Keegan

If the bridge is grounded though, touching the strings will reduce noise. Hence the bridge is definitely grounded. If it weren't, touching the strings would have no effect at all. I would know, I've wired a guitar both ways. And yeah, I know noise from not being shielded is the same touching the strings or not. If he's only getting noise from sitting behind the guitar and not touching the strings there's nothing wrong with the wiring, there's just some kind of noise source in the room like lights or electrical wiring and if he shielded the guitar better he wouldn't even have to touch the strings to make the noise go away. If you want the noise to go away even when you're not touching the strings, make sure all electronics are surrounded on all sides with grounded shielding tape. This will also go to reduce some noise that occurs even when you ARE touching the strings. This will NOT make the hum from single coils go away or noise that the amp already made by itself go away. Effects pedals and amplifiers pick up noise from the electrical outlets they're plugged into. You can't do much about the amp except make sure it's wired with good components, shielded wire, and the transformer wires are twisted. With effects pedals you can either get a better power supply or just use batteries, as batteries are DC already and have no inherent 50/60Hz AC hum.

Guitarelectronics diagrams are a little harder to follow. I usually wind up screwing something up and having to double-check everything. It sounds like something is going to hot that shouldn't be and something else is going to ground that shouldn't be. Also their diagramming of switches is horrid. I tried to use one of their diagrams on my strat and the switch wound up backwards even though I did everything exactly as the diagram. Seymour Duncan diagrams are way better. I would use use one of their normal LP diagrams and then add in the push-pull functions later. It also helps if you understand why it works so that you know which wires need to go where instead of just following the diagram.

Here's another, except you'd be doing it for two pickups separately instead of one like in the photo: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wirin...h_coil_split_hb Edit: The guitarelectronics one will split both coils at the same time, btw.

Yeah, touching the strings makes you a shield, meaning that the bridge is grounded just fine and your noise is from a lack of shielding or just inherent like hum.

Listen to Bill, he knows what he's talking about.

It would have to be a normally closed switch or else you would have to be pushing the button continuously when you're playing a tune. With a normally closed switch, it's making contact all the time until you break the signal path by pushing the button. Also, I would think that you want the type of switch that immediately springs back to a closed position vs. one that stays open/closed after it clicks - they do make both types. No... you want a normally open(push-to-make) switch. You press it to ground the signal. With the normally closed switch, you'll get noise when you press the switch, even though it can also be wired to kill the signal.

Baritone is an octave above a 6-string bass, or a 4th below a normal guitar(like a 7-string without the high e) which is an octave above a 4-string bass. Hope that clears it up =P

Magnets to hold in the pickups? Like neodynium? Those pickups are going to have some bitching output.

His grounding is fine if touching the strings makes it go away. This is just what passive pickups do, especially single coils. The fact that your body shields it when you touch the strings suggests that you might benefit from some shielding inside the guitar.

Where'd you get pete's guitar?

Good luck, hope it pays better than luthiere.

Yup http://www.woodfinder.com/woods/english_walnut.php

That control cavity is going to have to take up half the guitar to fit all that in. You might simplify by having a master tone(or concentric), master volume(or concentric), and set the gain for the piezo by trim pot instead of with a volume knob. That'd give you 2 knobs and 2 switches, so you wouldn't even need anything larger than a normal LP cavity except for the piezo preamp.

That wiring would be with a normally open(NO) or push to make button. With a NC(Normally closed) or push-to-break button, you want to cut the hot wire near the jack, strip a little from each side, and wire the switch inbetween. edit: Those small ones like in your link aren't very good as they're so small. The best is probably the big square kind because it's easier to press. I'd also use push-to-make because it actually grounds the signal, but either one is fine really.

Thanks. Think I'm going to go with the Tone Zone with a series/parallel/north/south switch and maybe another switch for selecting the tone caps(one cap, no load, two caps in series). What value of tone cap do you need for humbuckers? Is it different than single coils? Right now I have a .022 with two 500k controls on my bridge p-90 and the 0 on the tone is plenty bassy for me. Should I stick with that value for a humbucker or go even lower because a humbucker will have less treble?

The problem with the super distortion is that you wind up with a small <7k ceramic single coil when you split it, and that sounds like it would probably be in ice-pick territory. Maybe the Dual Sound though, since it's a Super Distortion that's been specifically designed to be split.

Yeah, I know they can all split. I was wondering if you could point me in the direction of some especially well-suited pickups for split/parallel sounds. Hmm, both parallel might be a little tricky. I guess since it's two pole I'd just put the hots from both coils on one side and the grounds on the other? Then splitting the coils is easy.. I'm sure I can figure it out...going to be a lot of wires on that switch though.

I'm looking for something with 2 or 3 pretty solid sounds, so I can have stock tele switching. I can't find any decent blank tele control plates(the ones from guitarfetish have the gold painted on) so I want to stick with stock. I want something for clean sounds primarily. I hate shopping for pickups though. So many kinds...and so much lying about what they're like. Do you know of a better splittable humbucker?

Nevermind, I think the SD P-rails are what I'm looking for.

Got the pickup and control cavity routed and did most of the sanding to 320. Edit: I know everything looks off center, but I swear it's square, just not with the grain because apparently the padouk was cut/glued just a degree or so off of the grain. It all lines up with the glue joint at least. Oh well, I suppose it would have been silly for me to expect my first build to be perfect. Next time I'll definitely make a better/more complete template and do everything from it. I've learned a lot of things I can do better next time at least. Has anyone here tried an EMG 89?

SRV used bass strings on his guitar so they had the silk wraps

It would be bad.

If the string locks are ready, why aren't they for sale on the site? Or are they included with the bridges? I'd love to get one, but Euros aren't cheap in the US.

It's hard ash, that's why.