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Post by JohnH on Sept 22, 2012 18:47:22 GMT -5
Seems like the bridge pup is still low volume and dull, and did not come to life in those last tests?
Maybe some sound clips would help get ideas. If you do, i suggest to do the neck and bridge, each with series, parallel (for Bridger) ad single coil. record all at same recording level so changes in volume are clear.
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Post by long813 on Sept 22, 2012 19:00:38 GMT -5
Seems like the bridge pup is still low volume and dull, and did not come to life in those last tests? Sadly, yes. I'll try it out tomorrow. See how it goes.
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Post by long813 on Sept 24, 2012 13:29:46 GMT -5
I've decided that I'm just going to take it all apart and start anew. Debugging has just proven to take more time and I can't quite get the audio set up working that well. From this, I can hopefully plan out the wiring better as to have it become less of a hassle to put into the cavity as well.
So, this time around, I'll take into consideration the reversal on the neck pickup. For this, wiring wise, I would tie Red & White (South Finish & North Finish) and solder that to NT.E and then put Black (North Start) to NV.E and Green to NV.B (South Start) correct?
I'll also be re-drawing the schematic as to not mix up any wires again!
Also, I was wondering. JohnH have you tested out smaller resistors than the 220 K? I thinking that the 220 K may be the cause of the 'limited' volume range I am getting.
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Post by JohnH on Sept 24, 2012 15:21:37 GMT -5
Ok, thats a plan. Let me get back to you on the wire colours to avoid having to open up the pickup.
The 220k was definately not the cause of a problem, but, since you are rebuilding, I should say that after doing that diagram, I did alot more work on treble bleed, (see sticky at top of guitar wiring section), and 150k is a slightly better value from the point of view of tone.
Also, the design has been built a couple of times so it should be OK in itself.
cheers John
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Post by long813 on Sept 24, 2012 15:50:42 GMT -5
Ok, thats a plan. Let me get back to you on the wire colours to avoid having to open up the pickup. Sounds good! Yes, usually when I get fed up with debugging, rebuilding is sometimes the best option. Oh of course not, but I found that the volume roll off wasn't to my liking - weather that be the high resistance, or the mystery problem, I can't say. I'll read into that treble bleed sticky right now. Definitely. I've seen a few people talk about it, so I know I did something wrong in the wiring of it.
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Post by JohnH on Sept 24, 2012 18:49:19 GMT -5
I had a think about how to restore the diagram to work with two identically wired SD humbuckers - ie using their standard colour scheme and where screw and slug poles attract each other when placed face to face, and no magnet flipping
neck pickup - no change to diagram bridge pickup - red and white - no change, black and green swap positions on the outer lugs of the Bvolume pot
pretty simple as it turned out. In-phase single coil sounds will be screw coil on the neck and slug coil on the bridge
With the treble bleed, at full volume it should make no difference to the sound, no matter what its values are because in that position, it is bypassed by the volume pot central wiper connecting to the full-volume hot end of the pot. Any chance it was connected on the wrong two lugs?
It does change the taper, making the volume reduce more slowly as you turn down. I find this works very well with normal log taper pots, making them respond about halfway towards how a linear pot behaves, which I find to be just right. However, if you start with a linear pot, it gets too gradual to start with.
If you rebuild, it would be a good a idea to identify some steps to confirm it's working stage by stage. particularly to test each pup before they get wired into the complete design.
cheers John
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Post by long813 on Sept 24, 2012 19:29:40 GMT -5
I had a think about how to restore the diagram to work with two identically wired SD humbuckers - ie using their standard colour scheme and where screw and slug poles attract each other when placed face to face, and no magnet flipping neck pickup - no change to diagram bridge pickup - red and white - no change, black and green swap positions on the outer lugs of the Bvolume pot pretty simple as it turned out. In-phase single coil sounds will be screw coil on the neck and slug coil on the bridge The black is tied to lug 3 through ground, correct? (in the old diagram) and Green goes to Lug1. I'll add that change in, quite simple! They were soldered to Lugs 1-2 on both. I don't think that was it. It did get a tad messy in there though (with 5 connections to one lug) which could have caused some problems. Well, the neck pup was working full volume, but the bridge wasn't I found that at 1-6 ish there wasn't much volume, then from 7-10 ish it was normal. They taper just seemed very weird. And I am using log pots, so all should be good. I've just unsoldered everything and cleaning it all up now. Definitely! I was doing continuity tests as I went along, but that didn't help me miss a connection! And then when the pups were soldered in I left out the testing. I'll probably get to building it again tomorrow as it's alright night here. I will though test the pups tonight to make sure they are in working order! EDIT: Actually, first I'm going to wire up "2HB-3way-Vol" to check the outputs of the HB's I did some simple HB to output and I THOUGHT that the Neck was louder than the Bridge. Now, since recollection and placebo go along way I'm going to do this so I can check them both with the change of a switch. From my understanding, the bridge should be louder then the neck as a default and on top of that the JB is a hot output, so all in all the bridge should be louder than the neck. I hope I didn't damage the HB during the process (I doubt it).
