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Post by unreg on May 26, 2024 17:37:32 GMT -5
Hi.
A.) My guitar is an ESP LTD M-155. Two humbuckers are involved:
1.) a stock ESP humbucker in the neck position
2.) a DiMarzio Bluesbucker in the bridge position
B.) The switching scheme is a Japanese 3 way switch.
C.) There is one 500K CTS Volume control and one 250K CTS Tone control.
-Both are regular long shaft pots; neither are push/pull, or whatever else.
D.) my ESP has been hum/buzz fixed and it has a Schaller Floyd Rose.
So, would adding some type of capacitor reduce this D# on G-string problem? (If yes, how should I add said capacitor?) Specifically, the note is SO LOUD; it overpowers the other notes; I’m forced to play that note softer than others. Also, that area on the B-string is rough too.
And, the loud-trebleness happens only when the neck’s stock ESP humbucker is used. The position-3 bridge-only sound is perfectly ok with Volume at max. I turn down Volume slightly when using position-2 neck-bridge; as you know, the slight Volume reduction from max reduces treble.
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Post by sumgai on May 26, 2024 18:46:26 GMT -5
unreg,
I have two questions, and undoubtedly so do other readers: Which D# on the G string, and which pickup (or combo) presents the problem?
Do note that this is a resonance issue, and not one that can be solved by fiddling with the electronics. Well, it could be done, but at a price much greater than the guitar originally cost, and certainly more than you could ever recover, should you decide to sell it. Not to mention all of the mods to both the body and the neck, installing some not-cheap electrical parts.... and the list goes on.
Look for others to chime in with suggestions on curing your resonance problem, most likely c1, but certainly others here are also qualified.
HTH
sumgai
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Post by unreg on May 26, 2024 19:19:49 GMT -5
unreg, I have two questions, and undoubtedly so do other readers: Which D# on the G string, and which pickup (or combo) presents the problem? Do note that this is a resonance issue, and not one that can be solved by fiddling with the electronics. Well, it could be done, but at a price much greater than the guitar originally cost, and certainly more than you could ever recover, should you decide to sell it. Not to mention all of the mods to both the body and the neck, installing some not-cheap electrical parts.... and the list goes on. Look for others to chime in with suggestions on curing your resonance problem, most likely c1, but certainly others here are also qualified. , a.) it’s the first, lowest, D# on the G-string b.) this problem is super evident when using the combo neck and bridge; it’s much less of a problem when using ONLY the bridge DiMarzio. I don’t ever use just the neck. It’s a resonance issue? Ah, thank you! I hope to reduce the problem even a little bit. Hope others like cynical1 will chime in.  |
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Post by JohnH on May 27, 2024 3:28:44 GMT -5
So is that a solid-body HH , in a Stratish kind of shape?
Theories....
1. It's the 8th fret, so the string is being pressed down a distance there, depending on your set up and action. So string is getting nearer tio the pickup, combining with the pickup being at a node of max amplitude of the string for some harmonic, combined with some amp feedback due to volume or gain, focusing on that frequency. Probably needs more than one or maybe all of those to occur. Does it happen at very low volume? or if you move away from the amp? Does lowering the pickup pole affect it?
