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Hoffman Amps Forum image Author Topic: A simple guitar wiring question  (Read 11879 times)

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Offline Tyrannocaster

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A simple guitar wiring question
« on: June 21, 2012, 11:30:00 am »
I know this forum is for amp tweaks but I have asked about this problem on guitar forums and gotten nowhere. I figure wiring is wiring and you guys know a lot more about it than most guitar-only guys. I hope so, because I'm stumped.

The guitar is a '69 Tele body with a Squier neck and it has only one pickup; it's an Esquier, LOL. It has an old Dimarzio Virtual Tele pickup in it. Since it's an Esquire there is no rhythm pickup. There's no special Esquire switched tone circuits, either. In fact, I've disconnected the switch. The guitar has volume and tone controls, with a brite cap on the volume pot. That's it. Pretty simple, wouldn't you say?



(That's an old picture. Now, it REALLY is an Esquier. Since it's a Fender body with a Squier neck and since "fendre" in French means "to split", I redid the head to match.)



Turn it all the way up and it sounds great. Turn the volume down, and as long as you touch the strings or part of the guitar that is internally grounded it sounds fine. But take your hands off the strings and you get 60 cycle hum (I guess it's 60 - what else would it be? It's a bass note for sure) until you either touch the strings again or turn the volume back up. I note that if the volume is up and you lift your hands you'll still get what I call normal noise, that is, the kind of buzz which I expect from any of my guitars. But none of my others (and I have eleven others) does this odd lower-the-volume-get-the-buzz thing.

Grounds, you will say. But how can I make it simpler? Right now the bridge (and thus the strings) is grounded to the volume pot, where EVERYTHING else is also grounded - the output jack, the ground wire from the Dimarzio. There are no wires running from the back of this pot to the back of the other one (I tried that but it made no difference).

I've been playing this guitar through my 18 Watter and loving the pure raw quality I can get from the combination, but the amp cries out for the use of the volume control and dynamics and this issue is a problem because no matter how careful you are, occasionally you will have both hands off the guitar momentarily as you make a change and this annoying subwoofer note will pop up. I have to fix this! But where to look? I've done what I can and it hasn't worked- I need some help!
« Last Edit: June 21, 2012, 11:47:24 am by Tyrannocaster »

Offline tubenit

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2012, 12:12:10 pm »
Is the guitar cavity shielded?  Looking directy to the right side of the bridge, it appears there is an exposed wire?

Does the hum/buzz go away when the volume is on "10" & the hum/buzz is at it's loudest at around "8"?

Do you have continuity between the pickup tuners and the metal knob on the volume pot and the bridge?  In other words, have you double and triple checked that everything is grounded that should be grounded?

Can you link to a DiMarzio Virtual Tele pickup  info sheet?  The reason that I ask is I can NOT find that listed at all on the DiMarzio website?

http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/tele?view=grid

With respect, Tubenit

« Last Edit: June 21, 2012, 12:18:31 pm by tubenit »

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2012, 12:30:02 pm »
Is the guitar cavity shielded?  Looking directy to the right side of the bridge, it appears there is an exposed wire?

Does the hum/buzz go away when the volume is on "10" & the hum/buzz is at it's loudest at around "8"?

Do you have continuity between the pickup tuners and the metal knob on the volume pot and the bridge?  In other words, have you double and triple checked that everything is grounded that should be grounded?

Is the DiMarzio Virtual Tele humbucking or hum cancelling?  I can't remember.

With respect, Tubenit

The cavity under the bridge isn't shielded. As you can see, there is an area there where it was routed to accept a Rickenbacker lap steel (horseshoe magnet) pickup which was there for years. I didn't think the resulting cavity would matter to the shielding, as wood isn't much of an insulator for RF either. In the past I have tried on a couple of occasions to shield cavities with tape but the result was never noticeable so I stopped doing that. In general, I rely on humbuckers or live with the single coil noise, but this noise is different and it shouldn't be there. I have something wrong in my wiring, that has to be the answer.

The noise that I'm talking about goes away when the volume is on 10, but is it worse at 8 than at 5? Well, let me check...yes, as you turn the volume down (and lift your hands off) the noise gradually goes down too. At zero volume there is also zero noise.

I have indeed checked that everything that I know of that should be grounded is grounded.

I don't know what the difference between humbucking and hum cancelling. FWIW, it's a stacked design, and it was not completely noise free in the first place, which is why I suspect the model was dropped from the Dimarzio line. But it sounds wonderful and if it is noisier than, say, a Dimarzio Super Distortion, it is also orders of magnitude quieter than a single coil.

I guess I could try to put some sort of shield around the wire coming from the pickup, but that hole between the bridge and the wiring cavity isn't very wide and it already has to accomodate the pup wires as well as the ground from the bridge.

Offline fdesalvo

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2012, 02:38:40 pm »
I had a similar problem - the output jack leads were reversed! 
~F
"Ruining good moments since 1975."

