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Post by dnic on Oct 3, 2023 20:18:09 GMT -6
Well I guess we can just shut this thread down now that Darrel has spoken. LOL I love this guy, he has great content and chops are way up there. Dane -- That is the tough part. If we approached guitar with anything other than emotion, I don't believe any of us would have started playing! I got yelled at by the famous Bill Lawrence when I stated I thought Alnico sounded better. He said, "MAGNETS DON'T HAVE A SOUND." He then proceeded to berate me concerning capacitance, reactance, inductance, impedance, etc. John That's an impressive guy to get yelled at by. Maybe made you the excellent pickup maker you are today. Or not. I don't want to take away any of your glory. Anyway what do you think now? Do magnets have a sound?
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Post by dnic on Oct 3, 2023 20:26:43 GMT -6
Coated Strings. I read no end of derogatory remarks about D'Addario coated strings on t'interweb, including that the coating flakes away like dead skin cells and the coating muffles the "tone". What rot? Horse feathers. I have used them on my acoustics for years and years (including my mandolin.) They sound great to my ears and they stay sounding good too. I rarely break them and I'm one of those that Eddie cites as being too hard on the strings. I just try to avoid fret buzz and that end is not well served by a light touch to my mind. Perhaps that's where the skill comes in? I even use them on my Heritage Sweet16 carved top. The commentators told me to my face that the bronze wound strings won't work with the pickup. "So why am I using them then?" to which the back foot reply is that they'll be quieter on the wound strings. What absolute rubbish? I've heard all that feldegarbe with stainless-steel strings too, something about not interacting with the magnetic fields while being conveniently ignorant of Faraday's Law. I wish these folks would do as Dane just said and listen with their ears instead of hearing with their eyes. でつ e&oe ...I used coated string for years on my acoustic guitars. I feel that they last longer and keep a better sound over all. Back when I was playing everyday in bands, I was changing strings 2 times a week. I started using the coated string and went to two time a month. The coated strings cost more, but look at the savings over time. More times than not, if the coating did start to come off, it was time to change the strings. What a lot of people seem to forget with strings, no mater how long they last, is that strings to get flat on the bottom over time. This will affect the notes of the string being in tune or out of tune. A lot of guitars that I have worked on had more issues with the strings being dead. Not the guitar itself. I have a guitar that I have not changed the string on in over a year. It has flat wound strings on it. LOL! Yes, it is way overdue for me to change the strings. But it is just now starting to have that dead sound in the strings. Next time I have that guitar out, I'll change the strings. I have a friend of mine that uses electric guitar strings on his acoustic guitars. I used to set up his acoustics so that he could use 9s on them. For him, it was a way so that he could still play his acoustic guitars. He is hitting 80 years old, and he says his fingers can't take the tension of an acoustic string. His acoustics sound OK. But plugged in, I don't hear any difference once the EQs are set. So for him, it works out. He can still play his acoustic guitars and play with comfort. To me, technique of playing is everything. Over choking or squeezing hard on strings is hard on the player and the guitar. I had one customer that was bringing me his guitars in all the time to have frets put in. He was squeezing the string so hard that in no time he had divots in the frets that went down to the fret board. I told him if you would spend some time with me, I could help him play with a liter touch. He did just that, after some work I got him not to be so hard on his guitars. Yep, I didn't have to keep on replacing frets for him. LOL! But he also became a much better player. I have used all makes of string over the years. I found that some are good and some are not so good. I stick with the brand I use because they stand behind their string. One time I got a bad set (off of eBay) The strings were too short. I emailed the seller and like usual they did nothing. So I emailed the string maker and sent the info they needed. They told me that they had a bad run on some string and that these were part of that run that had gotten sent out. So they not only sent me a new set of string, they sent me 4 sets for free! Well, need I say more. I use their string all the time now. I don't even try and use another brand. But to me, they are also the most consistent made string out there. I have never been disappointed in them. But again, like so many things, use what you like, play the instrument that makes you happy. After all, it is you that is playing the guitar and not someone else. HA! "But again, like so many things, use what you like, play the instrument that makes you happy. After all, it is you that is playing the guitar and not someone else. HA! " That is the bottom line after all.
