Saber

Derek, I just thought of a possible solution. Route the cavities to get about 1mm pickup-to-string clearance with the bridge at the proper height. Then adjust your bridge as high as possible (for maybe 3-4 mm clearance). With the bridge at that height, use the foam method to determine the right pickup-to-string clearances. Once you know the clearances for proper functioning and balance of your pickups, calculate the route depth required to get those clearances for a properly adjusted bridge. I think that should work. P.S. Don't forget to fret the string at the last fret.

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I have a FRED at the bridge which is at 1.8mm. Any closer and I start hearing a beat especially when I fret a note on a high fret. I have a Humbucker From Hell at the neck which has a lower magnetic field which is at 1.5mm. Both of these measurements are taken with the string fretted at the 22nd fret (you probably know that's how you should measure the pickup distance).

If you really want to avoid any confusion, just add a 1/8" headphone jack on your guitar instead of a 1/4" jack. That way, if your headphones have 1/4" plug, use them with a 1/4"-1/8" adapter, and you'll also be able to use headphones that have a 1/8" plug directly.

Or maybe the black ice contains a small transformer like I explained in this post: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...opic=2032&st=15

I just thought of another approach. This would use a small audio transformer, probably like the ones in those 1/4"phono-to-XLR adapters with impedance matching transformers, or the small audio output transformers that they have at Radio Shack (something like 1k:8ohm). The pickup signal would be applied through the "tone" pot to the Lo-Z side of the transformer which would step up the voltage to the Hi-Z side for better clipping by the diodes. As a result the effect of clipping would return back through the transformer as a reflected impedance so that the pickup would "see" a clipping voltage that's much lower than the actual 0.3 volts of the germanium diodes. One detail that I forgot to put in the drawing is that the final clipped signal is taken across the pickup coil. What do you think of my crazy idea?

If you mean the forward voltage, the easiest method would be to use a multimeter that has the diode checking function. The reading it gives is the forward voltage (on mine anyway). If you don't have such a meter, you can simulate this by passing around 1mA through the diode and measuring the voltage across the diode. I don't know how well equipped you are so the simplest way to do this is to put your diode in series with an 8.2k (approximate and not critical value) resistor. Apply 9v (battery if you don't have a power supply) across the series circuit and measure the voltage across the diode. Is that what you're looking for?

I have an S540LTD (H-S-H pickup configuration). It's a mahogany body so it was a bit dark-sounding so I recently put brighter pickups than the original IBZ USA pickups (BTW, those pups were made by DiMarzio) . I put a FRED in the bridge position and I'm really happy with it ( but I have to confess that I'm a Satch fan). Distorted it gives nice crisp lead tones, and even full chords are not muddy. It has a pretty well balanced frequency response so using a wah gives you a really good sweep. If you read the description on the DiMarzio site, that's pretty much what I experience with it. The Evolution Bridge pickup seems to have the same frequency response as the Fred but with a higher output. I have a Fast Track 1 in the middle positon which is snappier than the Fast Track 2 that I replaced (the Fast Track 2 is more suited for bridge position). I'm happy with that one. I definitely didn't like the noise of the original IBZ single coil. I wanted a more bluesy single coil sound in the neck position so I put a Humbucker From Hell there. Clean, it has a nice bright single coil-ish sound with added bottom but would not be mistaken for a genuine single coil. Distorted, it gives that nice "woman tone" through my setup. Overall, it's not all that I was hoping for but my expectations for it were a bit too high. It is an improvement over the original pickup, however. Overall, they're outputs are pretty well balanced which is one reason that I went for that combination. I've only had them for a few weeks so I still have to experiment a bit with pickup heights. It also depends a lot on what kind of sound you want and what equipment you play it through.

According to the EMG website, the white wire is the input and green wire is the output of the SPC. Since you didn't mention this in your post, I figured you might have them reversed. Or did you happen to connect the SPC white wire to the Afterburner white wire, or the SPC green wire with the Afterburner green wire? I think what you want is the volume control center lug to the SPC white wire, the SPC green wire to the Afterburner white wire, and the Afterburner green wire to the output jack. If that's what you have then one unit may be defective. To isolate the problem, the logical thing would be to remove either the Afterburner or the SPC from the circuit and see if your signal gets to the output jack okay.

I think I found it here. Just ignore the battery wiring.

I'm looking forward to see how it all works out.

Well... it would take a lot of time and work. The hardest part is probably to make it simple enough so that the non-technical reader wouldn't lose interest. Sort of like a "Guitar Electronics for Dummies". But I'll try to put some stuff together, a bit at a time.

