Maybe somebody could shed some light on this problem i've encountered. In the proces of dressing a blank Gretsch body i thought it would be nice to have a HS in de neck position and a hot rod filtertron in the bridge. Melow and twangy for the neck and raw and crunchy for the bridge.
As it worked out the hot rod seems to have a lot less volume. Even as i adjust the pickup height and poles, the HS delivers a lot more volume. Isn't this the wrong way around.
I expected the hot rod to deliver a lot more volume, but...

Check the pickup heights.

The bridge pup body should be jacked up about 1/8th of an inch from the strings with its poles raised only in the middle 4 bobbins, BUT ONLY to match radius. the neck should be a bit more flush with the ring, but still sticking out.

I would jack up the bridge pickup as described, THEN lower the neck pickup till you get desired results.

I thought TV Jones recomeneded 3/8ths of an inch distance to the strings?

I might raise my pickups on the Black Phoenix to 18th, see how much extra growl there is in there ;)

well officially its 3/16ths and 5/32nds... but 1/8th is pretty much the standard for bridge pickups in my book. funny enough, 5/32'nds is like 1.25/8ths. lol

http://www.tvjones.com/images/height.gif

I'm not sure why people think the Hot Rod filtertrons are a hotter pickup than a standard HS Filtertron, other than the term 'Hot Rod' makes people think 'Hot pickup'. I have a Hot Rod with the Hot Rod filtertrons and I've had two guitars with HS Filtertrons in the past, and output wise, they're about the same to my ear. Both measure around 4K-5K resistance, which isn't an accurate measure of output, but it does at least signify that they're wound about the same.

Given the similarity in output, the usual rules for pickup balance apply, and others here have already made the best suggestions. Lower the neck/ raise the bridge. If there's still a problem with balance, it may be a bad pickup.

For what it's worth my 6120 with TV Jones Classics crunches up on the bridge a lot quicker than my Hot Rod with hot rod filtertrons.

built4... what does the Hotrod filter read vs its neck compadre in the guitar?

Tavo, the bridge pickup on the Hot Rod reads 4.01K, the neck reads 3.83K. Measured at the output jack.

Thanks for all comment and sugestions. I'd already adjusted the PU height en radius like it should. But still a very annoying volume difference between the 2 PU's. How to measure with the VOM? where to put the probes? wich settings to use?