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Post by long813 on Sept 25, 2012 22:14:44 GMT -5
Second time around, it's much easier. I thought out a lot of the joints and have cleaned it up quite a bit. Harness is complete, finally I'll recheck each joint again then tomorrow I'll hook it up to the pups.
Look over 1: Check
Will do again tomorrow then connectivity test again to be sure.
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Post by long813 on Sept 26, 2012 14:31:45 GMT -5
Ok, so I messed something up again (heh). When BV and BT are both 'up' the output resistance is 500K in neck position. Also, the bridge tone doesn't work when you turn it. I'm going to complete this resistance spreadsheet to make sure nothing else is gone wrong, then investigate the problem. Must be a o/c on the bt pot. You can see here, the values when BT is up go to 500 K and in middle position, when BT is up, the resistance is 7 K when it should be 3.6 K. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjoPApW2_-GIdEZIdm4yeEh2OExmQWxwU015TFYzWEE
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Post by JohnH on Sept 26, 2012 15:30:03 GMT -5
First, your resistance data tabulation is excellent, the best ever on this forum +1 for that.
The Take 2 results are pointing right at the switch on BT as the culprit. Could be a missing connection, or maybe two wires on incorrect lugs (check the black and blue wires on the diagram, upper lugs as shown)
Ill be offline for most of today. J
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Post by long813 on Sept 26, 2012 16:33:10 GMT -5
I'm at a loss. Two options I see, 1) the problem isn't at BT or the capacitor is blown. To go over what I have on BT: C and F are connected. R = 0.5 B connected to Red E connected to White A is connected to ground. R = 0.5 D connected to NT.C. R = 0.5 2 connected to BV.1. R = 0.5 3 connected to ground through capacitor. R = inf I've tried to get pictures, but it's tough to get anything clear. I'll remeasure to make sure. Layout:
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Post by JohnH on Sept 26, 2012 16:41:54 GMT -5
can you clarify how your A B C..etc lug layout is interepreted in terms of position of each lug?
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Post by long813 on Sept 26, 2012 16:47:08 GMT -5
can you clarify how your A B C..etc lug layout is interpreted in terms of position of each lug? Messed the layout up my self! Corrected and the layout is in above post.
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Post by D2o on Sept 26, 2012 20:00:33 GMT -5
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Post by long813 on Sept 26, 2012 20:09:13 GMT -5
Ok, so I messed something up again (heh). When BV and BT are both 'up' the output resistance is 500K in neck position. Also, the bridge tone doesn't work when you turn it. I'm going to complete this resistance spreadsheet to make sure nothing else is gone wrong, then investigate the problem. Must be a o/c on the bt pot. You can see here, the values when BT is up go to 500 K and in middle position, when BT is up, the resistance is 7 K when it should be 3.6 K. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjoPApW2_-GIdEZIdm4yeEh2OExmQWxwU015TFYzWEE You need to put a "[a href="" before the ( full) link, and a ""]" before the ( full) link, and a " [/a]" after the ( full) link, pardner. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjoPApW2_-GIdEZIdm4yeEh2OExmQWxwU015TFYzWEE#gid=2[/quote] Interesting. I assumed that protoboards didn't have any hyperlink functionality due to it not showing up. Thanks,
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Post by sumgai on Sept 27, 2012 0:04:19 GMT -5
long, No, the problem is, most forums/boards don't automatically recognize the secure protocol of HTTP S://, like they do for the standard protocol of HTTP://. To illustrate what D2o said, type it in exactly like this: [url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjoPApW2_-GIdEZIdm4yeEh2OExmQWxwU015TFYzWEE]Link to my spreadsheet[/url] and what the reader will see is this: Link to my spreadsheetThe exact appearance (color and possibly any underlining) will depend on how the user's browser is configured. If you hover the cursor over that text, the status bar should read the correct website address, though I'm given to understand that some browsers are no longer configured to display the status bar by default - that advice may or may not apply.... the ol' YMMV trick. For what it's worth:When I click this link, I am whisked away to Google/YouTube, who then want me to "sign in" to my account. Say What? Really, Google? You expect me to voluntarily give up the last shreds of my remaining privacy, just to view someone's publicly available spreadsheet? You are kidding, right? Right, Google? Oh. Well, there goes that bit of the internet, the one we all knew and loved (past tense on purpose), the one that was supposed to let us share freely with the entire planet's population, without hindrance of any kind or sort. Geez, I guessed I must've gotten myself dropped from the routing list for the memo I didn't get. The one that said: "Unless we're big enough to ignore the wishes of the using public. Then we get to dictate what gets seen, and by whom." If Tim Berners-Lee were dead, he'd be turning over in his grave. As it is, he's probably gone hermit - I don't blame him one bit, I'm considering doing the same. Bah! Humbug!! HTH sumgai
