daniboy

hey! you guys are sure dang funny!

back to the topic at hand, clapton's woman tone. i approximated it with an alder, mple/rosewood strat and a duncan 59 trembucker into a tech21 trademark 10, fender blues junior and a peavey classic 30. ymmv though. but i did fiddle with the tone knob on the strat to get what i wanna hear.

just my 0.02.

dani

check all gounding and soldering. if everything is good, it may be a pot problem. what kind of noise are you experiencing? is it hum (a low buzzing sound) or crackle when you turn the volume pot? it will help isolate your problem area.

dani

i suggest getting actual bobbins and use a pink bobbing topper from brian calvert. its only $2 a pop. beats having a pickup imploding on you.

my 0.02,

dani

friedman uses a duncan jb and the duncan custom was designed for becker. i am not very sure what angelo use. the breed was build to thicken things up ala a les paul in a trem equipped guitar. it may suit your requirement but not ideal for shredding. but i have not heard or played one though.

i am more familiar with duncan pickups and for shredding, 3 humbuckers comes to mind. jb, custom and distortion. that said, these 3 are pretty bright pickups as clarity and fast tracking is needed for shredding. of these, only the jb uses a5 magnet and the rest are ceramic.

you may want to go for ceramic magnet pickups. the have the in-your-face tone that cuts through the mix and if they are too bright for certain applications, there's always the tone control. you can also fiddle around with pot and capacitor values to fine-tune the tone you are looking for.

hope that helps!

dani

well i went to dimarzios site, and listened to the soundclips. unfortunatly they dont have SD3 sound clips. i might just go with breed bridge

what guitar is your pickups going in to? woods, construction, effects and amps play a big part in your tone. also, is there someone's tone you dig?

dani

10000 coils is just a generalization. you can either overwind or underwind for higher and lower output respectively. also, there are other factors in the mix that affects the tone like gauge of wires used, wires insulation material and magnets. as lovekraft describe, its gibson's answer to fender's singlecoils and it has a raunchy, midrangey tone that falls between a singlecoil and humbucker.

structure-wise, the wires are coiled more like an oval around the bobbin and p90s uses 2 opposing bar magnets and adjustable screws as polepieces as opposed to magnetic polepieces of traditional singlecoils.

dani

i agree with phil. bass vi is more of a baritone guitar tuned e to e one octave below a normal guitar. albeit sharing the same tuning as a bass, it is played more like a guitar and the tone is exactly between a bass and guitar. very good for creating texture within a song. robert smith of the cure uses the bass vi alot on their recordings.

pickup-wise, stay away from bass pickups. their bass response is too much for the bass vi. you would want something clearer in order not to turn it to mud. alnico 5 strat and jaguar pickups are your best bet.

dani

mini pots are less sensitive to changes as do normal size pots. i would suggest going for good quality normal size audio taper pots like cts for guitars. i believe your guitar's control cavity is routed to fit normal-sized pots since they are the industry standard.

dani

all the ground wires are normally soldered to the back of the volume or tone pot. check out starr gounding, www.guitarnuts.com for a more elaborate (and better) grounding.

dani

from my limited experience, normal spaced humbuckers installed in a trem-equipped guitar won't make much difference tonally. the 2 e strings will be off-axis slightly. only thing is when you bend the high e, you will notice a slight increase in presense and output when your string passes the centre of the polepiece.

as for pickups, dimarzio has a couple that fits your description. i would not recommend the tone zone. mud city in the wrong guitar. i find the air zone a more forgiving pickup. there's also the norton/air norton. they will suit your needs fine. super distortion is a better choice compared to the sd3. if i am not mistaken, the sd3 has less bass and more highs.

dani

hello fluke,

what is it exactly you will be using for active circuitry? under the usual circumstances of passive/active mix, your passive pickups hi-z signal will be conververted to lo-z. you will have a cleaner and clearer tone with a little increase in the high frequencies (some say sterile). lo-z signals will drive long cables - up to 30m - without losing much signal strength. and of course, you will need room to fit the 9v battery.