2. Some strange body resonance, but seems unlikely if its a solid.
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Post by unreg on May 27, 2024 11:07:21 GMT -5
So is that a solid-body HH , in a Stratish kind of shape? Yes and yes. I going to adjust that pole’s height! Thank you for your super helpful reply JohnH!  |
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Post by unreg on May 27, 2024 12:22:35 GMT -5
Theories.... 1. It's the 8th fret, so the string is being pressed down a distance there, depending on your set up and action. So string is getting nearer tio the pickup, combining with the pickup being at a node of max amplitude of the string for some harmonic, combined with some amp feedback due to volume or gain, focusing on that frequency. Probably needs more than one or maybe all of those to occur. Does it happen at very low volume? or if you move away from the amp? Does lowering the pickup pole affect it? a.) Yes, it also happens at very low volume b.) I guess distance from the amp has no effect; even though it seems worse closer to the amp; but, I guess that’s because I’m closer to the amp.  c.) lowering the pickup pole by full turns doesn’t affect it; though, a half turn reduces the loudness some. I said “some” because that D# can be played normally, but a strong D# on the G-string still causes the resonance. |
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Post by newey on May 27, 2024 13:47:12 GMT -5
lowering the pickup pole by full turns doesn’t affect it; though, a half turn reduces the loudness some. This seems particularly odd. Does the neck pickup have springs around the screws or rubber tubing? My thought was maybe the adjustment wasn't right because the sping was binding or perhaps the ajdustmment screw bottoming out in the pickup routing. But odd either way. Like JohnH, my first thought was to lower the "string 1 side" of the neck HB. Also, have you restrung the guitar since noticing the problem? |
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Post by unreg on May 27, 2024 13:57:58 GMT -5
lowering the pickup pole by full turns doesn’t affect it; though, a half turn reduces the loudness some. This seems particularly odd. Does the neck pickup have springs around the screws or rubber tubing? My thought was maybe the adjustment wasn't right because the sping was binding or perhaps the ajdustmment screw bottoming out in the pickup routing. But odd either way. Like JohnH, my first thought was to lower the "string 1 side" of the neck HB. Also, have you restrung the guitar since noticing the problem? oooh, I guess I didn’t understand what a pickup pole is. I lowered the G-string pole piece, I think that’s what they’re called, with a small flat head screwdriver, on the neck humbucker. But, you all meant the screws on the side of the pickup? Ok, I’ll try that. And, I restrung the guitar with a tad bit thicker strings, but I don’t know if that was before this problem existed. |
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Post by unreg on May 27, 2024 14:47:51 GMT -5
newey and JohnH, I just lowered the string 1 side of the neck humbucker and that didn’t do much on the G-string’s D# resonance other than change the way my guitar sounds; even the bridge pickup alone sounded different so I screwed the neck humbucker back how it was. Is a slight lowering of that string 1 side supposed to clearly remove resonance if that part was the culprit?
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Post by newey on May 27, 2024 19:55:06 GMT -5
Is a slight lowering of that string 1 side supposed to clearly remove resonance if that part was the culprit? It was just a thought, and there were never any guarantees it would help the situation. But it's easy enough to do that it was worthwhile to check it. If the G string pole piece screw was up a bit, that might also have been a possible solution, but if you've screwed it down and the problem still existed, then that wasn't it either. sumgai's suggestion that this is a resonance issue means it may have nothing to do with the pickup. You might experiment a bit with the resonance issues by, for example, attaching a weight to the headstock, seeing if that made a difference, or maybe play the guitar with a heavy towel or other piece of cloth dampening the body itself. I don't know, just speculating here. |
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Post by unreg on May 27, 2024 20:35:56 GMT -5
sumgai's suggestion that this is a resonance issue means it may have nothing to do with the pickup. You might experiment a bit with the resonance issues by, for example, attaching a weight to the headstock, seeing if that made a difference, or maybe play the guitar with a heavy towel or other piece of cloth dampening the body itself. I don't know, just speculating here. And restringing it would also be good to try? Now that it’s been a while, it seems to me that I haven’t restrung the guitar since noticing the problem. I’m asking because restringing takes me a good amount of time. |
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Post by gckelloch on May 27, 2024 23:30:12 GMT -5
I don't see how a resonance in the guitar at a given freq could make the string vibrate stronger. If that were the case, the strengthened string vibration would then cause the guitar resonance to vibrate stronger...and so on, so the note would sustain at the strongest level the string tension would allow, and that would constitute a perpetual motion machine. Any guitar resonance can only drain string energy and/or cause other strings to vibrate (less strongly) via energy transferred through the air, a fret, the nut, and/or the bridge.
Maybe those two strings are causing a buzzing in the saddles at that freq?