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Post by dnic on Oct 3, 2023 20:34:48 GMT -6
And I believe he was largely correct too John. After Joe Barden ceased production first time around, Fender turned to Bill for a continiung supply of like performing pickups for their ludicrously over-priced Danny Gatton Tele. As good as it is I still believe that guitar to be over- priced. They still install Bill Lawrence's pick ups in that instrument so far as I'm aware even though second generation Bardens have been available for years now. I have original Bardens on my Danny Gatton Tele, and I can confirm that they are as widely reported unforgiving and bright sounding, powerful as well as noise free. But coated strings; I am puzzled as to how folks are witnessing the coating shedding. I think Elixir do coated strings too but I've never tried them. It's a case of why change what works. I can go 12-18 months on a set of D'Addarios on my acoustic that sees the most action. Poly Tetra Fluoro Ethylene (for I think that is what the coating is?) is a very poor wearing substance and would wear through very rapidly in use anyway, especially with bends and vibrato. The coating is microscopically thin and really only serves to stop dirt lodging down between the wrap wires. Although I cannot substantiate it, I believe that by preventing the dirt, the orginal ex-packet brightness is retained for much longer. Uncoated strings get lodged with dirt, grease and shed skin cells rapidly, and all we are in effect doing is exchanging that cocktail for PTFE. I know what I'd rather have between my string windings! Wiping down the strings (which I admit I do with a bit of chamois leather kept in the case) cannot possibly clean the muck from between the windings. My money goes with the coated strings. Others definitely experience differing levels of fuel consumption, which is just how things should be. Boiling strings in water then? A myth? I'm not sure what it does to the strings on a molecular level, probably nothing at 100 celsius, but it must at least free some of the dirt. I just can't see strings being refitted on any regular basis so I'm going to call that a myth. でつ e&oe ...You know Steve my coated string experience was with Elixer strings. As far as re using old strings after boiling them... I won't restring old strings. Huge waist of time. And the non-wounds will just end up breaking.
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Post by antares on Oct 4, 2023 0:54:05 GMT -6
I re-strung my mandolin with the "old" strings after putting a new USA made cast bronze tailpiece (if only mechanically improved) to replace the pressed steel tailpiece one Dane, but I was very carefull and used up part of the capstan wraps to place the first bends a little away from the orignal ones ( in other words one less winding around the posts) but on the whole you're absolutely correct.
I made before and after recordings of the cheapo and the hyped USA tailpiece. No discernable difference, but it sure looks way better on a costly instrument.
Those are coated D'Addario "Flat Tops" and they sound simply lush on my Fylde mandolin. They've been on there for probably approaching ten years, and they still sound lovely. Describing the sound of those Flat Tops is a bit like becoming a string manufacturer's marketing executive, but with justification for once. I think the flat profile of the windings is achieved by a retro grinding process which takes away much of the opportunity for dirt to lodge in between. It would really take something to persuade me to pay out for other strings for Nellie in some forlorn chasing the dragon exercise.
That reminds me- I haven't done anything about the crack in the brace on "Nellie". It's north of a $2K instrument so I kind of wish there was a branch of the Jonah chain over here!
でつ e&oe ...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2023 7:17:30 GMT -6
I am with Dane on boiling of the strings. Wast of time. I have known some bass players that have done this. Only to have to change the string in a short time. Like anything metal, it does get fatigued. I can't tell ya how many strings I go to take off and while unwinding them they snap.
No, I say replace them. Nothing more embarrassing than having a string brake because you haven't replaced the string in a while. LOL
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Post by antares on Oct 4, 2023 14:53:15 GMT -6
With the cost of energy these days, it'd be less expensive to put new strings on a guitar than to boil water and cook them.
Anyhoo- as I said; Myth.
でつ e&oe ...
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Post by antares on Oct 18, 2023 6:12:19 GMT -6
'50s wiring as opposed to modern wiring.
Discuss.
But please don't waste too much breath. Broadly speaking, '50s wiring preserves sparkle over the volume sweep but negatively affects the efficacy of the tone control to some extent. Modern affords better tone control but loses highs on attenuation so we can end up going down a rabbit hole of so-called treble bleeds.
