Posts by KY_Smooth

Similar to what JEverly stated, finding the right combos is key. I'll give some examples of pickup swaps that have made each of these guitars more exciting to play.

Schecter Solo 6 Custom (Gibson style)

It had Seymour Duncan Customs' pickups and sounded good. Put in JWP Jim Wagner Pickups Darkburst (bridge) Godwood (Neck) and it kicked it into high gear. More tone and a bit brighter.

Further, I previously put these in a cheap Kramer and they worked phenomenally as well, but I couldn't get over the neck's discomfort on my left hand.

PRS SC Goldtop

Original pickups sounded very nice (I think they were their 57/08 pickups), but once I put in Wolftone Marshallhead and Vintage pickups, it sounds even better. Now, this swap might be more psychological than the others. Their customer support is great as well.

Gibson Les Paul Studio (as I mentioned in another recent post)

Stock 490T pickups sounded bland and dark. Put some Mojotone humbucker sized P-90s and the tone and warmth significantly increased.

Gibson Les Paul Traditional Pro II (2014)

I think they were Burstbuckers, which sounded OK, but a little too bright and brash. I put Rio Grande BBQ's and it smoothed out the sound so well. I had read that Rio Grandes tend to be a bit darker, and in my experience they were and paired nicely with this Les Paul.

I had tried the famous Seymour Duncan JB/59 set in this guitar as well and it just didn't inspire me as much. Perhaps the output was a little too low.

Hope some of this helps!

Check out Mojotone. For reference, I put their humbucker sized P-90's in my Gibson Les Paul Studio and it made a huge difference!

I think the Les Paul Studio is a 2007. It had the standard '490T' pickups and it sounded rather dark and unimpressive. Once I put the Mojotone pickups in it, it came alive and sounds amazing. Much more tone and brighter.

Their customer service is really nice as well.

Nice tip. I will try that tonight!
Also, your cable comment made me think of one other thing - the thunderbolt cable between the Apollo and Mac...it is very short and occasionally my Mac takes a second to recognize it. It's possible the stretch pulls it out of the socket ever so slightly or that the cable is not 100% functional. - I just saw this on the UA site as well.
I'll get a longer thunderbolt cable for good measure.

db9091,
The issue is there regardless if I'm using 1/4'' or XLR.
Thanks.
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Woops, submitted too early for some reason.
To elaborate, the noise only appears sporadically for about 5 seconds here and there while recording is armed(during playback) or during actual recording.
CPU usage only jumps up to 4% or so, certainly no more than 10.
This occurs with my Kemper and my synths and digital piano.

I've got WIFI off and close all other programs...that doesn't help.
I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the latest version of the Mac OS or some sort of in-process audio conversion.
Again, seems that the likely answer would be to just get a brand new Mac, but not sure if this is the only path forward that will fix my problem.
UA said it was mostly sample size and that buying a new computer may work, but they didn't confirm.
Thanks.

Woops, submitted too early for some reason.
To elaborate, the noise only appears sporadically for about 5 seconds here and there while recording is armed(during playback) or during actual recording.
CPU usage only jumps up to 4% or so, certainly no more than 10.
This occurs with my Kemper and my synths and digital piano.

I've got WIFI off and close all other programs...that doesn't help.
I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the latest version of the Mac OS or some sort of in-process audio conversion.
Again, seems that the likely answer would be to just get a brand new Mac, but not sure if this is the only path forward that will fix my problem.
UA said it was mostly sample size and that buying a new computer may work, but they didn't confirm.
Thanks.

I hope I'm not hijacking this thread, but I'm getting some crackling / static during recording and I'm hoping someone can confirm if a new MacBook pro would fix it or not.
Here's my setup:
2012 MacBook pro (only about 1/2 of hard drive space used up)
Ableton 9 - sample size of 128.
If I go up to 256 there's a little bit of latency that is annoying. This does fix the crackling / static, but I can't handle the latency.
UA Apollo MkII quadcore
Kemper (of course!)

I can't agree more with ElDoca and RookGarner. WCR, Jim Wagner, pickups are fantastic. I put a Darkburst (bridge) / Godwood (neck) in a cheap Kramer and they sounded amazing, but I had to take that set out since the neck wasn't comfortable after long playing periods. I took that same set and put them in a Schecter (Gibson style) that already sounded good with proper Seymour Duncans (I think it was and SH-4 in the bridge and JB in the neck)... and the guitar came alive even more.
I recently got a set of Icebuckers and put them in a Schecter flying V - same story. Old EMGs sound flat and soulless compared to the tone and warmth, even out of these high-output metal pickups.