More likely, you have the neck pickup up too high in relation to the string action, so that those two strings become exponentially louder at frets where the fundamental wavelength is strongest at the neck pickup position, and the string is that much closer to the neck pickup. You know the neck pickup height should be set with either the top fret depressed or the fret equal to the distance of the bridge saddle to the bridge pickup? The note fundamentals at the lower frets are progressively stronger at the neck pickup position but there is some amplitude compensation as the string also gets progressively further from the neck pickup. It then follows that the note fundamental amplitude will be more uneven up the neck the higher the string action and neck pickup. That might be your problem.
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Post by cynical1 on May 28, 2024 5:09:33 GMT -5
Wound or unwound G string? If you block the FR does it still do it?
HTC1
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Post by unreg on May 28, 2024 16:49:04 GMT -5
More likely, you have the neck pickup up too high in relation to the string action, so that those two strings become exponentially louder at frets where the fundamental wavelength is strongest at the neck pickup position, and the string is that much closer to the neck pickup. You know the neck pickup height should be set with either the top fret depressed or the fret equal to the distance of the bridge saddle to the bridge pickup? The note fundamentals at the lower frets are progressively stronger at the neck pickup position but there is some amplitude compensation as the string also gets progressively further from the neck pickup. It then follows that the note fundamental amplitude will be more uneven up the neck the higher the string action and neck pickup. That might be your problem. Ummm? I took a photo since I don't understand your text (my not understanding is MY problem ).  Does my neck pickup look too high? (The 2 dots mark the 24th fret.) Wound or unwound G string? If you block the FR does it still do it? HTC1 So after finding my SkyScraper Guitars' graduated block, I blocked my FR and guess what? It didn't do it! However, the tuning was off (the D# 8th fret wasn't a D# anymore), since the FR was blocked; so I eventually unblocked it and guess what? It didn't do it! Then after adding the cavity cover back on, it did it again. (My cavity cover for the FR cavity is just plastic I guess; it's not covered with hum/buzz blocking material. The FR cavity isn't painted.) Does this make sense? Any way to fix this? Thank you cynical1!
ooh, the G string is an ERNIE BALL 16 from their TURBO SLiNKY pack; it says on the pack cover, "CUSTOM GAUGE(R) NICKEL WOUND GUITAR STRINGS" so I say the G string is wound.
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Post by unreg on May 28, 2024 17:31:15 GMT -5
Note: One of the 6 securing screws for my FR cavity cover wasn’t working correctly when I removed it. It spun in place until I removed the weight of the tiny screwdriver from its head. I did screw it back earlier and it never became snug. So, I guess it’s a bit loose, and I just removed it again, but the D# on G-string problem didn’t disappear.
Perhaps that threaded hole is deteriorating. It there a proper way to fill the hole, like with Epoxy(?), and make a new one?
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Post by cynical1 on May 28, 2024 19:34:55 GMT -5
Find some packing foam and stuff it under your trem springs. Not too much as it pulls, but just enough to deaden the spring vibration.
Vinyl tubing works, but the foam is a cheap and dirty test.
You have a resonance issue with something on that guitar. Just trying to eliminate possibilities.
HTC1
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Post by sumgai on May 28, 2024 22:21:34 GMT -5
ooh, the G string is an ERNIE BALL 16 from their TURBO SLiNKY pack; it says on the pack cover, "CUSTOM GAUGE(R) NICKEL WOUND GUITAR STRINGS" so I say the G string is wound. I searched both Ernie Ball's website, and the web in general, and found no definitive answer. But I don't believe that anyone has ever seen a 16 gauge wound string, that diameter is pretty universally a plain string. I suppose some string maker somewhere.... 18 gauge, however, they can be had in either version. And now I see that E.B. is making strings in "half" sizes, so it just may come to pass that I'm no longer correct on the idea of 16 gauge is never wound, only plain. HTH sumgai |
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Post by unreg on May 29, 2024 0:50:40 GMT -5
sumgai & cynical1, sigh, now after reading sumgai’s post above I understand what unwound means… so yes sumgai, my G-string is plain or unwound. At least in this light while running my fingernail down the string, it is smooth, so also unwound. And I know I’ve got packing foam somewhere; going to find it tomorrow.
