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Topics - greekdude

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The Pickup Place / pup recommendation for new strat build
« on: December 09, 2022, 02:49:18 PM »
Dear All
my new strat build (HH) is currently wearing a SD livewires set, first generation 18V, 100k pots, classic in the neck, modded metal in the bridge, I added a 100k mini pot in the bridge output at about 25% of the volume. As is now it sounds balanced and nice overall. However compared to my other strat HSH (Dimarzio fast track 2, fast track 1, the chopper) it sounds poor.

So, what the closest DMZ set to Dimarzio Fast Track2 / Chopper , but in full humbucker size? I play rock/metal.  I dont want torching high output, I want nice balanced tone, close to the Fast Track 2 / Chopper, I remember when I had Fast track 1 in the neck it was even nicer, but not too balanced with the bridge.

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Yesterday for no reason, (yes in Athens you have to have a reason) I paid the tech a visit to his shop, as I was around the block spying on my Son and his behavior (long story).

The tech's work is perfect, however we got into a debate . He claims that humbuckers dont need no bridge grounding. When he did my Carvin, transformation from left --> right and he did an absolutely fantastic job beyond belief, he didn't ground the bridge. The guitar has HSS : dimarzio super-distortion bridge/generic carvin middle/air norton S neck. I realized this right away. My rig basically consists of :
guitar --> boss me-25 --> headphones, so this was pretty audible. I tried with other DMZ guitars I have and they were dead silent.
So I conencted the bridge ground and I noticed that :
a) when playing via the me-25 with the amp unplugged the noise was there : not hum, more like a high freq bzzzz / hiss
b) when playing via the me-25 with the amp plugged (regardless of the amp being on) the noise was gone

I know there have been ages since I moded any guitar, but according to the theory should HB also cancel high freq hiss besides regular hum? Why does grounding the bridge actually works?
Again sorry for forgetting all the old classic original GN theory ... I am getting old, can you pls shed some light to this question?

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The Pickup Place / Super Distortion noise?
« on: January 08, 2019, 10:07:13 AM »
Hello,
as I was doing this vid : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzfkxKkhb-A

I was between :
- my strat with fast tracks/chopper
- my Ibanez universe with blazes
- my carvin with Super Distortion / Air Norton S
- my kramer with EMG 81/85

I had to record in front of the laptop. And you can see there is a fairly high amount of gain. I noticed that with the Ibanez (blazes) there was no noise at all in front of the laptop, even with the noise gate set to minimum (2/10). Same with Air Norton s - no noise at all. Miraculously the EMGs were silent as well, although at the standing position - and away from the laptop- normally they are the noisiest (it happens with all 4 of my EMGs but its another story). However with the Super Distortion I had to raise the noise gate to 5 to be able to record this song, which has a lot of pauses especially at the beginning.

When standing away from the laptop the Super Distortion is quite silent. I will do more tests and measurements in the evening.

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Center Stage / Judas Priest : Electric Eye
« on: November 13, 2018, 05:06:50 PM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYtx-L7kpqU

super distortion + air norton S

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The Pickup Place / Static humbukcer hum/buzz
« on: November 04, 2018, 02:52:12 PM »
Hello ppl, long time no post, sorry for that, but all my DMZ seemed to work fine!

this is about the Carvin dc135, in which the tech installed a push/pull pot for series/parallel to neck (dimarzio air norton S) and also bridge (dimarzio super distortion (full size)).
Well, the guitar makes noise, which stops when I touch the strings. Ok you will tell me, so it should be, except the Blazes does not.
The same problem has my Aria Strar with dimarzio fast track 2 (b), fast track I (m), the Chopper (n).

Also, when I approach the right hand on the bridge pup (super dist) the buzz / hum increases ..... When that happens, pressing all the strings with the left hand then the buzz disappears.

The mods on the strat push/pull neck for series/parallel, push/pull bridge for series/parallel, + add bridge to all positiond switch + bridge tone control, I did it myself. The wiring on the Carvin was made by the tech, while Ibanez with his blazes is stock.

Are some magnets affected more than others by static electricity?

Checked for the shielding of the pups and indeed the chassis is connected to the ground in all the aforementioned guitars (strat / Carvin) ....

If I did not have the blazes to function super quiet, I wouldn't investigate further.


As a side note, the blazes are new, the guitar was bought in 2014, while the super distortion, air norton S, fast tracks, chopper were bought and played for over 20 years... maybe something happened to them? Also I have to say this is only under high gain.

