Toasters on new 330s

[bill_yantz]

I am starting a new thread as an extention to the one I posted yesterday about replacing higains on a new 330 with toasters. It looks like its an easy change from the replys, thanks. But, Tony mentioned in his experience, the toasters on the longer scale 330s sound "scratchy." It would be a big dissappointment for me to install toasters and get a poor sound becasue of the closer proimity of the PUs. And I love toasters. I do not prefer a higain sound.

However, it is very common for new Rics to have toasters intalled by the factory as optional. So, I need input here from those of you who have this set-up on a 330.

Are you disappointed with the toaster sound on the new 330? Have you heard the scratchy sound that Tony refers too?

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

[tony_carey]

Bill, in case members haven't seen the previous thread, I will clarify my post.
The 21 fret necks have different p/up spacing to the 24 fret neck because althougnh the scale length is the same, obviously the necks are different lengths. The '60s Rics had the 21 fret necks with toasters. This spacing, with the neck p/up further up the body obviously helps the bass response & tone of the p/up combination. The more modern 24 fret necks have the neck p/up a lot closer to the bridge p/up giving a different sound. It very much suits hi-gains, but in my opinion the vintage p/ups do not sound as good. I was very dissapointed in my 360VP.
If you are looking for that 60's sound (I would argue 'a balanced' sound), then I don't think that you will find it by just changing the hi-gains to toasters. You will have lost that underlying tone that was present in the originals.
I am very much a hi-gain fan, but this also works both ways....I changed the toasters in my 1997 to hi-gains & it sounds totaly different to my 24 fret hi-gain gtrs....much 'sweeter', but without the bite that I like so much.
IMO, if you want toasters, then stick to 21 fret necks....that's what they were designed for.

[adam_swapp]

Bill,

I think that Tony's observation vis a vis toasters on a 24-fret neck can be explained by the difference in the pickup location with respect to the string. On a 21-fret guitar, the neck pickup is positioned midway between the nut and the bridge. This is where the amplitude of the string's vibration is greatest. On a 24-fret guitar, there's a fret in that location, so the vibration immediately over the pickup is not as great.

So much for the theory. Can you hear the difference? I dunno; I've never done the comparison between a 21- and 24-fret guitar. More to the point, I rarely use the neck pickup anyway.

The bridge pickup should sound the same in both situations.

In my tests, though, I thought the best sounding neck pickup was a 70's spec hi-gain. I didn't try a HB, or first generation hi-gain, but I thought that the current hi-gain was a little bassy and undefined. I forget my exact thoughts about the toaster, but I liked the hi-gain better. BTW, you can hear a comparison here. Click on the hyperlink on the left menu bar.

[bill_yantz]

Tony, thanks very much for the excellent explanation. You know I might really like the sound of the higains if I give them an honest try.

I like the looks of the vintage toasters and so far, the sound much better as well. I don't plan to use anything more than a little overdrive ocasionally with , mostly clean.

I am looking forward to some good input, thanks.

[jingle_jangle]

Or output, as the case may be...

[bill_yantz]

Adam, I just went on your site with the sound samples, excellent. Although the bridge PU sound smaples didn't work I got an idea of what the neck PUs will sound like and this is the one in question.

The sounds were very well recorded and I got a good sense of how each of these PUs sounded.

To me, there is a dicernable difference. Enough so that, at this point, I want Toasters on the 330.

Toaster: more clarity, clean and chime.

Higain: more breakup due to more gain, darker, less hi-end, IMO it lacked the chime/jangle that I like.

Tony, as I was listening to it second time around I listened for the "scratchy" sound you described. Could it be the "jangle" that I hear. It has a different sound when strumming. The toasters have an brighter presence and I relate that to chime/jangele. The higain in the strumming portion of the recording had what I would call a muddy sound but that might described in a different way by someone who wants a sound with more gain. I might be off on this Tony but that's my first impression once I listened to it.

You bring up avery good about the differenct neck lengths which I wasn't aware of until very recently. The Toasters might sound better in that 21 fret guitar but is acceptable to me in this new 330 configuration.

I guess it would be an interesting to compare a 24 to 21 fret guitar in these smae test configurations.

This short review is my opinion only and I don't want to imply that either PU is better than the other, just different. I am trying to find out what the "differnce" sounds like in the new 330 application .

This is all very informative for me and thank you for taking the time, both of you, for your responses.

This is good stuff, 330 owners. What say you?

[adam_swapp]

Bill,

It's been fixed; you can hear the neck samples. Sorry about that.