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Post by gckelloch on May 29, 2024 2:34:17 GMT -5
If anything, it looks like your neck PUP is too low, but the string action looks fine.
I once cut the top half off a (clean) crew sock and used it to dampen my trem springs, folding it at the claw to hold it in place. It worked quite well.
Maybe the trem claw, a loose pole screw, or pickup height retainer spring is resonating at the D#?
Say, let's not confuse wire gauge size with the string width enumeration. 0.016" is not a wire gauge size.
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Post by sumgai on May 29, 2024 11:35:29 GMT -5
Say, let's not confuse wire gauge size with the string width enumeration. 0.016" is not a wire gauge size. gc, that was out of the blue.... did I miss someone else confusing the two systems? For everyone's reference, the American Wire Gauge system (aka AWG) works with whole numbers, not fractions or decimal divisions such as used in string gauge measurements. sumgai |
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Post by unreg on May 29, 2024 16:22:47 GMT -5
Say, let's not confuse wire gauge size with the string width enumeration. 0.016" is not a wire gauge size. gc, that was out of the blue.... did I miss someone else confusing the two systems? Not sure you confused the two, but this was kind of confusing for me: ooh, the G string is an ERNIE BALL 16 from their TURBO SLiNKY pack; it says on the pack cover, "CUSTOM GAUGE(R) NICKEL WOUND GUITAR STRINGS" so I say the G string is wound. I searched both Ernie Ball's website, and the web in general, and found no definitive answer. But I don't believe that anyone has ever seen a 16 gauge wound string, that diameter is pretty universally a plain string. I suppose some string maker somewhere.... 18 gauge, however, they can be had in either version. … —- Thank you gckelloch! I may try your sock idea… will try to find the packing foam… if that doesn’t help, I’ll surely raise my neck pickup and see what happens. |
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Post by gckelloch on May 29, 2024 18:14:52 GMT -5
gc, that was out of the blue.... did I miss someone else confusing the two systems? Not sure you confused the two, but this was kind of confusing for me: I searched both Ernie Ball's website, and the web in general, and found no definitive answer. But I don't believe that anyone has ever seen a 16 gauge wound string, that diameter is pretty universally a plain string. I suppose some string maker somewhere.... 18 gauge, however, they can be had in either version. … —- Thank you gckelloch! I may try your sock idea… will try to find the packing foam… if that doesn’t help, I’ll surely raise my neck pickup and see what happens. I wonder if by chance one of the trem claw screws was installed at an upward angle, and the neck PUP is resting on it, somehow causing resonance in the pickup? PUP height is a matter of personal taste. Hard to tell, but it looks ~7mm from the slug top to low E with the 24th fret depressed. I'd raise it a bit if that's the case. The bridge looks a tad low as well. I find 3~4mm at the low E and ~2mm at the high E to be optimal for average flux strength pickups, but whatever sounds best to you is right. |
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Post by unreg on May 29, 2024 23:08:37 GMT -5
cynical1, I stuffed thin sheet of packing foam, it was folded twice so the sheet is 3 thin sheets thick, under the FR springs… that didn’t help; I think the problem is worse with the foam. gckelloch, I raised the neck pup a bit and the D# became easier to hear; I kept raising the neck pup and the D# became much worse. Now the neck pup is lower again since I like how that sounds. Maybe that spring you were talking about is tilted? All of this pickup height adjustment happened before I followed c1’s advice because it was raining and the packing foam used was in a box in a separate-from-our-house storage space.