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Post by long813 on Sept 27, 2012 0:38:16 GMT -5
long, No, the problem is, most forums/boards don't automatically recognize the secure protocol of HTTP S://, like they do for the standard protocol of HTTP://. First time posting google docs on a board. Good to know they are using SSL even on their docs! Yeah the status bar is actually now the 'add on' bar in Firefox. It's off by default, to bad I use it, so on she stays! I'm surprised at that one. Although it is google docs, I would have thought VIEWING would be non-account dependent. It's not a bad system by any means though. In this day gmail accounts are the primary email for many reasons. It outshines any other free-mail account and it's not tied to your internet provider. Also, I cherish my privacy and I feel I have done a good job keeping it secure even on public things like this and the dreaded facebook. Moreover, they have an entire suite set up online and it's designed for collaborations. In Google Docs, you can have a working document between two people have have it update live. An amazing tool and one that was used extensively throughout my schooling. No more emailing a draft, putting it to a zip file ... or my own favourite (and preferred)- private dropbox sync. I decided to use google docs for this because it is extremely easy to share. One link, no me running around to a hopefully-still-open-file-locker, uploading it, then publishing the link here for others to download, then them waiting for the load times, then download times. This is simple and effective. Out views different significantly on this. I find the internet to be a much better place than it once was. Growing up through the change is quite different than being mature at that point, but as a computer nerd as a kid, I remember how difficult it was to find valuable information. I'd think he is loving the state the web is in now, so much more is free and accessible than it once was. With that though, loads of copyright lawsuits follow .. sigh.... Also, he has twitter (something I don't get ...) Different era's we live
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Post by sumgai on Sept 27, 2012 1:01:39 GMT -5
I decided to use google docs for this because it is extremely easy to share. One link, no me running around to a hopefully-still-open-file-locker, uploading it, then publishing the link here for others to download, then them waiting for the load times, then download times.
This is simple and effective. I'll agree, any real-time collaborative method is more productive than previous methods. But as you noted, you and I see things differently. What you call privacy, I call that the equivalent of letting your knickers down.* I, on the other hand, am so well hidden that even The Mighty Google has only 44 thousand references for me, and absolutely none of them peg me from real life ! Bwuhahahaha! (But there are references to this and other web hangouts vis-a-vis guitars, MIDI und et was anderes.) sumgai * Koo koo ka choo!
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Post by long813 on Sept 27, 2012 13:10:04 GMT -5
I decided to use google docs for this because it is extremely easy to share. One link, no me running around to a hopefully-still-open-file-locker, uploading it, then publishing the link here for others to download, then them waiting for the load times, then download times.
This is simple and effective. I'll agree, any real-time collaborative method is more productive than previous methods. But as you noted, you and I see things differently. What you call privacy, I call that the equivalent of letting your knickers down.* I, on the other hand, am so well hidden that even The Mighty Google has only 44 thousand references for me, and absolutely none of them peg me from real life ! Bwuhahahaha! (But there are references to this and other web hangouts vis-a-vis guitars, MIDI und et was anderes.) sumgai * Koo koo ka choo! My true identity is well hidden IMO, but you can never be completely safe if you use the internet. It's scary what people can find out if they have the right tools. In any case, I took the liberty to take a picture of my table to show you what I've conducted:
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Post by long813 on Sept 27, 2012 15:47:47 GMT -5
To add some more tests, although not helping the BT problem,
I wired up directly to the BV pot to ensure that the bridge pickup was working properly. It plays in all positions, when S/P is up (on BV) and the tone control does nothing.
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Post by JohnH on Sept 27, 2012 16:16:12 GMT -5
I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that you are not going mad.
Bad news is that, I missed a couple of further wire swaps in my last post about how to adjust the scheme to avoid opening up the pickup. Appologies. just thought youd like to know.