Like I said in a previous post, I went to the EMG website to find that the output impedance of the EMG was higher than expected at 10k, so the value of the volume pot may be more significant than I first expected. So what that means is that with a 100k volume pot instead of a 500k, I calculated a drop of around 0.65dB in overall signal level. A 50k volume would cause a 1.4dB drop. A 250k volume would drop it by 0.17dB. Since these are active pickups, the drop would be even across the frequency spectrum so you wouldn't lose more highs than lows, for example. You would have to rely on your ears to decide what drop is noticeable or acceptable.

But when you're shaping a raw guitar signal before sending it through distortion, 6dB might not be quite enough, added to the fact that a simple passive filter like this only has a gentle rolloff of 6dB per octave. With pre-distortion EQ, I usually like to have at least 10dB to play with. But if you find a 6dB bass cut enough to give you the sound your looking for, then great; you can keep the 500k volume pot, add a 500k bass-cut pot and use a 300pF capacitor to get the 1kHz cutoff frequency. Like I said before, play with the values and let your ears be the judge. I'm just trying to supply as much info as possible to guide whoever may want to try this mod. Cheers. P.S. Just to put things in perspective, note that every 6dB cut represents halving the signal voltage (it's 3dB for halving power). So a 12dB cut is 1/2 of 1/2, or 1/4 the original signal voltage.

I just went to the EMG website and found out that the EMG 85 output impedance is higher than I expected at 10k. So using lower volume pot values will decrease the signal level slightly. You may have to juggle the values and find the best compromise and let your ears be the judge.

You posted while I was editing my post. The maximum amount of bass-cut will be equal to the volume pot's resistance divided by the sum of the volume and the bass-cut pot resistances. So the bigger your bass-cut pot resistance is compared to your volume pot, the more you can cut the bass. Let's say you kept your 500k volume and added a 500k bass-cut pot. Then the most you could cut your bass would be 1/2 or 6dB. I doubt it would be enough. If you used a 100k volume pot and a 1M bass-cut pot, then your bass would be decreased to 1/11 of its original amplitude which is a 20.8dB cut. That sounds more reasonable. And a .0015uF capacitor would give you a cutoff frequency of around 1kHz (if you use a 100k volume). Using a smaller capacitor would raise the cutoff frequency, giving you less bass as a result. I think you now have enough info but I'll happily answer any other questions that might arise. P.S. Using a 50k volume, 500k bass-cut and .003uF should give identical results to the above values. That way you would have one less pot to buy since you already have a 500k pot. Nevertheless, experiment and play it by ear.

G_urr_A, maybe my previous post has already given you the info you need. If not, do you intend to have the bass-cut permanently "ON" or will you use a switch to turn it "ON" and "OFF" or do you want to add a variable control knob like in my diagram? It would help if you could tell me the resistance value of you volume pot (250K? 500K? other?) The lower the resistance value of your volume pot is, the better attenuation you will get from the bass-cutting pot at full cut but the quicker your battery will drain, and I don't know how low you can make your volume control's resistance value without adversely affecting the active pickup's signal. 100k volume control might be a good compromise.

G_urr_A, you posted while I was writing my post. I'll look at the diagram and see if I can give you additional usefull info.

Well I definitely don't know ALL the answers but hopefully I'll be able to answer most of them. Looks like you know what your talking about so I won't be able to shoot much bull here. Well... the most effective circuit would have to be active, like inserting an actual wah-type circuit in your guitar, or maybe some kind of parametric EQ. But if you want to keep the simplicity of passive circuitry, I don't think there's much you can do without significant loss of overall signal level. After all, you would be cutting highs AND cutting lows at the same time with no amplification to maintain a decent overall level. You could always try using the circuit above before or after a typical low-pass tone control circuit and have both pots ganged on 1 shaft so that as you turn it clockwise, you cut less treble while you cut more bass. That might give you a pseudo-wah effect but I doubt it will be very effective. And for the circuit that I posted, I would use the highest possible value (like 1M if it's used in a typical guitar circuit with typical volume and tone controls). And linear taper would be better than log, but inverse log would be even better in this case if you can find one (and they do exist). I would just put a switch instead of a pot though because that would cut the bass most effectively at a perfect 6dB/octave roll-off while only the capacitor is in the circuit. If your a little adventurous and want the best of both worlds, you could open up the pot and cut the carbon film at the CCW end so that it's completely open when turned totally CCW.

I've been visiting this forum for a few days. When I saw this thread, I registered because I knew I could be of some use here, being an electronics technician. You can cut some bass by simply placing a capacitor in series with your signal between your pickup and your volume pot. The exact value depends on the rest of your guitar's circuitry but the lower the value, the more bass will be cut. I would try around .002uF to begin with and adjust the value from there. If you want it to be variable, try placing this simple circuit between the pickup and the volume pot: Again the ideal values will depend on experimentation and your tastes. I tried this years ago on one of my guitars with passive pickups and it worked pretty well. I think it should work with active pickups, but I might be able to help more if I knew your wiring diagram.