VM and pickup height

[Spirit of 76]

I have been getting to know my new 2466 today and I know that it takes some time to get ones settings. This amp has alot of gain with my Gibson R8 in both ranges and I am finding that I need to turn my guitars volume knob really low ( 1 and a half) to clean up the sound completly. This does not give me alot of room to play with. Around 1 and the sound is off on two the break up starts. I have been trying all sorts of detail and body settings and I like them set so far around 5 or 6. this gives me a nice fat saturated lead tone especially with the mid boost in and cleans up as described above. Would setting my pickups lower give me a little more room on the volume knob for cleans?

[Slashwannabe1]

Would setting my pickups lower give me a little more room on the volume knob for cleans?

Absolutly!

Volume & tone pot values also play a role but you should be able to find your sweet spot by lowering the pick ups a bit.

[lukemc]

how high is your master volume?
need to get the master as high as possible for it to clean up really well.

your body and detail settings arent that crazy so it should work fine, it depends what kind of clean are you trying to get?
marshall clean or fender clean?

[Angus]

Would setting my pickups lower give me a little more room on the volume knob for cleans?

I would definitely hold off on adjusting your pickups until you've really tried everything on the amp settings - especially if you are generally happy with how your guitar sounds. I would try reducing the body and detail by various amounts (30%?) and then bringing the master volume up to compensate to see if that gives you the extra control you want. Let us know how you get on.

[burnsy]

Sounds like you don't have a very smooth taper on yor guitar's volume pot - big jump on the low settings. Try some other guitars with the amp and see if you get the same effect. You may be able to get an improvement by replacing the pots in the guitar. I had to put CTS pots in my Les Paul - the stock Gibsons were rubbish. I use similar gain settings to you in HDR and I can clean up by rolling the guitars vol down to about 3-4.

[jeffster]

I'll second the pot issue as well. I have the exact same PUPs in my two LP Standards, but the 02 has an RS pots Kit in it and the 09 has the stock Gibson pots (PCB mounted). While I don't dislike the new POTS, they certainly don't have the control of the ones in the 09. The RS ones I can easily hear the difference with any slight adjustment whereas the newer ones take way more movement for me to hear any difference and they are harder to cleanup as well (similar to what you are seeing).

[surfnorthwest]

I had to put CTS pots in my Les Paul - the stock Gibsons were rubbish. I use similar gain settings to you in HDR and I can clean up by rolling the guitars vol down to about 3-4.

+1
Having good pots in you guitar with a amp like the VM is a must

[Spirit of 76]

Thanks for the input. This is a great board. I worked with it a little more today and I am going to be ok with the cleans being that low. Everything is just lower on the guitar now then what I was used to before but there is much more gain on tap now. I think I may look into the different pots and wiring. Is this known as 50's wiring? What is involved with this? I never modified a guitar before and would need someone to do the work.

[burnsy]

If it's not your chosen subject I wouldn't muck about too much with the wiring. If you go down the 50's v 60's wiring hole you'll never come out.
The standard wiring on your guitar will roll off a little treble as you lower the volume - that's normal. What the so-called 50's wiring does is lash the controls together slightly differently so you don't get the treble roll-off as the volume goes down. Your ears will hear this as the volume control not being quite so responsive which will just make your current problem worse and will not be a good thing when using a VM amp.
Think your right to work with what you've got for a while and see how it pans out but it may still be the case that a straight swap of the existing vol and tone pots, for better quality units of the right value, could improve the guitar.

[Angus]

Thanks for the input. This is a great board. I worked with it a little more today and I am going to be ok with the cleans being that low. Everything is just lower on the guitar now then what I was used to before but there is much more gain on tap now. I think I may look into the different pots and wiring. Is this known as 50's wiring? What is involved with this? I never modified a guitar before and would need someone to do the work.

You might also take a look at the MyLesPaul forum, there's a lot of knowlege (and opinions) there about guitar mods and tweaking one's sound.

[Slashwannabe1]

Would setting my pickups lower give me a little more room on the volume knob for cleans?

I would definitely hold off on adjusting your pickups until you've really tried everything on the amp settings - especially if you are generally happy with how your guitar sounds. I would try reducing the body and detail by various amounts (30%?) and then bringing the master volume up to compensate to see if that gives you the extra control you want. Let us know how you get on.

Adjusting pickups is not the end of the world :) take a piece of thin cardboard and place it on the pickup and then trace the string height... then procede to adjust your pickups as needed and if that turns up dry and you do not like how you adjusted them then put them back to normal using your cardboard template.

Volume pots play a role as well as we've all basically said but honestly most volume pots should be capable to roll down to a decent clean, even on the cheapest guitars I've ever played they all roll down to acceptable cleans. Kind of like all car manufacturers have mastered a gasoline burning engine...kind of a industry standard to have volume pots that work as well.

One might try cleaning the pots and lubing them up possibly?

[frank9310]

Well it only takes a quarter to half to full turn of a screw driver to lower your pickup to see if that cleans it up so before replacing pits and all that, give it a shot! Just remember to turn it back a quarter turn or however much you adjusted it if you want to go back to where it was (if it had ever been setup properly in the first place that is).

On a Fender Strat the bass string height on a Vintage pup is 6/64s to 7/64s height from the string being depressed at the last fret while measuring from the bottom of the string to the top of the pickup pole. On the 1st (high E skinny) string that same measurement should be at 5/64s. Same principle will work on a Gibson once you search their maintenance page to find the proper height adjustment. Then just grab a (pen sized) metal 64s ruler and measure (you can get one from your local auto parts store for a couple bucks). BTW, Extremely valuable tool for setting up your guitar's action, neck relief, saddles, pickup height, etc.

Those are basic guidelines. If the pickup has too much magnetic pull from being new or you just don't like how muddy it sounds, then drop it down a little and it will most definitely clean up. Too clean? Raise it up a tad but don't get too close or you will get weird out of tune notes from excess magnetic pull on the strings.