The cognoscenti will have you believe that one or the other is better, but my limited experimentation seems to point at pickup characteristics being the deciding factor, in particular low or high output favouring one topology over the other. My late friend from near Philly was adamant that '50s wiring was better but he was a vintage snob, which kind of implied lower output pickups.
As usual it's horses for courses and hence one being better than the other comes under myths for me. Just suck it and see. "Turn it up to eleven" and all bets are off anyway!
でつ e&oe ...
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2023 7:49:59 GMT -6
'50s wiring as opposed to modern wiring. Discuss. But please don't waste too much breath. Broadly speaking, '50s wiring preserves sparkle over the volume sweep but negatively affects the efficacy of the tone control to some extent. Modern affords better tone control but loses highs on attenuation so we can end up going down a rabbit hole of so-called treble bleeds. The cognoscenti will have you believe that one or the other is better, but my limited experimentation seems to point at pickup characteristics being the deciding factor, in particular low or high output favouring one topology over the other. My late friend from near Philly was adamant that '50s wiring was better but he was a vintage snob, which kind of implied lower output pickups. As usual it's horses for courses and hence one being better than the other comes under myths for me. Just suck it and see. "Turn it up to eleven" and all bets are off anyway! でつ e&oe ...This again is up to what people like. To me, there is not enough change to care. I have wired up guitars in so many of the popular ways of how wiring goes in, trying to see which one works best or sound better. To me, they all sound close to the same.
Tone caps can also be a little miss leading. I have guitars with no tone caps that I think sound the best. But I keep on putting them in guitars, only to make it easier to set your sound on the fly and not having to mess with the amp.
Pickups can do a lot. But I have bought some of the cheapest pickups one can buy, and they sound awesome! I can't say that with some of the high-end pickups I have bought over the years. That is what led me to think, why spend so much on pickups if the cheap ones are going to deliver good sound?
I do think that pots and out put jack do help in this chain. The one thing I can say in this, too, is that, I have used a lot of brands. Here is where money is well spent. DON'T BUY CHEAP! Learned my lesson on that! But I have used the dime size and the quarter size pots. Again, I did not see a huge difference or change in sound. Only in the sweep. One is short, the other one longer. Again it comes down to what one likes.
Now I have come to realize is that a lot of people don't know how much they can change their tone/sound by adjusting the amp they are playing through. I can totally change the way a guitar sounds from the amp.
I have a friend in AZ that bought a Marshall amp. He said he was thinking of taking it back because it sounded dead to him. I went to his place to check it out. What he did was he got it home and between moving it from the store to his house the knobs had gotten moved around. So only after a few seconds I had that amp sounding off like it should have. He could not believe how much better it sounded. LOL! I told him one cannot be afraid to turn the knobs! HA! He said that is one thing he was always afraid to do. ? LOL!
So many things that cause a myth. Tone is always subjective. Too many things can affect the "Tone". How much of it is a myth? Hard to tell all the time. All anyone can do is go off of experience. Once one has the experience under their belt, then myths start to fall away. Over time, you get to where, one, you don't care about the myths, or two, you want to play guitar and the heck with everything else!
It's funny to me now. How when I first started out playing I never thought of the myths. I really didn't think much of it until I started making guitars. My first experience in myths was the tone wood myths. WOW! That one will never die! Today I give up on all the stuff that goes around on guitar related myths. People are going to believe in what they believe in. Even if they have been miss informed.
We all have strong feeling about our guitars and what makes them tick. But the biggest factor in all of it is the player. The better the player the better the tone/sound of any guitar.
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Post by dnic on Oct 18, 2023 9:48:25 GMT -6
'50s wiring as opposed to modern wiring. Discuss. But please don't waste too much breath. Broadly speaking, '50s wiring preserves sparkle over the volume sweep but negatively affects the efficacy of the tone control to some extent. Modern affords better tone control but loses highs on attenuation so we can end up going down a rabbit hole of so-called treble bleeds. The cognoscenti will have you believe that one or the other is better, but my limited experimentation seems to point at pickup characteristics being the deciding factor, in particular low or high output favouring one topology over the other. My late friend from near Philly was adamant that '50s wiring was better but he was a vintage snob, which kind of implied lower output pickups. As usual it's horses for courses and hence one being better than the other comes under myths for me. Just suck it and see. "Turn it up to eleven" and all bets are off anyway! でつ e&oe ...This again is up to what people like. To me, there is not enough change to care. I have wired up guitars in so many of the popular ways of how wiring goes in, trying to see which one works best or sound better. To me, they all sound close to the same.
