Pickup hacking.
TL;DR: Changed the short hex poles for longer Fillister poles. Reduced shrillness and brought back the missing low end.
I made a post where I was looking for a pickup to replace the Full Shred that came stock in my Charvel. The FS is very bright and focused with little low end to speak of. I'm not a clinical shredder type and the FS was just too articulate for a slurry caveman like myself.
Reading around and delving into Seymour Duncan's technical articles about humbucker construction/anatomy I had a look at the Full Shred and what makes it the way it is - obviously it's no accident it sounds as it does, and since everything is cause and effect I wanted to find out what they did to make it so bright and tight. Obviously I can't change the coils, but I can change the magnet and more directly, the polepieces. The A5 magnet is fine with me so that leaves the poles.
SD mention these two things regarding polepiece choice:
"The Socket head cap screw generates a slightly tighter and brighter tone than the more traditional fillister head screw."
"Another major factor is the length of the screw itself. Fillisters are typically 3/4″ long screws. Trimming them or installing 1/2″ ones will significantly brighten up a pickup as well"
The FS has socket head screws, and they are 1/2" long - two factors that contribute to a brighter tone at the expense of low end (what we call "tightness" I suppose). Two factors I can change.
Long story short I removed the half inch hex screws and installed 12 x 3/4" long Fillisters I had lying around. According to SD that should remove some brightness and shift the resonant peak downwards adding more body, or attenuating less bass while attenuating more highs I suppose.
It worked. The 'Full Shred' is now thicker, chunkier, more 'solid' sounding, with more bass and a less piercing top end that's now a lot more workable. It's still a 14k/A5 pickup but with the polepieces being changed I find it a lot more versatile and capable of way more. It was too bright and punchy before since I don't play the clever stuff very often.
And that's about it. For the sake of 10 minutes work I feel the revoicing was very successful and I no longer hate the way the bridge pickup sounds.