Air Norton Really Bassy? (Muddy?)

[Marvel627]

Hey guys! I have an '87 RG 550 in road flare red, it is a really sweet guitar, its all broken in and just plays and sounds great unplugged. I bought it a couple of years ago with crap stock pickups and in dire need of a good setup. Recently, I had it set up and had the shop install a tone zone in the bridge and air norton in the neck after seeing that combo being recommended countless times hear and liking the descriptions i read. Also, they replaced the output jack on the guitar because it was really crappy. I really like the tone of the Tone Zone, but the air norton does not sound good at all, its loud and all but it sounds REALLY bassy with pretty much no bite or clarity whatsoever.

I know its advertised as a warm, smooth sound, which is what i want, but it also is said to not be muddy and to have some clarity, currently it just sounds like muddy undefined fuzz with any sort of gain. Could it just be the wiring or tone pots or something? The wiring could be questionable, the pup selector cuts out relatively often and needs to be jiggled a lot on pickup changes.

As you can see, i know pretty much nothing about the details of the actual electronics, basically my question is, is there something wrong here? Or maybe the air norton just isnt for me? Should i get something like a paf pro instead? Thanks for the help!

[newbieguitarmaker]

Some complain it is too muddy sometimes, it might be just your preferences or it could be something else. The solder job could be bad possibly but I don't expect a shop to be too bad at soldering, the other possibility is that you need to mess with the pickup height.

I may swap my air norton to a liquifire since I want a more aggressive tone. The Air Norton sounds better in my Jem than my Rg though, both basswood but the Jem has 1 500k pot instead of 2 500k's, so the tone would be like 2 1meg pots on the rg. I guess the extra treble makes the pickup better sounding.

[racerevlon]

I don't like the Air Norton in the bridge position, but in the neck position it's a really cool-sounding pickup. Based on your description you probably have a wiring or grounding problem, or possibly a disconnected capacitor. Also, the height of the pickup may need to be adjusted.

To spend my 2 cents, I've always liked the sound of the Air Norton in the "T" and "S" packages over the actual humbucker-sized package. Something happens to the EQ when they fit it for Teles or Strats that really makes the pickup come alive and have great personality. If everything is ok with the wiring and you want a pickup that's not as muddy I'd suggest a PAF 36th Anniversary Neck model or a Humbucker from Hell. Neither of those two will be muddy at all and the HFH is a WILD neck pickup.

Cheers,

Race