I will stare at it a little longer before confirming - but I think it may be fixed if you swap the blue and black wires on lugs A and D of your BT pot. -
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Post by JohnH on Sept 27, 2012 16:31:56 GMT -5
OK, I think that will do it, and there are two choices. You can choose whichever is easier:
On the BT switch:
Either, swap the blue and black wires between lugs A and D (being the two lugs nearest to the pot case)
Or, swap the red and white pickup wires between lugs B and E
cheers John
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Post by long813 on Sept 27, 2012 16:34:18 GMT -5
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you are not going mad. Bad news is that, I missed a couple of further wire swaps in my last post about how to adjust the scheme to avoid opening up the pickup. Appologies. just thought youd like to know. I will stare at it a little longer before confirming - but I think it may be fixed if you swap the blue and black wires on lugs A and D of your BT pot. - No apologies needed! Your help has been outstanding. I wish I didn't get so overwhelmed by multiple DPDT switches that I could figure out the schematic better my self ... actually I'll have to work at that anyways
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Post by JohnH on Sept 27, 2012 16:47:05 GMT -5
Great - lets hope this does it. Apart from that, any clue yet on whether the low volume/dull issue on the B is better this time?
FYI - how the BT switch works and why this last problem:
The BT switch is basically a series/parallel switch for the B pickup. Pushed in, it joins red to white to complete a normal series humbucker - which was OK in your Take2 tests. Pulled out, it takes one of these to hot and the other to ground to make a parallel wiring, given that green and black are permanently connected one to each.
But its important that each coil then ends up with a ground and a hot in parallel mode- which it does in the diagram. But in swapping green and black as in the last iteration, we then have one coil with both ends to ground and the other both to hot - ie no connection. So the fix above should repair that.
BTW Single coil mode for the B pickup (using the NT switch), just breaks one coils hot connection, leaving the other between ground and hot.
J
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Post by long813 on Sept 27, 2012 22:47:16 GMT -5
Great - lets hope this does it. Apart from that, any clue yet on whether the low volume/dull issue on the B is better this time? Still an issue. Weird, I know. I never did end up doing the 2HB, 1 Vol, 3Way circuit as I just took the time to apply to jobs (yeah....). I am going to check the taper of the BV pot, record the resistances all the way through and compare to the NV. If the problem isn't there (I have a slight suspicion that the taper is halved), it must lay with the pickup it self ... which I would think is odd b/c the resistances measure up. I also, WILL do an audio check and record it. I think Audiacity or something is a good free program that could work? I would only me using my latop mic, so I hope it isn't terrible. Ah thanks for that. I do see it on the diagram now. I will also be looking over that schematic and really relate it to what I am doing. It's important I fully understand it. Ah yes. That would be it. Makes up for the dead pickup! I ended up just switching the red and white since it was a lot easier. Right on. This time around, I did think out the pickup wiring better and the cavity is quite nice! I'll upload some pictures tomorrow, work on that audio clip and go over that schematic. Next on the list to to do a better set up, there is still some fret buzz, which may just be from my playing (electric demands a different technique than acoustic) but I can still make it play better for my needs. Again JohnH, I can't thank you enough for all your help. Cheers,
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Post by sumgai on Sept 28, 2012 11:58:15 GMT -5
Boy, I must be in some kind of mood this morning..... ......
