NighthawkChris

That’s really nice man! I have a Gibson one that cost me about the same. They are costly but good investment nonetheless.

Just remember that you want a very good strap... Don't cheapy out on this. You're trusting that that thing will hold up your expensive guitar and not have it swing around on your shoulder. Get a nice piece of leather - not that plasticy crap, leather. That's too nice of a guitar to trust it to some seat belt material POS or any other garbage $20 strap.

Oh wow she’s a beauty for sure! Cherry burst Gibsons are my absolute favorite type of finish they put together. Many years of enjoyment for you with that one.

@Jayharr58, nice guitar you got there! 50s Standard I gather...

Well, at least you have some more info after your phone call; I was pretty confident you had a 1994. If you aren't the original owner which I gather, you don't know what modifications might have been done to the tuners or bridge, etc. by the last guy. Anyhow, glad the investigation is going good, haha! Cheers!

@fortyearspickn good point about outside walls. I was told to do this with my upright piano too.

To me the HB in the bridge works well for hard rock. You want a hot pickup for this. Remember this was a 90s guitar. About 14k is par for the course regarding a stock PU. I’ve tried the Seymour Duncan 59 bridge and it is ok, but IMHO sucks once you split it. This PU is around 7-8k - half the stock. SD also makes a nice JB too which is even hotter slightly than the stock PU. When you split the HBs you definitely get this straty sound when you split the coils and select positions 2 and 4 of the 5-way switch. But again this refers to the 3 pickup model. Oddly enough not familiar so much with the 2 pickup model which I always thought of as a Gibson Telecaster. As I said, I have the 3 pickup versions on all 3 of mine. You get 10 possible sounds. It utilizes a 4P5T “super switch” and when you add the pull switch on the tone pot, you multiply the 5 by 2 and there you go, 10 tonal possibilities. I don’t particularly like all 10 but it works for quite a few things. Overall it’s a thing of its own sort of. Criticism of it is that it doesn’t do the Gibson thing completely and doesn’t do the Fender thing completely so why bother... This is why I just use it for what it is and roll with it. I like it because it’s smaller and lighter type of guitar. nice belly cut, and adornments typical of a Gibson. You either love it or hate it I guess. I have had one for over 20 years and I have grown on them ever since. It has served for me as a versatile guitar growing up playing anything from hard rock to funk to blues and even more. My avatar features the CST3 model in Fireburst and it is sort of rare to find these today. I haven’t seen one for sale anywhere for quite some time and their value has gone up a bit once a good one comes along.

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Hercules-Stands/GSP38WB-PLUS-Auto-Grip-System-AGS-Guitar-Wall-Hanger-Short-Arm-Wooden-Base.gc?rNtt=hercules&index=2 These work for me.

Another thing I wanted to add here is saddles like those on a strat for the most part are beneficial when you use a trem. If they are a material like graphite, this is good because it is one less place for the string to bind up on - a lot of the reason Strats have issues staying in tune once the trem gets used. Of course up at the nut is another place to get strings bound up on the trees or even the nut, but we are talking about saddles. Typically saddles need replacement IMHO if you have some cheap pot metal or something that catches the string. I suppose that bends could cause issues too. Overall I would replace saddles for stability reasons mostly, not for tonal changes.

Oh another thing I noticed is the typo of 350kOhm in my first post... I meant 250kOhm. Damn iPhone! Or maybe it’s my fat fingers haha!

Oh my mistake with regards to the caps I suggested... I meant the 0.047uF and 0.022uF. You could say nF (nanoFarad) but typically everything you’ll see is referring to the measurement in microFarads. Either way, the 47 and 22 are the important numbers so to speak to remember. The higher the potentiometer’s resistance, the higher the capacitance should be - per what a vast majority of designs are physically realized.