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2012, 02:58:20 pm »
If you touch string and buzz stop , you probably don't have a ground wire under the bridge. All metal parts must have a ground wire between them .
Or you 2 output jacks wires are reverse like write fdesalvo

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2012, 04:09:08 pm »
The bridge is definitely grounded; I just checked with my meter. You can even see the wire in the picture. But I am going to try reversing the jack - that had not occurred to me!

If that doesn't help, I'm going to try to put an old piece of wire shielding (tubular spiral stuff) from an ancient radio I have around the wires from the Dimarzio and grounding it at the pot end only. I will have to enlarge the hole for that to work and that means taking the bridge off, which I'm not ready to do today. That's a morning project.  :laugh:

Thanks for the help; this one has me scratching my head. If I ever get it sorted out I'll post a clip of how the Esquire sounds with the 18 Watter - it's pretty nice, although it's kind of brutal at one extreme.

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2012, 04:20:51 pm »

If that doesn't help, I'm going to try to put an old piece of wire shielding (tubular spiral stuff)   

You don't need that , all guitars work fine without that shielded wire. Before reversing jack wire, you can see by your eyes if they are reverse, good or not .
If you can't find , send us some close up of your wiring.

Offline G._Hoffman

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2012, 04:40:23 pm »

Can you link to a DiMarzio Virtual Tele pickup  info sheet?  The reason that I ask is I can NOT find that listed at all on the DiMarzio website?

http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/tele?view=grid


It's a pretty basic (though very nice) stacked humbucker.  Out of production, sadly, as it was one of my favorite Tele bridge pickups.  Nothing there should cause this kind of problem. 



Gabriel

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2012, 04:56:09 pm »
Okay, I looked at the wiring again (which is starting to get messy from all the tweaking I'm doing - I will have to redo it if and when I get this hum sorted out) and it looks right to me. But I swapped the red and green wires from the Dimarzio (the green and red can be switched as long as one of them is soldered to the volume pot along with the silver pickup ground - the white and black are permanently soldered together by Dimarzio and according to the instruction sheet shouldn't be messed with because of the design of the Virtual Vintage series - it says that won't work well) and if anything the problem was worse so I'm restoring the old state. But I am stumped by the idea of reversing the wires at the output jack. Is that what you guys really meant? Because if I do that, then the guitar's ground is going to be connected to the amp's input and vice versa - it just seems wrong. I guess I can try it and see...I can see how it would help if I had wired it up backwards in the first place, but I didn't. I just checked with my meter at the end of a guitar cord that would go into the amp and the jack is definitely wired so ground is ground and hot is hot. And I have good continuity between the ground on the end of the cord all the way back to the bridge.

So shielding the cable that runs from the pickup to the pot won't help? Bummer!
« Last Edit: June 21, 2012, 05:15:07 pm by Tyrannocaster »

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2012, 05:08:14 pm »
  But I am stumped by the idea of reversing the wires at the output jack. Is that what you guys really meant? Because if I do that, then the guitar's ground is going to be connected to the amp's input and vice versa - it just seems wrong. I guess I can try it and see...

Read my answer;

...." Before reversing jack wire, you can see by your eyes if they are reverse, good or not . "

And now ;
Is the negative of the output jack go to guitar ground ?


stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2012, 05:11:36 pm »
IMO , green wire on Dimarzio are ground. And red IS the hot

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #11 on: June 21, 2012, 05:21:21 pm »
We're posting at the same time. Yes, I read the comment about looking at the jack. But I went one step further and made sure the thing was wired so the bridge is connected to the ground of the plug on the end of the cord; it is.

I have tried both ways of wiring the red and green - the way I had it first seems to be the least problematic. I suppose it's remotely possible I have a bad pickup...but it doesn't seem likely. However, I don't have much experience troubleshooting pickups beyond changing their phase and installing split/tap switches. This one doesn't have a lot of options possible; you either use red or green as hot, silver is always ground, along with whichever one you're not using as hot. The Dimarzio sheet says the bridge must be grounded to the guitar's circuit, but this one is; I can see the wire and I can measure the continuity.

EDIT: I've written to Dimarzio support about this. They have been really helpful in the past when I had questions. I just thought this might be an easy one that somebody here could answer in a flash, but it doesn't seem to be.

Cripes - I always come up with odd-sounding problems that would make me shake my head if I were reading the post.  :BangHead:
« Last Edit: June 21, 2012, 06:26:24 pm by Tyrannocaster »

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #12 on: June 21, 2012, 06:38:25 pm »
......"wired so the bridge is connected to the ground of the plug on the end of the cord; it is."

___Tyranocaser

...the end of the cord ?????  What do you mean ?  Guitar cord ? The end ???


Guitar cord use phone jack . Phone jack positive is the "tip" , negative is the "sleeve "

Look there;  http://www.answers.com/topic/tip-and-ring-

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #13 on: June 21, 2012, 07:25:43 pm »
......"wired so the bridge is connected to the ground of the plug on the end of the cord; it is."