Tone caps can also be a little miss leading. I have guitars with no tone caps that I think sound the best. But I keep on putting them in guitars, only to make it easier to set your sound on the fly and not having to mess with the amp. Pickups can do a lot. But I have bought some of the cheapest pickups one can buy, and they sound awesome! I can't say that with some of the high-end pickups I have bought over the years. That is what led me to think, why spend so much on pickups if the cheap ones are going to deliver good sound? I do think that pots and out put jack do help in this chain. The one thing I can say in this, too, is that, I have used a lot of brands. Here is where money is well spent. DON'T BUY CHEAP! Learned my lesson on that! But I have used the dime size and the quarter size pots. Again, I did not see a huge difference or change in sound. Only in the sweep. One is short, the other one longer. Again it comes down to what one likes. Now I have come to realize is that a lot of people don't know how much they can change their tone/sound by adjusting the amp they are playing through. I can totally change the way a guitar sounds from the amp.
I have a friend in AZ that bought a Marshall amp. He said he was thinking of taking it back because it sounded dead to him. I went to his place to check it out. What he did was he got it home and between moving it from the store to his house the knobs had gotten moved around. So only after a few seconds I had that amp sounding off like it should have. He could not believe how much better it sounded. LOL! I told him one cannot be afraid to turn the knobs! HA! He said that is one thing he was always afraid to do. ? LOL! So many things that cause a myth. Tone is always subjective. Too many things can affect the "Tone". How much of it is a myth? Hard to tell all the time. All anyone can do is go off of experience. Once one has the experience under their belt, then myths start to fall away. Over time, you get to where, one, you don't care about the myths, or two, you want to play guitar and the heck with everything else! It's funny to me now. How when I first started out playing I never thought of the myths. I really didn't think much of it until I started making guitars. My first experience in myths was the tone wood myths. WOW! That one will never die! Today I give up on all the stuff that goes around on guitar related myths. People are going to believe in what they believe in. Even if they have been miss informed.
We all have strong feeling about our guitars and what makes them tick. But the biggest factor in all of it is the player. The better the player the better the tone/sound of any guitar. 50s wiring vs modern wiring, I don't like 4 knobs. My reason for liking 50s wiring is that modern wiring turns off all volume if you turn one knob down. I do like the idea of pre adjusting the neck and bridge and getting different volumes by flipping the switch. Kinda ala LaGrange. But I'm a full up kind of guy once I'm playing. So then that all goes out the window. While writing this I've realized I like to be able to turn down when not playing so if playing a 4 knob guitar I should use the modern wiring so I can turn it off with one knob. I don't use tone knob much so either works in that regard.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2023 11:04:15 GMT -6
If you want independent volumes, then all you have to do is switch the center over to the outside post and the outside post wires to the center. Now you won't get the shut off. LOL!
But you can still mix the two pickups. I like clean lines as well. I did make a Tele a while back that has only one volume on it and a 3 way switch. Once I made that guitar, I got to thinking, why does one need so many knobs and switches? LOL! It's on the same line as people with so many pedals. Why does one need so many? HA!
I remember back in the 60s of all the Japan guitars having so many guitars that had more switching and knobs, one would need to go to school to learn how to use them. LOL! One of my friend had one of them guitars. It had something like 12 switches and 5 knobs on it. LOL! I don't think to this day we ever figured them all out.
I wish now that on the P90 guitar I had gone without a tone control. But the neck through one that I am building, I may do just that. That guitar will get the P90s in it that John made me.
But at most, the neck through will have 2 knobs and one 3 way switch. That is my go to.
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Post by antares on Oct 18, 2023 11:50:11 GMT -6
If only it was that easy to flip the wires on the lugs in a 335 type.
Here's another old chestnut- "true bypass". If you believe all the pundits then you'd be convinced that true bypass is the Holy Grail. Mayhaps it is for one or perhaps two pedals, but get a string together and buffered is much better.
