Family picture time!!!
re installed TexasSpecials on the bridge position of my SRV Stratocaster. there was no need for hot rails any more since I installed SB-2 and JB-4 Seymour Duncans on my Ibanez RGA, and got another Ibanez, this time a RG.
@shaft agent, I for some fucking reason am losing my mind. The JB-4 on the bridge position works, but the output isnāt what it should be. I keep unsoldering the connections, and soldering it again. Every time I do that, the connection goes back to working, the output is as it should be, but after about a day or to, the signal is lost. Even with max distortion, it sounds like I have the gain settings on 4, and I canāt even play it on clean channel.
Could it be a ground issue? Iāve re grounded it, and it still giving me this issue, or is it a selector switch issue?
Edit:, turned out to be a ground issue. the bridge pick up was grounded to the pot as needed, but the diagram was incorrect for my particular model. the ground had to connect to one of the holes on the switch, rather than straight to the pot as the diagram showed.
Ibanez and Seymour Duncan pickups are a pain in the ass.
well, that piece of shit still failed. fuck that guess ima need to buy new everything. I think itās fried
So, i ended buying a 5 way selector switch from stewart macdonald. read taht they are quality products, just gotta make sure I donāt burn them with the soldering iron. I also need to go buy another soldering iron tip. Hopefully it starts working since I havenāt been able to truly enjoy that JB-4.
I also bought a E model 5 way switch from them as well for that humbucker single humbucker configuration.
sorry iām late for this. if it happens again after you change that stuff out, your pot might need cleaning. i had similar trouble with my amp. the volume knob was scratchy and it got so bad that it didnāt matter what i had it turned to; it was either at 0 or 100% at any random time. i got a can of this:
and sprayed it inside holes of the potentiometer and turned the knob back and forth for a minute and everything was hunky-dory.
even if the other pickup works fine? Itās only happening to the bridge position. Iāll check it out regardless. I do know the bottom tone knob was faulty, and I had to clean it, Ill clean this one regardless.
I read the entire thread, and nobody talked about tone.
One thing that I hate about my playing. (Aside that I fucking suck now because I stopped playing :sad:)
Itās tone. Itās really killing me. Itās the amplifier, tbh, it just doesnāt generate that metal tone I want. what do you guys look for or do for your tone?
Bass or guitar? 
guitarā¦
With bass, Iām not so picky about it becasue all i have is a gutted fender rumble, with a 200 dollar ibanez and 200 dollar squire p-bass.
Iām curious too. I mostly play acoustic so Iām a tone noob
@shaft agent, I see that you are interested in making your own guitars. ive neen looking I to it, amd I read everywhere that you need power tools to do it. is it feasible to make your own bodies without power tools for wood working.
I know the labor is exponential without tools, but I cant afford 6 k on importing certain guitar shapes.
have you attempted anything as of late?
yeah, you can make guitars without power tools, but it will be miserable. you donāt have to spend a bunch of money on tools really, just save up some money and buy a router.
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Routers-/122829/i.html
and this type of bit to go with it.
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you can get guitar shapes for free off the net. download a few.
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go to Home Depot or Lowes and get you some 1/8" thick tempered hardboard (itās dark brown) thatās a little bit bigger than a guitar body (might be $5 max)
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print out the guitar shape in a mosaic to get the real size and tape it to the tempered hardboard
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cut out the shape (you might even be able to use scissors on it) and make sure the edge is smooth and you like the shape.
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BAM, you just made your guitar template. tape that to the wood youāre going to use to cut your guitar body. use the router and go slowly (that silver part on that bit is like a protector. as long as it is rubbing against the template you cut out, you canāt screw up what you are cutting
i fooled around with some guitar shapes and now that i just left Guitar Center today i have a bug to start trying to crank out my own again; but i have this though:
it seems like my way is unfair, but just to get it to that point is much harder than manually doing it.
Ah thanks.
@shaft agent, so I got the new selector switch.
the bridge poaition pick up in yhe most downward selector still not working. the second poaition atill works. the volume knob works as well.
and I didnt burn the selector switch. i think its the pick up. what amperage should I check for. or do I check for voltage, if so what should I be looking for.
shieeeeeeeet. i donāt know about all that different brands of pickups need different amounts i think. you need to look up to what model your bridge pickup is and adjust accordingly if you want it to sound like itās supposed to sound.
if i get the bug to get into pickup winding iāll know more. right now all i know is that the more wire you wrap around the pickup changes the tone greatly.
yeah, thatās because the increased wire around the magnets creates more induced currents.
god damn it, guess Iāma have to call them.
@Shaft Agant, so I thought I fixed it and it didnāt work.
I thought it might be a ground issue, and it is. Most diagrams for Ibanez switches do not account for the fact that Ibanez sometimes uses weird custom 5 way switches from their suppliers for their āPrestigeā line up. I tested it by plugging the guitar in, and then connecting a ground to where the ground was, when playing the bridge pick up. The pick up would not make noise.
Found the original diagrams.
Got a 7 string against better judgement. But it fills that void my other Ibanez and Fender canāt doā¦
It does need new pickups. I was debating Seymour Duncanās sh-5 or sh-8ā¦completely different. Wouldnāt make sense to get the sh-5 if itās a guitar exclusively for the sound I want.
I might just buy the pickups the dude from animal as leaders usesā¦Or look up at the ones vildhjarta uses for theirs
What kind of metal tone are you looking to get and what kind of guitar/amp/pedals are you playing through. Right out of the box, Bringing in a lot of highs and lows helps, but adding in some mids to taste (mids are like salt in cooking lol) can make your tone sound a bit heavier.
Acoustics have a lot of tone possibilities too! Things like picking down closer to the bridge for a more trebelly tone vs pickup over the soundhole and even over the fretboard for more mellow sounds are good ways to change it up. You can even turn your pick slightly so youāre picking more with the edge of the pick vs flatpicking and that can help too.
I have a carvin legacy. . I want something That can go a variety of tones in metalā¦Iāve been using the two pedals I have to great effect, but I canāt get anywhere near that chugging sound ala As blood runs black first albumā¦
What it does is amazing cleans, fucking gorgeous through my fender with Texas specials on bridge and middle with a SSL-2 on neck, but itās overdrive canāt handle distortion that well. If I connect a basic distortion pedal, itās hard to dial a much more aggressive tone without clipping the frequencyā¦
It does
Steve Vai, dream theatre, iron maiden, Randy Rhodes, Galneryus, Angra, etc well.
Anything āheavyā and nopeā¦
I donāt think it could handle sub sonic tonesā¦Iāll see once I put something proper on that 7 string.
Then again it could be my pickupsā¦
Edit: I bought the Nazguls for the 7 stringer, and hopefully, the diagrams I have found, which they are what I need from what I can see hold. I grounded everythingā¦so hopefully tommorrow the damn thing works.
So it was a connection issue on the pick up. But it was the actual pickup itself.
I was moving the actual pick up and pressed on the cloth mining that serves as a sheath. I guess it there was so.etching wrong with it? Idk but works every time now so I donāt have to worry about that
Also, playing with the EQ on the signal line, I didnāt know that a
Guitar -> DS-1 -> OD-1 -> amp
would be able to do djent distortion at all. That one caught me of guard.