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Post by mikecg on May 30, 2024 5:54:13 GMT -5
Hello unreg, I'm just wondering if you may be 'chasing your tail' on this one? Thought is that maybe the string itself is the main problem - there are a lot of fakes out there - even the retailers don't really know (or care about?) the precise origin. So, why not replace the suspect G string, with one with an old and trusted history, and preferably not with one from the same source as the suspect one? Long shot - I know! |
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Post by unreg on Jun 20, 2024 18:25:43 GMT -5
mikecg, thank you. I didn’t replace the G-string, but good idea! 👍 Now, after replacing my GhostDrive pedal with thetragichero’s BRING IN FETD AND RABBAN pedal, I noticed that the D-string’s 13th fret is too strong/loud/ear-hurting too, when that note, also a D-sharp, is played forcefully. BRING IN FETD AND RABBAN was set like this: Bias @ 5:30 (I think that this knob is off since I think all of thetragichero’s potentiometers in this pedal are reverse wound.) Fuzz @ 4:00 Vol @ 3:30 Thicc @ 4:00 And it turns out that every D-sharp does the exact same ear-hurting thing, except the 31st fret on the high-E-string… I guess that’s because the note is so high freq. Does this mean my room is interesting when strong D-sharps bounce around its walls? Or is it still a resonance problem with my guitar? Or…?
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Post by thetragichero on Jun 23, 2024 16:02:31 GMT -5
sounds like it could be resonance issue, either in the guitar or the room. i remember my parents' living room didn't like it when i played a G on my bass
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Post by unreg on Jun 27, 2024 8:16:45 GMT -5
Sigh, I didn’t remove that packing foam yet… and there’s other things to try… like move to another room and test my guitar there. I need that D# for a song trying to record. It’s hard when needed notes don’t behave.
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Post by cynical1 on Jun 27, 2024 9:22:34 GMT -5
According to the Oracle (Google) the 7th fret on the G string produces a 311hz fundamental. Either something in your guitar, pedals\amp or room accentuates that frequency, or one of it's harmonics. If it didn't do it before you put the FR on...and everything else is the same as before, then logic dictates this may be the culprit...or your strings are older than dirt...
Does it feel different when you play the guitar unplugged? Does it do it on all strings when you play a D#, or just the G string? If you grab a C# or D and bend it to a D# does it still become overpowering?
Do you have an equalizer?
HTC1
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Post by unreg on Jul 1, 2024 19:27:49 GMT -5
According to the Oracle (Google) the 7th fret on the G string produces a 311hz fundamental. Either something in your guitar, pedals\amp or room accentuates that frequency, or one of it's harmonics. If it didn't do it before you put the FR on...and everything else is the same as before, then logic dictates this may be the culprit...or your strings are older than dirt... It’s the 8th fret on the G string; a D#. Hmmm… I’m unsure if it didn’t have a resonance problem before the Floyd rose was added because the other problems my guitar had were SUPER apparent so it might have just been hidden beneath. My strings are much newer than dirt. Yes! The D# doesn’t hurt my ears; it just sounds like a normal note. Currently, it does it on every D# except for the 31st fret on high E string. At least, that happened when using the pedals I have connected… just now I was using my amp with no pedals on, and the D# problem was only super apparent on The D, G, and B strings. Yes, tested D bent to D#. No sir. |
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Post by cynical1 on Jul 2, 2024 6:36:17 GMT -5
It’s the 8th fret on the G string... Sorry...since I retired I've given up any semblance of serious counting... Yeah, that doesn't make it easier... Always a good thing... Do you feel any difference in vibration if you keep the guitar against your body and play a d#? There is some resonance issue here. Acoustic instruments can have "wolf" tones, which are frequencies that are naturally resonant within the physical structure\material used in construction. Physics is... With your guitar, it really is critical when determining a fix to know if this is a physical or signal chain issue. Yeah...resonance issue... I asked because they can help in smoothing out this type of issue. Without the guitar in front of me I'm just spit-balling, but can you take some foam, or dampening material and stuff it under the strings behind the nut on the tuners side. Does it change anything? Is there any foam under your pickups? Does it change if you play in a different room? Have you tried the guitar on a different amp? What pedals are you using? Are you using a compressor pedal? Sounds stupid, but have you tried dampening your amp cabinet, or put a thick rug or mat under your cabinet? Something here is acting like a tuning fork... Is everything on your guitar firmly screwed down? Tuner nuts\screws all tight? Ain't this fun? HTC1 EDIT: Here's another random thought... Try an alternate or drop tuning. Does it change anything? |
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