[elvtnedge]

Very cool.. glad it worked out for you. Next week I'll get my electronics buddy over to do surgery on the guitar. Rather excited actually. I'm thinking I have some contact cleaner around the house somewhere and I might put a couple of drops onto the pot to see if that temporary solves the issue

[canon_mutant]

As I expected, Gibson replied finally and said no to a request for a schematic. So, I will have to reverse engineer the thing to see what they've done and frankly just haven't had the time to even pop the covers. Maybe this weekend??

Gibson did offer an RMA but I don't trust they're going to fix it unless they are willing to invest literally hours doing so which you know they won't. They'll pull it out of the case, play it, will probably play fine, and ship it back no fault found like my local Authorized Service Center did.

I personally would prefer to try to fix the problem[s] than to just do the siamese separation surgery and also want to compare this Lifeson circuitry with my similar Carvin to perhaps keep the blend feature that way. I actually have found a few songs where adding in a little piezo to the HB[s] results in a particularly nice tone I like - do the same playing my Carvin but it is wired with a center tap pot where center is 50/50 and either direction goes all in or all out on the piezos.

But, if I can look it over and find some obvious grounding and shielding shortfalls, a fix to the Lifeson as is would be preferable as I stated earlier, any mods will actually devalue the guitar even though you're improving the function - like my ole' 442.

Weird, I played it the other night and never had a single pop or noise or volume dip problem. No way I'd trust playing it publicly in its current state though suddenly picking up AM1330 during a song live on stage might make for a unique effect?

[LerxstLee]

elvtnedge, on 10 November 2011 - 09:26 AM, said:

I've been giggng with my Axcess quite a bit in the last couple of weeks and I definitely hear a pop and crackle now and then it its when I touch the mag volume pot. I can sometimes get it when I turn the knob. Funny enough I was using my Shure wireless unit and there was way more noise using the AL Axcess than there was my Epiphone les paul so I used a cable instead. I think I'm ready to do the hot side hot, cold side cold mod. It must be a Graphtech issue because my Ernie Ball Petrucci runs quiet and it has the piezo with blend also.

BTW regarding the whole 355 volute, I found this pic online and you can see Lifesons 355 which has the "Alex Lifeson" truss rod cover, doesn't have the volute problem we do.

http://www.thecanadi...ttappleton.html

I guess it was not good enough for Alex after all. I heard there was a mod done to the "volute" area,
but I did not dare say anything. After all , that post , "if it is good enough for Al it's good enough for me" echo's in my head.
Along with Gibson's claim that the artist aproved of it, now makes me wonder just how much he liked it, I guess so much he had it removed.

With the problems I had before,the problems others are having with this new "AL",
and along with my promise to never buy another Gibson it sure has served me well. I have more
playable instruments that I don't have to feel like I need to make up excuses to play them. I never had anyone grab the Al-355 and
say this "volute" is really cool. They usually rub their finger on it and see me blush, well back before it became a closet classic.
As in it stays in the closet and gets played an hour every few months. It sure looks nice, but it's not a players guitar.
Hope you all have great guitars in the end, with a one year warranty on electronics, some are probably in the same boat as the Al-355 by now.
I really wish there was a "time machine" that would bring gibson back to the company it once was. My older Gibsons are great, if it was not for
the Al-355 I would have probably tossed some more money the gibby way.
/cheers

[elvtnedge]

Rock2112, on 10 November 2011 - 01:03 PM, said:

I am more and more pleased with the hot side hot mod as I get more time to play my AL. Not only is it clearly quieter and the sound defect issues I had are gone, but I would swear the mags sound better now. I was "warned" by my tech that there may be a subtle shift in tone to a more traditional Les Paul sound once the circuit board was taken out of the mags chain. I cannot A/B, obviously, but it really seems the guitar has more of a "Page-like" sound to it than it did before. It is not dramatic, and I may even just be imagining it, but I am thrilled with the tone I'm getting. It also seems like the switches in pickup configurations result in sound changes that are more in line with what you would expect to hear. And one "bonus," now, when I plug just one cable into the Piezo jack, it works! Before you would get no signal. I realize that is because you can plug one cable into the regular jack and get everything on an unmodded AL, so you wouldn't need to switch jacks (and could blend). If it worked just as billed and didn't add noise and bleed issues (though you could kill that), that would be great. But I was pleased to discover that I can just switch the cable over in a casual setting if I need a Piezo fix and am not running a second cable. Last benefits are that the battery can be pulled out and have no effect on mags, and the battery does not drain unless a cable is plugged in for the Piezo.

