Rather NG's D - two CS Soloists

[1b4n3z]

It appears German guitar retailers really like their trans black Soloists - and that's fine with me! Occasionally one or two come up for sale and based on these two I found recently, one might just redirect them to me and do away with tedious advertisements

The one with reverse headstock is a 2014 and the other a 2017. They are identical in specification, apart from the headstock orientation. Except for pickup routes, it seems. And that makes a big difference in tone actually. The reverse one has the JB tone everyone keeps telling me about - bright, compressed, raunchy. The other is not bad really, but much darker and on the verge of mud.



I like the direct mounted pickups aesthetically, but as expected, they are quite impractical for a modder. I'd like to put a Distortion in the bridge of the the rightmost guitar, but no can do. The route is too shallow. The older one has a slightly different route, but since there are no deepened holes for the pickup tabs (cavities are flat), that's not of much help. Luckily JB sounds great there so I have no need to mod just yet

[neilli]

Nice guitars! You just need to order a short leg version of the pickup - I've swapped pickups in and out of my direct mount CS Jacksons and it's just fine..

[toejam]

Very nice! Like neilli said, just get short-legged pickups. And foam will be (or should be) used underneath the pickups so you'll be able to have up and down movement to adjust pickup height if desired.

[1b4n3z]

Thanks guys! Yeah the pickups I'm talking about are short legged trembuckers. The JB is a normal sized pickup and it barely fits lowered all the way down. The Distortion has a thicker magnet and that 1/8" difference is enough to cause the strings to sit flush on the pickup. That fact also excludes most active pickups such as EMG variants New Duncan actives like the Jeff Loomis Blackout and the Duality have mounting tabs basically flush with the baseplate so I might be looking at those in the future.

The Floyd basically sits on the route shelf at a low action so the neck angle might be the culprit here. CS at it again

[toejam]

Ah, I forgot some pickups have thicker magnets. Is there actually foam underneath which can be removed or the pickup is just totally down to the wood in the route?

[DanzoStrife]

Lol u got 2 brothers, one older the other younger Nice find.

BTW: Q what does "CS" stand for?

[Number Of The Priest]

CS = Custom Shop

[DanzoStrife]

Thanks. Lol, I should've figured that one out