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The Pickup Place / NPD fit EMG85/81 in my Kramer 210
« on: January 19, 2017, 04:24:42 AM »
Hi,
I just finished replacing my old SD livewire/livewire metal set in my old Kramer 210 (which run at 18v and 100KOhm pots), with the EMG 85b/81n set. Originally I intended this to be the classic 81b/85n setup but as many ppl have experienced this does not balance well. I tested both with the stock 18v wiring as well as with bridging one of the clips (9V). here are my impressions, also with regards to another 81b/60n set that I have in my mahogany single-cut ARZ800 :
- I find the cleans of 85 in the bridge good. Better than livewire metal, for sure, but still nothing extraordinary. The 81 in the neck is somewhat darker than the livewire neck
- I kept the 9V mod, with 18V I didn't get the squealies I get with the 9V mod. Now it squeals easier almost all over the board, even in high E
- I concluded once again that wood/construction/scale is VERY important. The guitar surely sounds different than with the livewires but the basic character is unchanged. The natural harmonics that used to ring very loud with the livewires are still the same harmonics that want to ring loud with the EMGs. Next strings change I will try with swapping to 81b/85n or by replacing the 81/60 I have an the ARZ800. In short I feel that what I hear in the ARZ800 is not EMG sound but mahogany 25", 24 frets, fixed bridge sound, and in the Kramer not EMG sound but 80s super strat, 22 frets, floyd-rose sound.
- So when I dreamed of getting the cleans of 81/60 in the ARZ800 with the Kramer I was wrong. The cleans in neck are nice (livewire neck was nice as well but with more treble), bridge are good, mid works nice, but not mind blowing.
- 85 output-wise, destroys the 81. 85b/81n balances very good at the same height.
- 85 is very quiet. 81 not so much.
- Distorted sounds great in bridge and neck. Plenty of shredding tones. Nice riffs.

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Guitar Lounge / New 26.5" 7-string neck-through project
« on: October 02, 2016, 10:31:08 AM »
Hello,
a friend of mine offered to make a guitar with the above specs for me, for free, but I'd have to provide materials and the template(s).
So the question is, is there any source I could get a template for 26.5" 7-string neck-through ?

The way I imagine the final product :

- 7 string, RG or (RGA or RGD) shaped
- 26.5" neck-trough, 5-piece maple/wenge (or equivalent) neck with titanium rods, double-action truss rod, very thin neck RG-type
- Ash body or alder
- Floyd Rose (or equivalent)
- white body (parchment, cream-like)
- maple fretboard
- chrome hardware

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The Pickup Place / Chopper far too boomy in neck
« on: May 23, 2016, 10:39:35 AM »
Hi I was just testing my strat yesterday away from compressors, effects, pedals, etc.. tried a minimal setup, and couldn't find a balance between : bridge series/neck series and bridge parallel/neck parallel volumes. Also I had to eliminate the boomy tone of chopper in the neck both in series and parallel switching.
The guitar has FT2/FT1/Chopper with the following mods :
- push/pull pots for series/parallel (vol pot switches bridge pup, upper tone pot switches neck pup)
- added bridge to all positions toggle
- added tone control to the bridge pup

When I set parallel sound to match the chopper in series would become too boomy. When I tried to correct that by raising string action (buzz had to go) and lowering neck pup height, then in parallel the bridge pup would dominate the neck pup. I had to adjust the chopper almost flush to get rid of the boomy tone. I tried everything, I started to think smth is wrong with either the guitar or the particular chooper. This pup sounds loud in general. But cannot seem to find a good compromise between all possible uses there.
I might try raising the string action a little bit more, but that's bizarre, rest of guitars dont have this problem... hmmm maybe because the neck pup is right over the 2nd harmonic node where string's vibration magnitude is pretty high?

11
Hello ppl,
So I got this Ibanez uv70p, green-dot (25.5" scale, Blazes 7-string), which I love, plays great, low action, great tone, sustain, but lately I started wanting to drop tuning. So I changed the low 0.054 (tuned to B) with a 0.059 (what the shop had closest to 0.062 which I had calculated by tension), and dropped to A. Guitar had a little less over all tension, but no biggie, no changes in setup, no severe buzz. But didn't like the tone on low A. Not the definition and heaviness I'd expect. With standard B-tuning it sounds better. Not great but good.
So, I wonder : is the guitar? or the pups? Should upgrading to D-activator set or Blackouts solve the problem (while retaining the green dot looks) or should I just sell this guitar and get some guitar with bigger scale and more low-tune friendly pups?

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The Pickup Place / Blaze 7 neck : annoying imbalance while bending
« on: October 25, 2015, 07:36:38 AM »
After setting my action very low (in the range of 1.3mm 24th fret low B, 1mm 24th fret high E), I noticed that especially the neck Blaze produces a very imbalanced tone while bending. Its like almost switching between parallel/in series kind of effect. It seems that when the string lies between the two magnetic fields of two pole pieces, the output is weak.
Any opinion on that?
Any remedy?

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