Samba Pa Ti

check the pots work, it sounds like the ground is shorted out as when you touch the strings you are becomming the ground and the hum goes away.

looks nice, what are those bare knuckle pups like ? are they worth the money and how do they compare to gretsch filtertrons ?

is the jack wired backwards ? are the pickups wired backwards ? one of these things must be it, if backwards the shielded casing on the pickups will be hot which can make this noise.

did you try swapping the tubes out ?

yeah the hum bucking bit isnt that important but the phase/polarity will be the killer for the tone, the difference between it being thin or meaty.

series wiring on a strat gives you a humbucker, from experience it takes a lot of messing about to get usable tones from just swapping the wiring from parallel to series, doubling up 2 singles doesnt always work, as it can be hard to get proper bucked (reduced) hum if the magnet polarity is wrong and the resistance (winds) is very different per coil. for instance a vintage set (pre 5 way) of fender pickups probably wont have a reverse polarity middle pickup so that will be useless for posistions 2/4 in parallel (classic hum reducing posistions on a 5 way), these type of pickups will also be difficult to use in series to get the humbucker sound, generally they will be thin and sound crap. i tried the dave gilmour wiring (series switch) on my strat with custom shop 69's (all same polarity) and found that the wiring worked ok but had little effect in hum cancelling, swapping one of the pickups to be Reverse polarity cured the problem but it means im only using 2 pups out of the set (gilmour uses mixed pickups as well). im not sure if the lace sensors in the "dualies" sets are different polarities, id expect they are but i wasnt sure lace made reverse polarity pickups (the dualies look just like regular sensors joined together by a backplate).

they dont have to go through the holes no, i just put plenty of solder on and tack it on, if its wiring you're never going to change its easier to put the wires through without tinning them and twist it round, then just solder the lugs and make sure it tins the wire in the process.

Hi Ripthorn, Thanks for your fast reply. So, I can take a piece of stray wire and connect It to the tone wire lug and then connect that directly to the bottom right (shaft side) lug. I don't have to connect to actual wire but connect to the lug, right? ron yeah you can just connect it straight to the pot, IMO that diagram is confusing and badly drawn it would be simpler to just draw it directly but this is the problem with using stock images in diagrams they get messy if theres too many connections. example http://imgur.com/cCn3d.jpg

sometimes its normal, but it can be because they are "gassy" or leaky, googling brings up this > http://www.netads.com/~meo/Guitar/Tubes/blue_glow.html considering something is wrong with the amp that might be the cause, but the only way to tell is to swap em and see if it comes back to life, there could be allsorts wrong with an epi amp they arnt very well made but still sound good when driven hard.

didnt know tubes glowed blue :S never seen that... maybe this is where all the gain of the amp was being lost ? (referring to your other thread)

could be a tube, i replaced the tubes on my epi as they sounded muddy anyway.

for a friend id do it for £10 so maybe $20 aud

i play stuff loud, use headphoens and play stuff loud, i often remove wax out of my ears using qtips (cotton buds). by the time im deaf there wont be anything worth listening to anyway so its win win

hmm just thinking, have you tried a tube screamer through it ? thats another pedal that will drive the tubes, i still think a mid/treb boost would do wonders. theres a few demos of the epi with tube screamers/treble boosters on youtube.

That would be my advice. Even going from 10's to 11's will make a big difference. Bigger strings aren't as easy to play, but the fat tone can be really worth it. what if you had say 4 guitars with every string gauge and they all sounded weak through the same amp setup ? where to go from there ? this is a problem ive had.

its a semi hollow, i think they are daddario strings (or rotosound i forget) but they are the regular ones. loads of cleaning has made it go away a bit, so now its not a huge issue.

treble boosters into the epiphone valve series are really nice, i expect a blues overdrive or somthing similar would get a similar sound. ive got an epiphone valve standard and find it sounds crap without a booster pedal infront, its not bad but its like the amp has no balls if the tubes arnt driven.

you're probably right, im still getting black stuff off that fretboard too they must have put a lot on, whenever i touch it i get a "dose" and come away with grey fingers :/ not even lighter fluid gets rid of it. it might just be me but i prefer the "before" pictures on stewmac, especially after having to clean this stuff off and getting it on my fingers

im the same with a bit of buzz on some of my lower action guitars, it seems the lighter the strings i use the less buzz i get though. at the moment im running 8's and have very low action and little to no buzz, a pain to setup though and not everyones cup of tea (i get complaints about how brittle the strings seem but complemented on the tone :S).

Most heads mentioned here have effects loops...including the two I mentioned Of course it will work just running it in front,but to me it always sounds better through an effects loop...same thing with reverb,but distortion pedals I always put in front. I don't use distortion pedals with my Engl though...plenty of gain in the amp. But I consider a good EQ to be essential with rock and especially metal...with clean tones not so much..most tube amps are voiced very well for clean all by themselves. BUT I should mention I never found an EQ pedal I liked..I always use rackspace..my current one is a DBX 15 band graphic EQ...cost about $100 new when I bought it a few years back... http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/produ...c-EQ?sku=183526 good info there thanks : ) i was just wondering about my own amp as it has no effects loop and i fancied getting an EQ but im not sure whats best, i guess getting some rack effects would be the way forward.

what if your head doesnt have an FX loop ? would it work the same running an EQ pedal inbetween the guitar and amp ?

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check this > http://www.national.com/ds/LM/LM386.pdf ive built a few of these amps and they all have gain/colour in the sound, its not really a clean sound at all. looking at the little gem it looks like its running with standard amount of gain the 386 has to offer (can only go up) putting a 10uf polarised capacitor on pins 1 and 8 makes the gain go up. (as it says in the modifications leave pins 1 and 8 open for less gain, its already running at the minimum specs). the 386 supports 18volts max (depending on the version), i find it sounds best at 12volts though and i wouldnt go over 12. my favourite schematic for the 386 amps is the noisy cricket, it sounds similar to the ruby and the little gem but its got a few more features > http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/NoisyCricket/#DIY .

what sortof lace pickups are they ? all the sensors are filled with silicone type stuff not wax, are they "powered by lace" pickups the telecaster ones or the holygrail strat pickups ?