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Post by busydoingnothing on Feb 14, 2011 15:20:11 GMT -5
Finally! After years of procrastination, I finally got this guitar all wired up. It sounds great! I guess I expected more tonal differences overall, but I guess you can only get so much out of two pickups. If I wanted to brighten up the sound, what should I do, throw 1Meg pots in there? I have 500K pots now with a 0.01 cap on the tone. I guess I'm more used to the Strat sound since that's what I've been playing lately. It sounds really nice and warm, though. I put Graph Tech String Savers on there too, so that's probably warming it up a bit. The sustain is phenomenal, tho.
Thank you guys so much for all your help. I really appreciate all the time and effort you put in to helping me out. I can't thank you enough!
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Post by JohnH on Feb 14, 2011 18:58:30 GMT -5
Congrats on getting it togther!
Those hot humbuckers will always sound different to a snappy Strat single coil. Your brightest options will be the bridge single and parallel modes. To get a bit more edge, you can try a no-load tone pot (ie, the tone pot disconnects at 10 - you can buy one or make your own - test the idea just by temporarily disconnecting).
Also, if you use long cables, try a short one, not more than 10' to keep high treble.
If you find the tone gets dull at lower volume, use a treble bleed circuit. A 1nF cap and a 150k or 220k resistor in parallel, between the hot and centre lugs of the volume pot.
BTW - did the humcancelling turn out right? ie, if you set a single coil only, youll get a bit of hum, but if you also select the single coil on the other pup and use them together, there should be less hum.
cheers
John
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Post by 4real on Feb 14, 2011 21:32:13 GMT -5
Good work getting through this...5 pages...LOL!
It can be a good thing to have a guitar with a different sound as an alternative to teh one you normally play...a strat tends to be it's own thing. Hot HB's like this are not going to hve the sound of a single coil and while you can brighten things up a bit, that won't necessarily make it sound more fender or strat like...just brighter!
Of course, one should never forget that your amp has a whole range of EQ...use those tone controls to suit the guitar you are plugging into it...you can make anything 'brighter' by turning up the treble, reducing the midrange perhaps and bass to taste.
If you have compact pups like a JBjnr or rail in a single coil, splitting often isn't that great and the diffference between splitting to one of the other not so much as there is very little difference in the length of string it is sensing.
Putting the treble bleed circuit in and turning down the volume to about 8 on my overpowered cheap HB's in my LP really makes them sound nice and bright and clear...so if you don't have that feature, it would be a way to go perhaps over high value pots on a dark guitar. Just turn the thing down a bit and the amp up to compensate... with more plus you have a little extra to turn to for your solo with perhaps more body for single notes than a bright rythmn single coil like sound.
A lot of 'technique' should be concentrated on using controls on these kinds of guitars and not just setting them on 10 and never touching them...we all do it, but that isn't using things to the best IMHO...just take some time to get used to what that guitar does best and getting teh best out of it.
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Post by busydoingnothing on Feb 15, 2011 17:05:04 GMT -5
I should have played around using my regular amp instead of just my practice amp before commenting. It. Sounds. GREAT! Just gotta boost the treble a little bit to lighten it up, but beyond that, it sounds so powerful compared to my Strat copy. I have to get used to the switching, but once I do...hot damn!
JohnH, I'm pretty sure the hum cancelling is working. I'm not 100% sure what to listen for, but I can tell you that the guitar is VERY quiet in pretty much every switching position. I'm not getting much noise at all. I was going to do the treble bleed, but I figured I'd play around a bit first to see if I like it. I'm afraid to add any more mods to this thing, there's so much wiring! Haha.
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