Next on the list to to do a better set up, there is still some fret buzz, which may just be from my playing (electric demands a different technique than acoustic) but I can still make it play better for my needs. For the life of me, I can't see where anyone would consciously try to change their technique between playing either kind of instrument. The bottom line is, one should strive to play to the best of their ability, i.e. the cleanest possible, on both kinds of guitar. In other words, whilst playing an electric (or an amplfied acoustic), one can introduce all manner of signal modifications (fuzz, reverb, chorus, etc.) that can (and do!) mask bad playing habits. This might be accomplished by accident or on purpose, but as the old saying goes "you can distort a clean signal, but you can not clean up a distorted signal". Same goes for playing style. If you play sloppy, you may not sound sloppy (witness Michael Powers, one of the worst offenders/luckiest SOB's I've ever seen, bar none), but the chances of you getting to that state of affairs are bitterly against you. However, if you were fortunate enough to have a harsh task-master of a teacher in your formative years, then you can do almost anything you like, because like the above saying "you can make a clean playing style sound sloppy, but you can't make a sloppy methodology sound clean", at least not without years of practice (again, see Michael Powers). The foregoing applies to any kind of instrument, not just a guitar, not just fretted-with-strings instruments - any instrument. Trust me on this one. Or don't - I'm confident that the end results will still be the same. Sorry, didn't mean to pee in your Cheerios, but my psych says I gotta let it all hang out. ;D (Either that, or the paint fumes are getting to me!) sumgai
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Post by long813 on Sept 28, 2012 12:17:07 GMT -5
Boy, I must be in some kind of mood this morning..... For the life of me, I can't see where anyone would consciously try to change their technique between playing either kind of instrument. The bottom line is, one should strive to play to the best of their ability, i.e. the cleanest possible, on both kinds of guitar. In other words, whilst playing an electric (or an amplfied acoustic), one can introduce all manner of signal modifications (fuzz, reverb, chorus, etc.) that can (and do!) mask bad playing habits. This might be accomplished by accident or on purpose, but as the old saying goes "you can distort a clean signal, but you can not clean up a distorted signal". Same goes for playing style. If you play sloppy, you may not sound sloppy (witness Michael Powers, one of the worst offenders/luckiest SOB's I've ever seen, bar none), but the chances of you getting to that state of affairs are bitterly against you. However, if you were fortunate enough to have a harsh task-master of a teacher in your formative years, then you can do almost anything you like, because like the above saying "you can make a clean playing style sound sloppy, but you can't make a sloppy methodology sound clean", at least not without years of practice (again, see Michael Powers). The foregoing applies to any kind of instrument, not just a guitar, not just fretted-with-strings instruments - any instrument. Trust me on this one. Or don't - I'm confident that the end results will still be the same. Sorry, didn't mean to pee in your Cheerios, but my psych says I gotta let it all hang out. ;D (Either that, or the paint fumes are getting to me!) sumgai I think you may have missed the point. Acoustic and Electric guitars are very different instruments - too me at least (and to many others). Do you play a violin the same way you would play a bass guitar? No. My playing isn't a matter of adding distortion, adding effects ... I don't play with that. My acoustic is set up with a high enough action that enables me to play my heavy chugging bluegrass rhythms - from this, it requires more strength to articulate the notes and it my style and preference. Furthermore, my picking hand uses more force b/c I play with heavy gauges on acoustic. My electric on the other hand, will not be set up - ever - to play bluegrass. The electric, being a different instrument, is set up for different styles of music, much lower tension and thinner strings. I must play lighter on electric to not bend the strings so far out of tune or to get ugly picking noises. It's a different set up for a different instrument. Imagine playing a classical guitar with a pick (some do..) but having the guitar set up in the same fashion you would for classical music. You would fret buzz beyond belief as the pick strokes would be yanking the strings. In order to master this, you would have to play extremely delicately. And that sumgai, is why I and many others will change the way they play on different instruments. Over all, it is to MINIMIZE distortion, as you have said... you can't clean a distorted signal. ...Lastly, I don't eat cheerios, so the next guy may be a little peeved off EDIT: It may also be worth noting. My acoustic, comes with a largeer scale length, very large/tall fret wire and a huge string spacing 1 3/4 vs typical 1 11/16 ... these physical factors make playing an electric very differently. When you haven't played electric for 5 years ... it takes some getting use to
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Post by long813 on Sept 28, 2012 15:11:00 GMT -5
Volume Taper complete. Data & Graph are on Gdocs. Graph is also shown below. "Measured from Hot and Gound of cable" docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjoPApW2_-GIdEZIdm4yeEh2OExmQWxwU015TFYzWEEThe BV and NV seem to follow the same trend, so it may be an issue with the tone pot taper. Results are not normalized, which explains why one BV lays higher than NV. Tone Taper complete. "Measured from Lug3 of tone pot and ground of cable This also looks good to me. Also, just downloaded Audacity, time to noodle around with it after the tone tapers
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Post by JohnH on Sept 28, 2012 15:42:54 GMT -5
Those graphs are about right, for what you are measuring with the pots in circuit. The peak values are both a few k higher than can be calculated from the values on the first page of your sheet, but i dont think there is anything in that.
It would be good to measure across the outer lugs of your tone pots. It should be a simple reading of the full tone pot resistance, since everything else should be blocked from being read by the tone caps, so expect the same readings in circuit as you note on page 1 for NT and BT.
Audacity os great. its what I use for the bits of recording that I do.
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Post by long813 on Sept 28, 2012 15:57:06 GMT -5
It would be good to measure across the outer lugs of your tone pots. It should be a simple reading of the full tone pot resistance, since everything else should be blocked from being read by the tone caps, so expect the same readings in circuit as you note on page 1 for NT and BT. I'll take that reading as well after I get back. I've heard lots about it, but never have recorded anything. Always wanted to get into that though. Might have to invest in a mic in the future for that though.
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