121

The Pickup Place / Re: Single Coil Pickup Stagger

« on: July 09, 2019, 06:47:51 PM »

The vintage stagger is from the era when the "standard" string set had a wound G and was a couple of gauges thicker. In that context, it balances out the volume between strings really nicely. When players moved to thinner strings with a plain G, you get that issue of a really loud G with a kinda weak D and B in comparison. A bunch of the Dimarzios (and some of the newer Duncans, IIRC) have the magnets sort of radiused to compensate for that change and to make it easier to adjust (because now there's no need to work around volume balance). Also saves on manufacturing costs because, like you said, no need for lefty and righty versions.

122

The Pickup Place / Re: Les Paul looking for foreigner tone

« on: July 09, 2019, 04:26:57 PM »

I'm cool with any company defending their trademarks in a timely fashion, because they absolutely get to.

But Gibson's had literally 40 years and by now the Explorer and V are common enough that they lost an EU case for the V trademark like last week. They're just throwing a hissy fit and threatening smaller builders, and as a consumer I don't really wanna support business practices like these with my money.  I feel kinda bad for Mark tbh because I feel like Gibson knew it wasn't gonna go down well and threw him under the bus a little.

As for the Dimarzio trademarks and patents, they didn't ignore say Duncan making double cream JBs for 40 years and then seek damages in court, and if they did I'd have the same reaction.

Trademarks need active defense and use, and Gibson's been terribly spotty on both.

/rant, just my $0.02

123

The Pickup Place / Re: Wiring advice for DP103-pickups

« on: July 04, 2019, 05:11:00 PM »

Yeah, that's the one. I'm not 100% on the Dimarzio wire colors but I think it's white and black together, green and bare to ground, and red is hot to the switch.

124

The Pickup Place / Re: Metal pickups for chambered Les Paul

« on: July 04, 2019, 05:09:39 PM »

Well honestly before you upgrade your pickups swap those 300k pots out for 500k (Bare Knuckle sells some 550k ones you might like) or even 1meg pots. It makes a pretty big difference. Swap out all 4, even the tone pots.
As far as the PCB, it's a personal preference thing, but I don't know if you can just swap out pots on those without replacing the whole thing.

125

The Pickup Place / Re: neck pickup for EVH Wolfgang standard

« on: July 03, 2019, 03:04:29 PM »

With a Super D? Either a Super 2 or a PAF Pro IMO if you want to keep the same general vibe and tone.

126

Guitar Lounge / Re: Thoughts and Opinions on Yamaha?

« on: July 03, 2019, 09:57:34 AM »

They make solid if not particularly exceptional (not in quality but in character) instruments. The mid-range stuff is really good bang for your buck, and if you can find some of the used MiJ stuff, they're really good instruments.

127

The Pickup Place / Re: Metal pickups for chambered Les Paul

« on: July 02, 2019, 04:57:34 PM »

With a chambered axe, you can either try to mitigate it with a really hot pickup with a lot of character (a Bare Knuckle Warpig or something like an X2N or D-Activator X on the dimarzio side), or you can try to play off it with something a little less hot that sort of "fills in" what your guitar already has. Depending on your rig and tuning, something like a FRED-b/PAF Pro-n or Norton-b/Air Norton-n (probably not the AN if you want something brighter, maybe a Bluesbucker?), sets that are a little lower output but that can complement tonally what you're hearing from your guitar.
Any of the Petrucci pickups (I'm not big on the Crunch Lab/Liquifire combo personally though) would probably work well for you to sort of split the difference.
I have the Kiesel Lithiums in my CL6 (Chambered mahogany body, maple top and neck) which work really well because the guitar is super warm and thick and resonant, and the pickups are super bright and tight.

128

The Pickup Place / Re: High gain Screamer for Alder

« on: June 29, 2019, 08:47:19 PM »

A Super D in C# is IMO gonna get muddy real fast. Maybe a Super 2 if you want that vibe, or something more modern (Crunch Lab or D-activator) with a little extra top and a little tighter bottom?

129

The Pickup Place / Re: Are these switching options possible ?

« on: June 28, 2019, 09:37:29 AM »

I live this “the reality of this younger generation is we don’t play this blues scale anything because we have evolved”. From people that probably weren’t there and are either regurgitating something they heard or are just making up an erroneous statement.

I know I am reading like I’m trolling, but I am not. I just love the whole idea that they are somehow doing something new that nobody else is or has. So here’s my potshot: Before you take a stab at someone because of their tag on a forum, try and make sure that a) they aren’t trying to give you advice from having been there and done that and b) that your statement or little off the cuff remark has some basis in fact.
If your generation has evolved playing so much,  then please by all means show me these new “evolved”  and “exotic” scales and modes that have been unlocked so the rest of us old guys can quit playing pentatonic.😂

https://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Cook-Book-scales-chords/dp/2953112243
This and the new Periphery album, Hail Stan 
It's not like this stuff hasn't been done before, because there's only a finite number of ways to work in 12-tone based Western theory, but a lot of the modern guys (from prog like Periphery to math rock like Covet to bluesy guys like Nick Johnston) are incorporating elements from other genres and regions that guitar-focused music has avoided for a really long time.
It's not like it's some higher plane bullshit like a lot of these guys seem to think it is because their heads are too far up their butts, it's just a different palette: Les Pauls into cranked Marshalls playing pentatonic-based blues-rock can be a killer combination if the music is good, in the same way that some fancy headless fan-fret 42-fret 13-string in Drop Q through a massive pedalboard into a 6-channel 300-watt head (with obligatory AxeFX in the loop of course) can be. It just depends on the music.
Different tools for different situations. You wouldn't use a 3-way CNC to put a knob in a door, but you also wouldn't use a drill to make a heat sink.
Tosin Abasi couldn't play AaL on an Stimer-equipped Selmer through a PA, the same way Django Reinhardt couldn't do his thing through Tosin's rig.

