Darkening a bright guitar's tone?

[stephenT]

Try increasing the height of the pickups, bringing them closer to the strings. That will decrease the brightness a little.

[M Sarad]

My darkest sounding electric is a MIM Jazzmaster with stock pickups.

[rockabilly69]

Raising the pickups, as recommended above, will fatten the tone a bit, and if the pots are 500K dropping them to 250K will help. You will still have to use the tone knob but it will more effective.

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by robj144

Equalizer pedals do wonders.

Yep, and frequently it's actually the higher mids that you're hearing.

[jdto]

I found the stock pots on my 2 Gretsch Elecromatics to be either "on" or "off" for tone and for volume. You might get a better range out of different pots. I switched mine on my G5420T and my 5135CVT and I am much more pleased with the response to the tone and volume roll-off now. Also, Super Hilotrons and a Princeton can be a bright combo, in general. Is it just for home, solo playing, or are you playing with others? It'll cut through a mix, for sure.

[Pnewsom]

I had a set of Jensen RI speakers in my 1965 Vibrolux that had a nasty top end metallic sounding sizzle to them. I was constantly trying to compensate for it by dialing back the treble control on the amp or rolling back the tone on the guitar. Doing this would help, but then the sound also lost some of the clarity that I wanted.

Happily, I read a review on the Eminence George Alessandro guitar speakers, GA10-SC64, and installed a pair of the 10inch models. What a great sound I'm getting! The brittleness is gone, and they put out a very nice balanced sound.

They sell for about $90USD, they also offer them in a 12" as well.

They were designed to flatter 60's style Fender name, and they nailed it!