Honestly, that sounds like you have a 1994 Gibson... I have 2 x 1994 Gibson guitars all starting with the 94xxx... S/N. It was Gibson's centennial year - yippee - and they changed it up this time for whatever reason. As @Sgt. Pepper mentioned, the CS was appended to the front during the 201x years AFAIK. I have one from 2015 that has the CS prefix. Unless it is a reissue, you won't see the CS prefix; reissues have another format to look for. If in doubt, call Gibson. A short phone call will do you good.

https://support.fender.com/hc/en-us/articles/214343803-How-do-I-set-up-my-Telecaster-guitar-properly- Here is what I use to set up my NHs. As I said, I set it up like a Tele - vintage style as they refer to pickup heights for several different types of pickups. They mention 6/64" on bass side and 5/64" on treble side for both neck and bridge pickups, so I'm in that neighborhood generally. If it is too hot, I lower it a tick, but still in the ballpark of the Fender spec. Really, this is a guideline so giving or taking a little won't be necessarily wrong. Anyhow, you asked what I set my pickup height to so this is what I have to share. I also wouldn't necessarily add a resistor into the circuit as you have suggested. I mean, you could, but there's never been a design that I ran into that had a stand-alone resistor in the electronics. Depending on where you put it, you could even brighten up the sound, because essentially, the resistance of the pot is something the small signal from the pickup loads onto that is picked up by the amp input. If you put the resistance in series, you could affect the frequency response, but it would be a hard-fixed response so to speak. Anyhow, I would avoid doing this. If you really want to change tonal response, I'd focus more on the cap in the tone circuit personally before adding "permanent" resistance in the circuitry. I go with 47uF for 500kOhm pots, 22uF for 350kOhm - sort of standard AFAIK. Basically, I would like to understand where you plan on doing this, how, etc. if you must do this, but generally, I wouldn't try to do this. The volume pot is supposed to be sort of Fender (250kOhm) at 300kOhm linear tapered. That's how mine are done up and what Gibson's schematics say to use. I rewired an older Epiphone NH I had years ago like the Gibson NH and this 300kOhm volume linear taper pot was what I used. And generally, the idea is the higher the resistance, the more bright you get. Good luck once again!

IME, the Seymour Duncan pickups for the bridge are good alternatives to what comes stock in the 90s NHs. I prefer the 59 slanted HB because it is a lower output - i.e. more "vintage" sounding. You also have to take into account that the NH is like the Fender-Gibson hybrid of sorts. I set mine up like a Telecaster (use Fender's specs for string height, pickup height, etc.) and it gets nice sounds. It also can have sort of that Strat quack too in the 2 and 4 positions when you split the coils. Either way, if you're into a more articulate sound for the neck, try a more vintage spec mini-HB - I suppose a lower resistance pickup say in the 7k-8k range. I personally like the mini-HB that comes stock, but that doesn't help you out... But as you said, once you split the coils, your "hotness" decreases as it should. Either way, the thing is to think of this NH as a Gibson Telecaster/Strat, so you want a more single coil sort of sound to get those snappy vintage tones. It won't sound like a Les Paul or play like one, so no use trying this either. It's just going to be a thing of its own really, but more "Fendery" if you get the drift. String through body, 25.5" scale, 5 position switch... Yeah SORT OF shaped like a LP, but not quite. Looks are deceiving. Anyhow, I have 3 of the 3-pickup models. I love them and hope you do too.

Just get this S show over with... I’m so over these partisan hacks from every which way and side... Hey, America DESERVES what it gets plain and simple, that’s how I feel about it all. We’ve made our bed for years to lead up to this point in time. But to me, one choice is a half plate of crap and the other is the full serving. Either way, it’s crap on a plate, bon appetit.

Round 1 of bagging and tagging leaves this weekend. Hate doing this every season, but when you have a chunk of land, have to do it. Lots of trees on my lot. Well that’s the joy of home ownership on some acres of land... 30 bags so far. Expecting about doing 60 bags this year no doubt.