Btw, on your radio noise issue, Solitary Pine has reported that he would get significant noise if his radio packs were too close to the guitar electronics. He helped that by moving them a bit away. For now you may want to try that. But with all the reports here of DVR interference, pops, cracks, etc., I think the mod is essential. I have had NO strange behavior since doing it and I trust my AL again.

I was wondering something. Did your AL have the push/pull pot installed for the piezo before this mod? If so that is why you'd notice a huge difference. I'm doing my mod tonight with hsh and csc (cold side cold) and I have the push/pull mod already in there but I want to split it as it's still noisy. One the mod is done I'll test it out but I'm also going to put on 11's since my guitar is in Eb tuning and 10s are too slinky

[Rock2112]

elvtnedge, on 17 November 2011 - 12:50 PM, said:

I was wondering something. Did your AL have the push/pull pot installed for the piezo before this mod? If so that is why you'd notice a huge difference. I'm doing my mod tonight with hsh and csc (cold side cold) and I have the push/pull mod already in there but I want to split it as it's still noisy. One the mod is done I'll test it out but I'm also going to put on 11's since my guitar is in Eb tuning and 10s are too slinky

Congrats on getting your mod done, I hope it works out for you as it has for me. As to the push/pull pot, yes, I received my AL with the Piezo kill pot already installed (mine is past the point that Gibson starting installing that). But the kill feature has no real purpose if the mod is in place, so my luthier disconnected that aspect of the pot. The push/pull pot is still there, but it now operates as a straight volume control. Pushing or pulling the pot makes no change (so I just leave it down all the time). He could have just replaced it with a non-push-pull pot, but that wouldn't matter to me. I suppose I can find some alternate use for the push/pull aspect of the pot, but I would rather just keep this guitar simple.

I'd be interested in your view of whether you think your tone changed at all after the mod. It seems to me that mine did (for the better in my view), but I'm open to the idea it is my imagination too. Maybe just the reduction in noise makes it seem different/better.

[canon_mutant]

Since my Carvin TL60T with a Piezo Wilkinson works so well, I'm starting to map out my conversion schematic to the following minus the three extra switches since I can push/pull the SC/HB function that's done with switches on my Carvin plus - not drilling holes in my Lifeson. I have found too many songs that I like blending in some piezo to the tone that I don't want to completely either - or it. If I can't figure out how to split both HBs with this layout [though I've got some ideas] I will either punt splitting the bridge HB or punt the piezo tone control but I really love it on my TL60T. It's very usable having tone control of the piezos and the HBs.



Will paste my schematic in when I finish it.

BTW, Despite the number of issues we've all had, Gibson wouldn't guarantee me a fix if I RMA it though they "were confident they could find the problem". I'm not and since I have the dual AL230 thing with my two Lifesons, I can't risk it getting lost, damaged, or destroyed in shipment. I think the problem is inherent to the design and I would bet Alex has already has his modified more than once from what we have. There's just no way I or Alex for that matter could reliably play mine on stage the way it is.

[Rock2112]

I posted a picture of my McDLT modded electronics in the McDLT thread if anyone is interested. I'd like to post more but I've hit a wall on my "global upload quota." Oh well.

[JohnnyRocker]

My McDLT mod is complete and I couldn't be happier with it! $70 including strings and a setup. The tech said it was easy. The "Regular" jack works like a LP standard. The mags don't go through the peizo board. The Peizo signal is only through the Life-O-Sound" jack.

I highly recomend this setup for AL LP owners.