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The Pickup Place / Re: Neck Humbucker trick for removing mud/boom

« on: June 04, 2015, 10:16:54 AM »

I have an original (1970's) L-500 in my Tele neck position and it's outstanding. Nice crystal clear highs and smooth, clear lows when dialed down. On the tone pot, I put a .046 cap and I can go full dark and not get muddy.

When I built up my Strat HH, I put an L-500R in the neck. It has slightly different but still clean tone at both ends of the tone control. I put a .046 cap on the pot but a .033 is all I really need since it does get darker than I ever like. I suppose I'll replace that one of these days.

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The Pickup Place / Re: DM Area T + Bill Lawrence L-500

« on: May 10, 2015, 12:16:24 PM »

The white wire is the series link. Put it to ground you run the pickup as a single coil.

Cheers Stephan

I suspected something like that. I have a push/pull control pot I can put in to take advantage of that. Many thanks.

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The Pickup Place / DM Area T + Bill Lawrence L-500

« on: May 08, 2015, 12:23:22 PM »

I'm looking to put a very early Bill Lawrence L-500 Neck with a DM Area T 615 at the bridge. The wiring on the DM is standard. The Bill Lawrence isn't. It must have been made before they standardized things. It only has red, white and black wires plus a shielding.

The guitar the L-500 is in has the shield and black to ground and the red to the pickup switch. The white was just taped off. Does anyone know what that white wire does? Although new ones evidently have a green wire also, there are no other wires coming from this pickup.

I tested it and both coils are live and the tone is good so it's working as a humbucker.

I could just hook it up the same with the DM and see how it works. If things are out of whack, I could then reverse the hot and ground on the DM. I don't want to miss some wiring option that might be good to have, though.

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The Pickup Place / Re: What is "normal" turnaround time for pickup installation?

« on: May 06, 2015, 10:08:19 AM »

I do most of my own work. I recently get a new neck and not having any fret files or experience working with frets, I took it to a local tech to get installed. He told me it would take 3 or 4 days since he was backed up. He called me on the 2nd day and said it was ready. In that time, he installed the neck and made sure everything was properly leveled and set up, including any nut work. He apologized for charging $85 instead of the quoted $80 because he had to dress a couple of frets. I'd pay more than that for a set of decent files.

Any pickup installation, wiring or other work, I do myself. It's easy and can be fun. When you're done, you know exactly what you have.

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Everything you wanted to know about .... / Re: 36th neck in bridge?

« on: March 29, 2015, 08:37:41 PM »

At the recommendation of a tech at DiMarzio, I put a 36th Anniv Neck PAF in the bridge position on my Strat. It works very well and even has that watery sound you expect from a Tele. I'm pleased.

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Gear Closet / Re: Picking Picks (picks, not pickups)

« on: March 25, 2015, 10:25:42 AM »

I originally started playing with a Fender medium. Over a many year search for the 'perfect' pick, I tried a lot of different ones. I have some that when I pick them up, I wonder, "What the hell was I thinking?" In the end, I settled on Fender medium. Now I just get a different color when I want something else.