1

The Pickup Place / Re: Super Distortion vs 36th Anniversary bridge

« on: January 12, 2021, 03:27:32 am »

Even with 500k pots I found that the SD has a sizzly top end - this may be what you referred to as "ceramic top end". I got rid of it by adding a resistor from hot to ground to bring the total load to about 380k. Gone was the fizzy top end and what is left is just great tone. So before swapping the SD out, try a 470k resistor from the hot connection of the pickup to ground and see if you like the effect.

Just noticed that my math was slightly off - with 470k in parallel to 1M you will get a load of about 330k. To get a load of about 380k as I suggested you would need to add a 680k resistor (you will get about 400k) or a 560k (you will get about 360k).  The closest would be to add two 1.2 meg ohm resistors (=600k), which would give you about 375k.

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Norton vs. Air Norton in bridge position

« on: January 12, 2021, 03:22:55 am »

Actually I replaced a Virtual Hot PAF with an Air Norton in one of my strats (used both with 250k volume), and to my ears they have about the same output but the Air Norton has slightly more mids. Other pickups on the guitar are Area 58 middle and Area 67 neck. In #2 the Air Norton and the Area 58 get split with the neck side coil of the AN active - quacks just fine to me.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Super Distortion vs 36th Anniversary bridge

« on: January 10, 2021, 02:48:21 pm »

Even with 500k pots I found that the SD has a sizzly top end - this may be what you referred to as "ceramic top end". I got rid of it by adding a resistor from hot to ground to bring the total load to about 380k. Gone was the fizzy top end and what is left is just great tone. So before swapping the SD out, try a 470k resistor from the hot connection of the pickup to ground and see if you like the effect.

Good luck,
Stephan

4

The Pickup Place / Re: Norton vs. Air Norton in bridge position

« on: January 07, 2021, 05:18:35 am »

They definitely do sound different - the Air Norton is significantly brighter. The tone chart does not reflect this when compared in the same application (i.e. bridge vs. bridge).

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The Pickup Place / Re: Dimarzio tech support MIA?

« on: January 06, 2021, 04:09:27 am »

I noticed that with many retailers various models are out of stock, e.g. nobody stocks a Liquifire at the moment. Hope they get back on track soon.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Norton vs. Air Norton in bridge position

« on: January 05, 2021, 04:43:25 am »

I forgot to mention in my earlier post that in that strat I use 250k log pots. With a 500k volume pot the Air Norton in the bridge would be very bright and probably excessively so in most guitars.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Disagreement with my tech : very simple question : is HB ground wiring needed?

« on: December 30, 2020, 05:13:37 am »

And to the initial question: is HB ground wiring needed?

Here is some practical experience I had with a mid 70s Gibson Les Paul Custom with two covered humbuckers. The electronic cavity was completely encapsuled in a metal case. If you unscrewed the case you found that all pots were mounted on a metal base plate so the entire electonics were shielded from any outside interference. This worked really well- no buzz/hum whatsoever - until I decided to remove the covers from the humbuckers! Then the shield was broken and I got the buzz. Since it did not go away when I touched the strings I knew that there was no string ground. So if your shielding is really good then string grounding is not necessary - that is also part of the EMG system. If the shielding is less than perfect (which it is in almost all guitars) it depends on the level of noise you are willing to tolerate (which may correlate to the levels of gain you want to use).

You may then ask why don't manufacturers better shield their guitars? Most likely answers: 1) Cost (it is one step more in the manufacturing chain involving both more material and labor), 2) the string ground works well enough, 3) shielding has side effects on the tone (I hear it as making the high end stiff and harsh) which you may or may not be willing to tolerate (I am not).

Cheers Stephan

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The Pickup Place / Re: Disagreement with my tech : very simple question : is HB ground wiring needed?

« on: December 30, 2020, 05:02:26 am »

So the question is : if the noise in case of no bridge grounding comes from strings/bridge/body how can a humbucker cancel low freq EMI coming from the mains (50Hz in Greece, 60Hz in USA), but *not* EMI/EFI coming for the strings/bridge/body? Shouldn't the humbucker principal work in this case as well?

Because the noise comes from a different source. Humbuckers cancel magnetically induced hum. The noise you hear in guitars with ungrounded bridges (or with grounded bridges if you don't touch the strings) is capacitively induced. Sonically it is different, too - a magnetically induced hum is usually just that - a low frequency hum whereas capacitively induced hum is lower in level but at a higher frequency. It usually manifests as a buzz which (at least to my ears) can be even more annoying than a low frequency hum.

Cheers Stephan

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News & New Guys / Re: Happy Holidays!

« on: December 20, 2020, 05:15:01 am »

Many thanks, Budd, and a Happy Holiday Season for you as well!

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News & New Guys / Re: Big Server Update!

« on: December 10, 2020, 03:01:52 am »

It seems the search function is only putting out a limited number of results for a given term.

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The Pickup Place / Re: Should I swap my Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates neck pup for a DiMarzio Liquifire?

« on: December 10, 2020, 02:59:53 am »

If high gain soloing is what you're after you won't go with the Liquifire because that's what it does.

I guess you meant to say "you won't go wrong with the Liquifire".

Cheers Stephan

12

The Pickup Place / Re: Single Coil Size P-90

« on: December 07, 2020, 02:25:16 am »

Injector bridge is still a strat bridge, and to my ears only slightly leaning to the p90 territory. So is the Virtual Solo. There is no P90 in the DiMarzio Area series so if it has to be a humcancelling DiMarzio you would have to go to the dual rail types. Chopper would be closer but to me it is more hot PAF than P90. The Kinman Big Nine-O comes close. 

I agree with Budd that the SDS-1 comes close, too, but it is not humcancelling.

Cheers Stephan

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News & New Guys / Re: Big Server Update!

« on: December 03, 2020, 02:39:11 am »

The bad news?
Some of you may have lost your avatars, but that just gives you an excuse to find a new one.

It was gone for a short while but now it returned

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The Pickup Place / Re: Chimey Humbuckers?

« on: December 02, 2020, 02:41:37 am »

BTW an easy and inexpensive way to get more brightness out of a humbucker is to wire the coils in parallel instead of in series. However, if you leave it at that you will find that it is now too bright in most cases. But if you add a 470k resistor in parallel with a small cap (0.001 to 0.0033uf) from the hot output to ground tames any excessive brightness (thanks to RayBarbeeMusic for this idea). I just did that on a guitar which had an 80s OBL L500 XL in the bridge which had way too much output and distorted almost anything it was plugged into.

Cheers Stephan

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News & New Guys / Re: Big Server Update!

« on: December 02, 2020, 02:35:38 am »

I like the new looks. And posts indeed seem to be uploaded faster than before. I will test the search function next and report.

Good job so far, and thanks Budd for all your effort.

Cheers Stephan