Without getting into the extensive details, I personally would not want to see them go belly up. I get other things there for great deals that isn’t guitar related such as pro audio and keyboard stuff. But that debt they have is astounding! A billion dollars plus can get a TON of MI gear and the way things are today, it would take some guts to bet they are gonna pull through IMHO.

I've called Gibson directly in the past and they have been pretty helpful with serial numbers and such to identify guitars. Maybe this is something you should do. You're right about the S/N indicating an R7. I take it you don't have a COA with this? I believe that the bodies of R7s and R8s are similar when we talk about the Standards, so nothing to worry about there. Maybe get a little flame on the R8 as the R7's are either goldtops or the ebony Custom, so you don't see what's underneath. And the R7 Custom is all mahogany anyhow. Either way, give them a call. It doesn't take too long to hear it from the horse's mouth. Nice guitar BTW!

My 94 has this going on with the headstock - crackling of nitro. I don’t mind it as the guitar plays good and is structurally sound. Hasn’t become much worse over time so far, so might want to note this. Take care of the guitar and shouldn’t have to worry about it too much.

99 would be worth a shot first to me. All comes down to what you like in your hands. Pay attention to condition too when buying used. Frets have life or no high frets you will have to spend money/time addressing, very importantly does truss rod work, warps/twists in neck, crack repairs... Both might even be dogs so prepare for that. Overall both LOOK nice and legit so best to try things out as much as possible before pulling the trigger on a buy. You know what you can handle so best advice is to do what I mentioned.

This is 1994. They did it special this year because this is the centennial year of Gibson. I know this because I have 2 from 1994 and if you try to decode the serial number like the way all other 90s Gibson’s are, you’ll have to agree that there’s no 400th + day in the year. Take my word for it, 1994

Very cool man! Definitely better than a NGD haha! Best wishes and congrats. Looks like it was worth the wait 😀

I would verify that your bridge is grounded with a multimeter if you kill the noise when you touch the strings. And the fact you describe the noise as so loud you need a gate, a grounding issue may be at play here. You won’t know until you can verify that the ground plane is connected to the bridge - where of course the strings very likely are continuous with the bridge hence why you kill the noise when you ground the bridge by touching the strings. Now if you don’t have a connection between the bridge and ground, you have the problem identified in part, but you have to figure out where the connection is broken. Either the wire in the control cavity isn’t connected to the ground and/or the guitar’s bushing that holds the tailpiece isn’t touching the ground wire in the control cavity most likely. EDIT: if you don’t know how to do what I’m talking about, take your guitar to a tech cuz your guitar shouldn’t do that normally. Does it do it everywhere you play or just one place? Maybe you’re playing in a noisy electrical environment? Bad amp/gear? Troubleshooting is a PITA sometimes.

I hear ya... My simplistic test FWIW is to simply connect my router to my PC with an Ethernet cable and see if I get 1Gbps when I look at the network connection stats in Windoze. Reason why I have relied on this simple test is I had a "Cat 6" cable that wouldn't show 1Gbps doing what I explained. It did get to 100Mbps though, but come on, WiFi 5 (i.e. 802.11ac) does better than that today... Well, maybe. From what I learned about this WiFi 5 sort of round-robins all clients - i.e. handles one device at a time when moving data around. WiFi 6 (802.11ax) is supposed to improve upon this as well as the next WiFi 6E. If you have a lot of WiFi devices (with WiFi 5 or earlier spec), you will increase latency of the WLAN I imagine. I digress, I agree on the cable thing though - not all made equal. I don't cheapy out on this as I try to buy a quality cable - i.e. spend a bit more. I mean, you get what you pay for perhaps??? Especially since I run a 50' cable, I don't want it to fail me in the sense that it doesn't give the throughput I expect a Cat 6 cable to deliver. Oh, I also do internet speed tests and compare the results to my ISP internet package. I have Comcast, so as I said, 600 down and 20 up, and running a test with my new modem gives me results such as 700 down and 24 up pretty consistently... Can't complain there really. I rarely have issues getting pages to load in my devices' web browsers or have my streaming services to crap out on the TV/streaming devices. I feel I don't need the Gig package just yet based on our family's demands. But we could do a forum jam - I'd have fun doing that, haha! You can set up to have "friends" with your account so you can ping them to set up a session. IDK, DL the software and try it out in a solo session to test your gear to see latency, etc. My interface is a Zoom L-12 with USB 2.0 capabilities. It's OK... My one buddy uses his Mac Book (with a Cat 7 cable) and gets better latency results. Not too sure on his interface he uses though. He has a few choices to pick from. Just to forewarn, the create band feature is VERY buggy. I recommend just working with the jam session feature for the most part before you start beating it up testing everything. And when I say buggy, I made a band profile and now I can't edit anything I initially entered... Can't do it in the app or on the web page. And you can't start sessions I believe without installing the app based on the messages the web page gives when I try using the web interface to do so. You may find out more when you try it out. Meanwhile, excited to see something like this happen today. Lemme know what you come up with if you decide to give it a shot. EDIT: Oh yeah, video feature sucked. Once we tried it, the audio SEVERELY suffered... IDK how you get aroud this because video conferences take up a good amount of bandwidth too as well as using this and trying to have low-latency audio routing. Maybe I do need the Gig package haha!

