Expression II Adjustments Advice

[meik]

I bought a Taylor 110e about 14 months ago. Not knowing anything about playing guitar. This guitar sounds so amazing that it inspired me to improve at a much quicker clip. One thing that I did not notice early on, and even now when I play edgier rock songs is the quality of the Expression II pickup. When I play this guitar unplugged, it sounds like you could not find a better guitar, but now that my skills have improved, I am noticing that the pickup sounds clangy. I switch back and fourth between Fender shell thin picks to Tortex 50mil picks and it doesn't seem to matter. Ive played with different eq settings on the pickup to no avail. Currently, I'm trying to perfect some of the softer guitar parts in Pink Floyd such as "Mother" and "Your Possible Pasts" and it just isn't cutting it. I'm going directly into a Mackie SR 24 -4 board with quality components.

I would really appreciate some setup advice. Thus far I've tried lowering the gain at the board and driving the pickup as one posts suggested, and dumping the treble to some degree, but that takes away a key part of the Taylor signature sound.

Thanks for reading.

[Edward]

Can you elaborate on”Clangy”?  Sounds like maybe you’re describing upper mids?  Play with the sweep eq. From your description somewhere between 2-4k can sound harsh and attenuating there could be of help. I’ve not much experience with ES2 but Making sure your gain is set properly going into the mackie is a major starting.point.

Edward

[meik]

Yes, I think upper mids is a good description of clangy. I'l try to sweep the mids (at the board I assume)

Thanks

[Radd]

I Can’t help you much on the specific Taylor settings, I have  T3.  I can suggest, in regards to your pick, try playing with the rounded corner plucking the strings, not the normal pointed corner.  Also try angling your pick so you pick hits the strings at an angle.   Also try picking further from the bridge. 

[Craig]

If it is a frequency that needs eq-ing out then it's much easier to find it by turning the gain up on the eq then sweeping the freq till you find the offending frequency then turn the gain down to cut it.

Craig

[Soof]

Definitely try thicker picks. I noticed a big diff when I changed to .86.
This may not be the solution to your problem but it's something to try anyhow.

[JdOzone]

I am going to make an individual post about this, but here you go for now...

I just got a new 914ce sb, love it played it for about 3 days before setting up my Bose L1s2 wb2, to dial her in...   
Gwaunky  is the sound I got. I play through a voicelive3 extreme into bose, so I had endless amounts of eq etc to dial it in.   Nothing worked if I lowered kids all the tone went out etc.  I even purchased a Radial tonebone pz pre.  The paper is the best acoustic pre I’ve ever heard and I got it sounding ok.

Then I got to thinking about the new es2 and reading all I could on it...  I called Taylor and talked to a tech.  Seems the adjustments are done by hand for a even sound at shop.  The new internal pre is a mid monster.

After reading on adjustment I went 90* counter clockwise on mid piezo the 45* clockwise on highs and lows piezo.  I picked up Guitar first strum straight into bose flat eq and I’ll be it was perfect.

After dialing in pz pre I even bypasses voicelive amp module. No need it is perfect......

That’s my fix
Jdozone