dani

look at how Godin does it, godin. scrool all the way down and look at the yellow guitar. see how the body is but to let the strings pass to the bridge? It isint REALLY necessary but it looks WAY better IMO. (and it allows you to have a greater string angle even with a greatly recessed bridge)

thanks for the godin catalogue godin sd! really appreciate it!

dani

godin sd, doug, maiden69,

good call on the string tension behind the bridge. initially, i was concerned about the break angle of the strings from the string holes to the bridge. i wasn't thinking of recessing the bridge until the issue of neck angle popped up.

if string pressure is an issue, maybe i can use ibanez's gibraltar iii tom-style bridge as installed on their sz series. i read somewhere there's a forum member who is an ibanez parts dealer.

dani

The string tension will be a bit less, but it will be enough to hold the string in the saddle if they were build right, thats the same angle I got on my LP and the same one that Zakk Wylde have on his with the Strings over the stop piece. I will like to say that I abuse the strings when I play, but Zakk does a hell of a better job that I could, and the strings stay in place. It's a good observation, but as long as the slots on the saddles are propertly done, you shouldn't have any problem.

Another pic I just took now. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v195/Maiden69/DSC01774.jpg

maiden69,

pardon me, but is there a reason besides asthetics for you to align the string holes like you did?

dani

drak,

you must be describing the twangbuckers by rio grande. i totally forgot about that! actually, i am planning to do one of those 'telegibs'. y'know, gibby tone on a tele body? in fact, i was contemplating between a hipshot hardtail or a tonepro. i even thought of sawing a vintage 3-saddle tele bridge in half to accomodate a humbucker!

since most of my guitars are hardtails and imo its sacrilegious to saw a tele bridge in half, i went for the next best option, tom. i would consider the twangbuckers if they are using 3-saddle tele bridge. it sounds better than a 6-saddle bridge imo. in this case, which bridge system iwould you recommend n order to fit a bucker in the bridge?

cheers!

dani

thanks for the warm welcome matt and kevan!

the tsunami thingy is causing alot of pain and havoc in the region. saddest thing is that most of the countries hit and locals affected are relatively poor in terms of monetary and resources. se asia is doing all they all they can be it monetary, medical supplies, daily necessities and manpower to tide things over.

what a tragic way to usher 2005. my prayers are with the families who has lost their loved ones in this disaster.

dani

brasso is a good option. i used it to great effect on all my duncan pickups.

my apologies guys.

i will use the search function first in future!

dani

thanks for your observations drak!

i do have a 'normal' tele and i totally dig the body shape hence this 'tele' project. i am actually looking to thicken the tone up. i am planning to use a bucker in the bridge and p-90 in the neck. somewhat like a hybrid between a tele and a gibby.

dani

thanks for the replies guys!

i have a couple of options actually. i have a 24 3/4" scale maple/ebony (fretboard was replaced from rosewood to ebony and fretted) godin radiator neck. problem is, it does not have standard heel specs as fender strat/tele necks. in this case, i can order a mahogany tele body without bridge and neck routs and progress to rout for the neck and bridge after determining the location for the bridge.

either that or i can try selling the godin radiator neck and body (which i doubt anybody would want to buy) and build a complete tele and rout the bridge for the stb/tom bridge.

lastly, which is my most cost effective option is to purchase a mahogany blank and build the body from scratch to fit the neck.

i have read that i will need to recess the tom bridge since i do not intend to have a neck angle. anybody have any information on tom bridge recessing and how far away should the holes for the strings be away from the bridge? also, i realized that there are different 'formation' of holes. i.e. ibanez and schecter does their stb differently if you get what i mean. is there any rationale behind this?

if possible, i would appreciate which option would you recommend for someone without any guitar building experience.

cheers!

dani

hi all,

this is my first post as well as my first intended project, so please go easy on me.

i've been wanting to build a mahogany tele with string-thru body and t-o-m bridge for a long time since i can't find a tele body with the said bridge configuration.

can somebody with the experience advise me the easiest way to go about doing it?

cheers!

dani

hi all forum mates,

firstly, a merry christmas and happy new year to you and your love ones!

i am a newbie in singapore looking to venture into electric guitar-making. if possible, i hope all of you please tolerate my questions. looking forward to all your help, advice and opinions!

cheers and warmest regards!

dani