Around the same time I picked up a Will Ray Z-Coil to drop into the Neck position as that was a mod I really wanted to try.
Well, years went by and excuses piled up, till one day a few weeks back now, I had had enough of rooting through my "whatnot drawer" and moving that Will Ray Z-Coil around to make room for newer whatnots. So I decided it was time to drop that puppy in (pun intended).
The last time I set up my Comanche I put on some pretty heavy strings (52-12), with the promise (which was broken fairly quickly) to play it often and thereby strengthen my fretting hand. But I ended just playing it less for that reason. So I decided that I'd restring it with a new set of 46-10s and do another setup on it at the same time.
But when I flipped the pickguard, I put the tester on the "old" bridge pickup. I didn't want to accidently mix up pickups and make more work for myself, so the first thing I did was put a meter on the bridge pickup, and again on the "new" Will Ray pickup so as to ensure I could differentiate between the two just in case.
Here was the Bridge Pickup:
and here was the "Will Ray" pickup:
At first I was quite confused. I was expecting my Bridge pup to be 5.14K, so I double-checked my middle pup ; yup - it was 5.11K - so... the only reasonable explanation was that the previous owner had already dropped a Will Ray pup in the bridge position.
To be fair I had heard that dropping the WR in the bridge would make a big and pleasant difference. I had always though - it sounds pretty good to me already, but if this WR is "all that" I'll give it a shot. To be sure - the main reason I didn't get around to dropping this in was because the guitar already sounded quite good.
So I decided to (since I had the guitar in pieces) drop it in the neck position - since I really love the robust tone of my ASAT Special's Neck MFD. I thought - hey! Maybe this will do something extra for the neck position. So I decided to swap out the neck for the "other" will Ray pickup.
I put it back together and spent a lot of time giving it a good setup. The last time I opened it up I had to make some compromising accommodations to get intoned - which always seemed a bit off to me. So I took my time with it, and eventually got it dialed in the way I like it.
Talking about it isn't the same as hearing it, so I was home today, with the house to myself, and decided to take a video of the change, so that anyone who ever wondered what a Comanche would sound like with a Will Ray in the neck - could give it a listen and see what they thought.
If I had known I was going to drop a Will Ray z-Coil in the neck position I would have taken a video to show the before and after. But it was never my plan, so I apologize that I can't A/B the change. Also, I am not really comfortable in front of a camera. I did this in one take and cut out about a minute or so of me humming and hawing and looking clueless. Don't worry, I left enough of that in the video to demonstrate I'm pretty much clueless - but it won't be as in your face as it would have been.
Here is the video - and yes, I dress like an old dweeb in tweed, that's how I roll.
