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What does adding a cover and waxing do to the tone..generally speaking? Thanks

People say that wax potting a pickup tightens up the tone, but I don't know if I hear that or not. I doubt that most of the people who say that have A/Bed two identical pickups (one wax potted and one not) in the same guitar.

But maybe it's true. Christian ( the Guy Who Invented Fire ) has said that and Christian is one of the guys I most often agree with here on the forum and he seems to have great ears for tone and those kinds of subtle details.

As for the cover, it muffles or warms up the tone very slightly. One reason is that only one row of polepieces is exposed...the non adjustable slug polepieces are under the cover.

Jazz players and blues players tend to prefer the tone (or maybe just the look) of humbuckers with covers...rock players tend to like the slightly brighter and more aggressive tone of uncovered pickups.

Lew

What he said

Lew is right on the money here. I've just recently switched all of my Duncan humbuckers to covered ones with the same exact models and i can hear a very very slight difference but barely noticeable. As Lew have said, it tends to ''warm'' up the tone a bit with the covers. Also, the covers cuts a lot of the noise specially when i have my amp wide open. The exposed humbuckers tend to pick up more noise compared to the ones with covers. I like it better now with the covers. I play a lot of blues and classic rock styles and the tone of the covered humbuckers are just ''right'' to my ears. Gone are the days of Heavy Metal for me . Besides, they look great on my Les Pauls too. Classic look