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Post by genmce on Jul 31, 2015 5:48:10 GMT -5
Good day all,
I, as I am sure we all have, am helping a friend make his guitar better. He has a mid 90's mim tele in an approximate Nashville config, though I don't quite know what that is supposed to be... I have played it at his place and just could not stand the oop sound in position 2,4 on the five way switch. Not that it's a bad thing, he didn't like it either. I know we can bring it back with a phase switch pp in future, if he really wants it.
After swapping the leads on the oop mid pickup - which sounded much better, I noticed it hums... It hummed before my change.
Cavities are not shielded, there is no star ground, mid pickup looks like rwrp by wire color, but based on compass is same polarity as other two pickups.
Some questions:
1.I have started to copper foil the cavities, alas ran out of foil tape. Once I get the tape, foil all cavities, and connect all cavities together, then star ground?
***2. According the the compass, all pickups have same polarity, it is my understanding that they should be different when possible. Meaning middle different than n/b for hum canceling in those (mn, mb) combinations, is this correct?
3. Suggestions on how to handle this for best hum canceling.
Thanks
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Post by ashcatlt on Aug 1, 2015 14:01:00 GMT -5
1.I have started to copper foil the cavities, alas ran out of foil tape. Once I get the tape, foil all cavities, and connect all cavities together, then star ground? I've always used heavy duty aluminum foil and spray adhesive. I don't honestly believe that star grounding helps anything in most guitars. It's "best practice", but the least of our concerns usually. It needs to be either RW or RP in order to be hum-cancelling. It needs to be both RW and RP to be both hum-cancelling and in phase. RW is is easy, but... If the middle pickup has a magnet attached to the bottom side (as opposed to individually magnetized pole pieces) you might be able to remove it without destroying it, flip it over, and reattach. Those things are usually pretty fragile and glued on pretty hard, so you need to be very careful. I don't have any good tips on how to get it off of there. The one time I did it was on a very old very cheap guitar, and the glue had already failed years ago. I suppose if you break it, you could get a replacement from stewmac or allparts or somewhere. Beyond that, replacing the pickup will be the only answer, but it might be difficult to be sure what magnetic polarity any given pickup might be without actually doing the same compass test, so it's probably best to try to source it locally where you can touch it before you buy.
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Post by genmce on Aug 1, 2015 21:27:52 GMT -5
I guess I'm going to dig around my pickups for an rp swap for him. A cheap pickup that doesn't hum has to be better than this mid hummer.
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