gearhead
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Posts posted by gearhead
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OK I GOT THE LINKS TO MY SOUND CLIPS WORKING!
SORRY IT TOOK ME A COUPLE DAYS, MY WIRELESS WAS DOWN.
SO HERE THEY ARE AGAIN!
The changes in the tone are VERY noticeable on the clean clips,
the distortion clips are a little harder to differentiate the tones.
SORRY THESE LINKS DON'T WORK ANY MORE BECAUSE OF WEBSITE CHANGE,
BUT WILLY DID AN IMBEDDED LINK IN POST #28, THANKS WILLY!
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I'll have to check those links again, they loaded for me last night (Might need to upload to a different site). As far as control settings, my guitar pots were on 10 (Vol & tone), my amp is set where it always is, I rarely change it. Low-9, Mid-3, High-9, Presence-7.5, on both clean and distortion channels. Now my amp has other settings such as cab, amp and "mode" emulation. But I kept everything the same as I checked each cap. It did make a difference. Definitely removed some of the low frequencies, making the pickup sound brighter, but not tinny. Made me a believer!
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Ok. I tried the different caps on my stock G400.
I unsoldered the "HOT" lead from my bridge pickup at the volume control,
then I used 2 test leads with alligator clips, one attached to the volume pot, and one to the "Hot" lead.
Then it was just an easy task to swap out the caps for testing. I tried the .047 and .01uf caps.
I settled for the .047uf cap for my unit. It took the overbearing bass out of the low E string!
Sorry for all the links! My recording program had a glitch and I couldn't put the tracks together as one,
but here are the links. They aren't real good recordings, I just used a pc microphone and my Nero Wave Editor.
You can definitely tell how well it took the "mud" out and left it a good bit brighter sounding, especially on the clean recordings.
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I think there is a very obvious better sound - but without a scope I don't know really how you can quantify the result.
m
Well to my thinking, if you can record the sound changes, without changing any amp, guitar, or recording (microphone) settings your ear should tell you something about the effect the modification has. But it has to be done with a "base" setting to be able to truly compare it.
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Well I'll try it out, see if I can make a decent recording of the differences and post it here. I've seen some other tricks like using a resistor in series with the pickup to cut the output of a really hot pickup. Not to mention the "Vari-tone" concept of several different caps attached to a rotary switch, but that affects your tone control, not the basic sound of the pickup BEFORE it goes through the tone pot.
Like I said, my G400 sounds muddy, doesn't really matter how much I tweak on the amp settings, or move the height of the pups, so I figure it will be a good unit to experiment on!I will see if I can do it over the weekend and post my findings. We'll see if and how much of a difference it makes!
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MANY of us, myself included, have had issues with pickups that just plain sound muddy, and
even after adjusting pickup height and pole pieces it's still not acceptable.
Well I found an article and thought I would share this. I'm going to try this on my G400
this weekend as my bridge pup just isn't bright enough for my liking. The article I read
was here Taming The Tone Zone, and although Duncan's take on it is for a neck pickup,
the author used it on his bridge unit and says it worked!
Might be a good fix instead of replacing that pickup!
I'll post my findings asap.
Here is an audio of the changes he made with different caps;
This diagram is from the the Seymour Duncan website.
If you'll scroll down to post #20 I've put up links to the recordings I did using stock configuration on my bridge pickup, then with a .047 and a .01uf cap. Works surprisingly well!
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I sure will. In fact I have a "repair project" guitar on the way, a Les Paul style set neck that I'm going to order the L-500XL for and see what it does.
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So I'm guessing NO ONE here in the Epi forum has tried one of these?
A lot of people have never even heard of Bill Lawrence pickups before.
JAM ON!
![[thumbup]](//content.invisioncic.com/p286412/emoticons/default_msp_thumbup.gif)
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Been looking for that metal sound I want, heavy, hard hitting
distortion without squealing feedback or loss of tone.
I've looked at a bunch of pickups and the Bill Lawrence L-500XL seem to fit the bill.
Has anyone here used these before? And if so, what's your opinion?
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Well, they both use "comparable" woods, but I think Gibson has a higher quality requirement for the woods they use.
PART of the reason Gibson's are higher priced, not to mention the fact that American labor is higher than overseas.
BIGGEST difference I've seen so far is that Epiphone uses cheaper hardware and electronics!
But we'll see in 30 years how my Epiphones are doing!
I know my Gibson guitars will still be playing, unless I don't take care of them.
My 1937 L-50 archtop, although beat and bruised, still plays and sounds very good!
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The "GG" serial # issue is interesting. I've got a "junior" with 3/4 size body, full size scale with serial # beginning with "G". Emailed epiphone and all they could tell me was that it was made in '98, it's an E-5 model, but no production plant info...........
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What an inovative way to fix a neck problem..turnbuckles..would have never thought
of that. Gives a new meaning to the term "heavy metal" LOL!
Um........I was kinda wondering what the fingerboard looks like?
I'm a mechanic/machinist and I've done some, shall we say, "field modifications" before, but not to that extent!
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I'd have it looked at for sure! Don't want it to end up like this:
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It's kinda hard to get all the #'s with the solder joint on top of them, but it looks like they were manufactured by Chicago Telephone Supply (CTS) in '67.
Unless they've been changed, and it doesn't look like they have.
Here's a link to some info on dating pots:
![[thumbup]](http://content.invisioncic.com/p286412/emoticons/default_msp_thumbup.gif)
Taming Muddy Sounding Pickups
in Epiphone Electrics
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Ok first, the only thing I had to use to record with was a $10 pc mic, so the quality isn't good (was just trying to get "sound" to compare the different mods). I don't have my other pc set up as a studio unit yet, working on it though.
That guitar is (was) muddy sounding compared to my other guitars, on my amp, in person, with the same settings!
Yes I play heavy music and yes that guitar is tuned 1/2 step low! GOOD EAR!
Also, I used cheap Radio Shack 2 for $1.49 caps. The .047uf unit is a polyester-film cap, and the .01uf cap was a ceramic! (May have made a difference in the sound.)
DON'T USE CERAMIC ONES! That was all they had in that value, but it worked for the comparison!
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And Willy, thanks for hooking those clips together! Don't worry about the distortion ones, you can hear the difference better from the clean ones!![[thumbup]](//content.invisioncic.com/p286412/emoticons/default_msp_thumbup.gif)
But I'm sure you can tell that it DID cut some low frequencies from the sound!
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And bigneil, I liked the idea you posted about different caps on a rotary switch. That could be an interesting mod!