YMMV of course, and buffering is not as simple as it sounds compared with isolating signal and return simultaneously.
The thread that just wouldn't die!
でつ e&oe ...
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Post by GuitarAttack Forum on Oct 18, 2023 12:57:49 GMT -6
'50s wiring as opposed to modern wiring. Discuss. But please don't waste too much breath. Broadly speaking, '50s wiring preserves sparkle over the volume sweep but negatively affects the efficacy of the tone control to some extent. Modern affords better tone control but loses highs on attenuation so we can end up going down a rabbit hole of so-called treble bleeds. The cognoscenti will have you believe that one or the other is better, but my limited experimentation seems to point at pickup characteristics being the deciding factor, in particular low or high output favouring one topology over the other. My late friend from near Philly was adamant that '50s wiring was better but he was a vintage snob, which kind of implied lower output pickups. As usual it's horses for courses and hence one being better than the other comes under myths for me. Just suck it and see. "Turn it up to eleven" and all bets are off anyway! でつ e&oe ...This is a good one. A guy I used to work with owned five different 1959 Les Paul Standards over the years, but not at the same time! He said they all sounded different, but he did state that the old Centralab and Stackpole pots had a "tone" associated with them. He theorized that it wasn't the 50s wiring people were hearing; rather, it was the old pots. He said the carbon traces in those pots were special and pretty unique compared to new pots. A lot of the old Silvertones had "burst" pots and switches in them. I've had the opportunity to play a number of 50s Gibsons and Fenders, and the award absolute for best-sounding guitar of the bunch is a tie between an all-original 1959 ES-335 and an almost-new 1958 Flying V. The old Les Pauls were cool, but somehow the P-90 equipped ones sounded better to me. Those original guitars had original pots and wiring...no changes. I think there is something to 50s wiring, but they won't overcome a bad sounding guitar or pickups. Addition: A lot of the old pots had a pretty wide variance in resistance. Some of the difference in sound, particularly in guitars with two volume knobs, could be this variance and differences in the sweep of the pot. Just my opinion, and your mileage probably will vary! John
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Post by antares on Oct 18, 2023 17:31:08 GMT -6
Your opinion counts for more than many for me John.
でつ e&oe ...
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Post by GuitarAttack Forum on Oct 19, 2023 9:08:29 GMT -6
Your opinion counts for more than many for me John. でつ e&oe ...Steve -- thank you for your vote of confidence! However, I do get things wrong just like everybody else, and that is why I enjoy these conversations. I invite you all to call me out if I need it! Concerning that ES-335, I plugged it into a late 50s Tweed Champ and cranked it up. My thoughts about good tone were ruined forever when I heard those first notes! John
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2023 10:17:09 GMT -6
I do like me an ES335. I like the one I built for me. The first one I ever got to play was a 1967 at a tent,
revival. It was blond. WOW! I loved that guitar. It was not mine, but the guy that owned the tent was the one who had the guitar. That was in 1984. I wanted one for many years after that. I did have an Ibanez 335 copy. I wound up trading it for a small truck for my daughter. It wasn't until I started making guitars that I made my first one. I put it together from parts. It had a bolt on neck. That guitar is in line for me to redo it. That will be a future posting.
But I did make me a blond one that has a set neck on it. Steve, I did wire this one up with independent volume control. But it also has push pulls on it.
I did have a video of the guitar up, but it has now been deleted do to things beyond my control. It is an amazing guitar. One of my favorite builds ever. It took me almost two years to build it. I will never sell it. It is the closet ES335 I'll ever own. I played it a lot when I was playing a lot. LOL!
I do like the conversation we have on things. And it is clear we all have our thoughts and ideas. Most of them are from our own experiences. But, I think we all have fallen for some of the myths over the years. Only to find out at some point that they were a myth. Maybe a few were not.
But like always, a lot of things we like is what we like. Myth or not. For me, I like some woods better than others. Why? It's not because of tone! LOL! It's because of the way some woods carve or cut and so on. Or the way some wood just have a MOJO to them by the way it looks. Like the SP P90.
I am going to continue to be me! I know I had to make some changes. But is another story.
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