. . . actually on second though Django would probably kill it on an 8-string, freakin' madman

130

The Pickup Place / Re: Foam under pickups

« on: June 27, 2019, 03:17:28 PM »

The pickups sound a bit different without the foam.  I think the foam affects the magnetic field.  The guitar squealed bad.  I put my hand over the pickup, with the strings muted and it squealed.  Took the foam out, and no more squealing.  Very strange.  I heard compression tubing rots over time, do you have any recommendations for material types?

Thanks!

That's interesting. If your foam was compressing or aging weirdly it might have been causing some weird microphonics from physically messing with the pickup. I like the foam that comes in pickup boxes and surgical tubing (you need to get the tiny stuff though) because those tend to last a good while.

131

Gear Closet / Re: Baritone Amp Suggestions

« on: June 26, 2019, 03:48:33 AM »

So here's an idea

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PtqqScLx5GsADNQPZ066ukDuipjotRZi

Sweetwater was blowing out the Elektron Analog Drive for $99 this past weekend and I picked one up. This is the Analog Drive, straight into my interface, with some random IR I got on the Axe FX forums and a free IR loader (the dirty bits have a noise gate and the clean has some reverb). CL6 in drop A for the first few riffs (the first one is the Big Dist circuit, the second Focused Dist, and the third High Gain), then the Strandy in Drop C (Dirty Drive circuit) and D Standard (with the Clean Boost as a clean preamp of sorts). These are like $200 new, $150ish used, and this (or something similar like the Strymon Sunset or Riverside) with a good clean amp (and the Mustang's actually got a pretty good clean) is a pretty versatile setup. If you want to upgrade the amp, something like a Blues Junior would work well with it.
It's a different approach, depends on what you're looking for. Just a thought 

132

The Pickup Place / Re: Pick Ups for Baritone

« on: June 26, 2019, 02:45:28 AM »

Oof. That sounds rough. Is it a bad mix or a bad album?

See, that's interesting. I didn't know I could pull a Hendrix on it. Would the Paf Pro be affected.similarly if I did the same thing with it?

It's a Dream Theater mix, so it sounds pretty good, but The Astonishing is like 2 hours of tired composition, a much-overdone concept (and being that it's a concept album that's pretty bad), and is probably the album where James Labrie is at his most nasal and obnoxious. Like, it's DT, so it's still better than a lot of stuff, but for DT it's basically trash.
The intro riff of Our New World though, before the rest of the band comes in, is my benchmark heavy guitar tone. It's soooooo good. Then the rest of the band comes in and it just turns into more The Astonishing and, in a move that's astonishing to no one, I lose interest completely and go listen to Wolf & Bear's Everything Goes Gray because I need to scrub my ears with something good.
The thing with flipping the D Sonic (and a bunch of other Dimarzios) is that they're not wound symetrically - each coil has a different output and tone, so flipping them around affects what you hear pretty drastically. I'm pretty sure the PAF Pro isn't one of these and flipping it will do nothing, but I think the FRED and the Satriani pickups that are based on it (Mo' Joe and PAF Joe) do this. FRED's a little brighter and snappier than the 'Pro, Mo' Joe is a brawnier FRED, and the PAF Joe is a little midrangier and more flutey.

133

Gear Closet / Re: Baritone Amp Suggestions

« on: June 26, 2019, 02:35:55 AM »

Now, is that the Katana combo or just the Katana head? Would I be able to use the head without a cab or would I be better of with the combo?

That's the head with the line out. You can use headphones with it, and it's usable without a cab (either with no speaker volume just in Standby with the line out or at 30 watts with these tiny built-in speakers it has), but if you want the big amp-in-the-room sound (which from what you've said I think might be too loud for you) then you want the cab, ideally.
If you get a Katana combo, you really want the Artist 1x12. The head and 2x12 are like $150 more total, but IMO gives you a lot more versatility (you have the internal speakers, line out, and cab) and if you want to upgrade stuff in the future you can keep the Katana cab with a new head or swap out the cab and keep the Kat head.
Either one will do what you want, it's just a matter of form factor. Same wattage, and you can run a cab out of the Kat Artist combo if you want. I like head and cab because I used my DV Mark 2x12 for seating and the Kat Head's internal speakers as a sound system in my dorm room, and I could pack the head and effects in a duffle bag and carry my guitar in one hand and cab in the other. I had a Katana 50 combo at the same time and had trouble getting the speaker to push air at neighbor-friendly volumes while still sounding passable whereas the head with the internal speakers would be fine if a little thin, but good for practice.
TL;DR: Get the combo if space is really limited or get the head with a long speaker cable and put some cushions on the cab and use it as a stool.

134

The Pickup Place / Re: DiMarzio Releases Rainmaker and Dreamcatcher Pickups

« on: June 25, 2019, 07:49:01 AM »

Thanks for posting Darth. I was just about to make a post with the press release but it looks like you got to it before me!

I gotta see if I can get a sample for testing.

If you can get your hands on a set I'd be really curious how the Rainmaker does as a bridge pickup

135

Guitar Lounge / Re: ESP guitars

« on: June 25, 2019, 06:49:27 AM »

Gibson is just 
I bought an Explorer for my 18th birthday because I wanted a Big Boy Gibson (tm) but holy hell what a dog. The damn thing had more dead spots and wolf notes than actual playable fretboard, and I'm not even gonna talk about the fretwork because clearly they didn't do any.

I hope they lose and all their stuff goes public domain so ESP can bring back the MX. I will straight up sell a lung for one if they release one in the US.