1 Topic by Forrest Greene

(3 replies, posted in Amplifiers)

I recently upgraded an electric guitar with a new wiring harness, including pots, switch & plug, & a new pair of pickups. It sounds good, but shortly after the new components were installed, a buzzing hum started making itself heard.

Grounding problem, I said, & returned to the techs who did the installation. They couldn’t hear the buzz. Life being much like a situation comedy, when I got the guitar home, the buzz was still there. I’ve had good service from this shop, so am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

On its return the buzz had changed both its sound & the conditions under which it appeared. Previously it was the same at all settings, & stopped when skin touched metal. Now that no longer stopped it, & it sounded different under different settings. Some were clear, some no longer worked at all. There was also a new sound, a gurgling tick-tock which sounded pretty digital to me.

I now wonder if the problem might be with the amplifier. Before I rent an amp & guitar & try out diagnostic mixing & matching, I’d like to be better informed. Here are my questions:

This is a five year old hybrid amp, part digital, part tube. How long does a typical tube last before needing replacement?

The amp never had this problem before. Could it be that, before its upgrades, the guitar was never delivering enough signal to make an existing problem audible? I also tried an acoustic-electric guitar without hearing the buzz. Again, could that be due to insufficient signal from the guitar?

Last, the guitar’s new pickups are not wax-potted. Reviews say this can, in some circumstances, cause them to become “microphonic.” I haven’t a clue what that might sound like, but is it worth considering?

Thanks for your help!

Go to forum: Amplifiers

2 Topic by Forrest Greene

(0 replies, posted in Introduce yourself)

I visited the web site of a well-known string manufacturer whose products are used by many, including myself. Google a few and you’ll find it. Their opening page had logos, copy, and three or four windows leading the viewer to pages on more specific topics.

One of these was a new line of strings, presented as novel and exciting due to some new characteristic. The manufacturer, or I should say its ad agency, was at pains to point out the interest these strings were generating among users. They chose as their campaign’s tagline the following:

    “XYZ Strings... Hear the buzz!” 

You don’t get to say “infelicitous turn of phrase?” very often, so I was glad to ask the manufacturer’s media department about this. I haven’t heard back.


~~~~~

Go to forum: Introduce yourself

3 Topic by Forrest Greene

(0 replies, posted in Guitars)

I’m the pleased new owner of an Epiphone Sheraton II (Vintage Sunburst) & a Fender Super Champ XD. It’s difficult to research the Sheraton without seeing many references to modifying it anywhere between one-new-pickup & nothing-original-but-the-wood. It’s a popular model for that.

I imagine I’ll at least consider modifications at some point, once I know the guitar better. New tubes for the amp & so forth, in a spirit of bringing out potential. To that end, here are a few beginner’s questions. It seems more economical to ask all at once rather than create several new topics:

== Many mention the Sheraton’s hardware’s gold finish fading out, rubbing off. They vow to install nickel or chrome pieces. To me, unless it starts looking really funky --- I mean “funky” in a bad way, you understand, & “bad” in a, well, bad way --- or my arm turns green, that rubbed-out gold is just the distressed relic look some pay lots for in other circumstances.

Likewise, I’d keep the orange jello top hat knobs, etc. Everything visually as original as possible, soup it up on the inside. This brings me to consider pickup covers. Suppose I install the popular combination of Gibson ’57 Classic neck & Classic Plus bridge. Would the Sheraton’s original gold covers be likely to fit over them? I’m hoping pickups, especially maybe cousins like Gibson & Epiphone, are all of similar enough sizes to keep the original pieces as well as save $35 to apply elsewhere on the project. 

== I’ve installed Tusq nut, saddle & bridge pins on my acoustic guitar with good results. I see GraphTech sells not only nuts specifically for Epiphones, but sets of six saddles for Tune-O-Matic bridges as well. Has anyone tried them?

== It would probably be best to do it all at once, but are there any dire arguments against splitting up the work between an electronics phase & a hardware phase?

== Am I forgetting anything? Pickups, pots, pickup switch, amp jack, electrical harness; tuners, nut & saddles, bridge, tail, pickup covers, strap knobs. I hope to leave the frets alone!

== Most people would probably say the one modification they’d make, if nothing else, would be installing new pickups. What is the one modification you would not make, if you had to eliminate one?

== Where can I get a really narrow muthrapurl-block-&-abalone-triangle inlay to fit between the sixteenth & seventeenth frets? That extra dark space on the neck drives me nuts. Just kidding.

Thank you all in advance!

Go to forum: Guitars