Recently, my band was looking into JamKazam as a way to remotely practice. I personally haven't left my house to socialize since mid March, but the other 3 are OK with rehearsing in-person, so in order for me to participate, I need something like this. Back a few months ago around April-May, we tried Jamulus (open-source software) to do this which requires a computer of some sort (not sure on all supported OS - I use Windows unfortunately, haha) and an interface with minimum sample rate of 48kHz. It is also preferred to have a wired connection to the internet as well to reduce latency as much as possible from what the documentation says. To me, this is a no-brainer to use a hard-wired connection. But back then at least, it was pretty bad experience when we tested it. Extreme latency, and I have a super-fast internet connection (~700Mbps down and 24Mbps up). We tried on a public server, and we tried making our own server on one of my quad-core PCs where both yielded poor results. I mean, you really notice it when you have ~25ms or more latency. We were all averaging around say 50ms which is god awful... So we gave up on that, but very recently we tried JamKazam which yielded better results where we could actually jam together in real-time with less than 15ms latency to be conservative here. But you can deal with this honestly. We aren't some speed/black metal group here, so when you are not in the mega hundreds of bpm for each song, 15ms is... OK. It was simple to set up. I made an account, downloaded the Windows application to install it, logged in, then set up my interface briefly. I was ready to start a session where we could all join and do our thing. The software has some features that are broken, but generally, the main feature of combining the audio via IP, the results were encouraging. I have found that having a hard-wired Ethernet connection to your PC using a minimum of a CAT6 cable (maybe no less than CAT5E) helps a ton, and it also pays to have a good interface that hopefully if using Windows connects to the PC via USB 3.x. I even tried with a USB 2.0 audio interface and it was usable, but again I believe that you want as fast a connection to your PC for this interface as possible because it plays into latency reduction where EVERY millisecond counts. And if you are using economy internet package by your ISP, probably want to upgrade that too. I have my own modem and router, so my equipment that my ISP uses to deliver internet is top-notch. My modem supports DOCSIS 3.1 and my router's Ethernet ports are gigabit speed - which most are anyhow today as the 10/100 only Ethernet ports are somewhat ancient today, haha! Overall, if anyone was interested in something like this, I wanted to share my experience thus far with these remote solutions to band practices and such. I am not trying to sell anyone one or the other because both are free to try - haven't paid a dime yet with JamKazam, and Jamulus is open-source which it totally free. I'm simply looking for the best solution for remote band software. If anyone has tried other things like these, let me know too because I am very interested in the topic. But what I could find, these are the only 2 that I uprooted. Maybe I'm just lazy and didn't look hard enough... This takes some setup and investment in internet/PC related stuff no doubt. But once it works, it's really not too bad. I can only hope it gets better in the future.