickup dominates (counterintuitively) so it should be bright enough - although it is possible…

But I think more likely there’s a partial short somewhere, probably in the neck pickup cable. This can rob a lot of treble even when another brighter pickup is in the circuit as well.

Do what Steve and Jonathan said, and connect the pickup directly to the jack first. That should tell you if it’s the pickup or the pot.

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Muffled tele humbucker neck PU

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