...the end of the cord ?????  What do you mean ?  Guitar cord ? The end ???
Guitar cord use phone jack . Phone jack positive is the "tip" , negative is the "sleeve "

Look there;  http://www.answers.com/topic/tip-and-ring-

Yeah, I get that. The tip of the cord's plug is hot. The sleeve of the cord is the ground. That means the sleeve of the plug on the end of the guitar cord is grounded, okay? That means that if you plug a cord into your guitar and put your meter on the SLEEVE of the cord and on the BRIDGE of your guitar, if they are connected you should get a near-zero reading. Which is what I get. So the "polarity" of this circuit is correct. I think you are not a native English speaker, right? Unfortunately, the only other languages I speak are French and Lakota Sioux so I probably can't write in your native language (although if you speak either of those send me a message!) and we are stuck using English, but sometimes there are problems; I think that's what we have here.  :icon_biggrin:

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2012, 02:56:45 am »
Bonjours Tyranocaster, je parle français et j'habite près de Montréal, Canada. Tu as parfaitement raison , l'anglais n'est pas ma langue maternelle.

Ton explication avec le ground et le fil de la guitare est excellent  donc pas de problème de ce côté. Le jack est bien polarisé . Donc où est le problème alors ? Une guitare c'est simple, j'en répare beaucoup.

Il y a peut-être quelques chose qui t'as échappé , que tu oublies de mentionner où tu as commis une erreur dans tes tests ?

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2012, 06:25:49 am »
Il y a peut-être quelques chose qui t'as échappé , que tu oublies de mentionner où tu as commis une erreur dans tes tests ?

Oui, là tu as sans doute raison, mais où peut-elle bien être? Comment reconnaître une erreur que l'on ne peut pas reconnaître?  :icon_biggrin:

But the rest of the forum can't understand that! There is undoubtedly a mistake somewhere (I HOPE - the alternative doesn't bear thinking about, although it is barely possible that I have a defective pickup) so that's why I'm asking for ideas - to see what I might have overlooked. The problem with posting photos of guitar wiring is that (especially with a Telecaster) unless you totally disassemble the thing it's very hard to get photos of everything and a picture of just the pots and their wiring won't show anything useful - if it did I would have spotted it by now, I think. With just a volume and tone control there just isn't very much wiring there! I suspect the grounding from the bridge - that and the fact that the Dimarzio leads are not shielded. At the very least, the Dimarzio ground wire and the bridge's ground wire can touch on the way to the control cavity and perhaps that might create a ground loop, but I'm just grasping at straws.

Y a un autre truc qui m´ branche aussi
C´est la musique avec des potes
On a fait un groupe de hard rock
On répète le soir dans une cave
Sur des amplis un peu pourris

   --Renaud

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2012, 06:27:41 am »
Also, thanks for moving this; I didn't even see this forum, buried as it is under "Other stuff".  :laugh:

Offline fdesalvo

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2012, 10:35:26 am »
You'll get it - keep at it!
~F
"Ruining good moments since 1975."

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2012, 11:06:51 am »
I got a really quick response from Dimarzio, but it isn't very helpful:

There isn't anything wrong with the pickup or your wiring. There is almost always some degree of noise with passive pickups when neither hand is touching the strings unless the electronic path is completely shielded. This isn't possible in your case, because the pickup itself cannot be effectively shielded. You can reduce the noise somewhat by reducing the length of the pickup leads (if you haven't already done so). There may also be background noise if the bridge plate is made of ferrous metal, which many Tele bridges are. This type of bridge plate somewhat reduces the ability of the Virtual T to cancel hum. Brass and stainless steel bridge plates do not have this effect on the Virtual T.

I think there has to be something wrong here since I have no other guitars that exhibit this behavior. I did check my bridge plate (it's the original '69 Tele plate) with a magnet and it sticks to the plate, so it must be ferrous. Perhaps that has something to do with it. I don't have any spare plates with the three bridge setup to try instead. It seems to me that shortening the leads and putting them inside a shield should both work towards the same end, and I always like to keep the leads as long as I can because you never know what you will do with the thing in the future, so I have to think about this.

EDIT: Also, why does this hum happen when I turn the volume pot down? To repeat, when it's all the way up this sounds like any other Telecaster; take your hands off the guitar and yeah, you'll get some noise, but nothing unexpected. But turn it down a notch and lift your hands and SHAZAM - you've got low frequency content that wasn't there before and with this high gain amp it's more than noticeable; I'm having to use a noise gate to record and I hate that.

EDIT 2: Actually, cranking the 18 Watter all the way up made me notice that the low frequency noise actually gets louder as you turn the pot down even when you are touching the strings - it's just a lot worse with your hands off. What causes this kind of thing in general?
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 11:45:52 am by Tyrannocaster »

Offline mresistor

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2012, 12:41:19 pm »
tubenit -  it is most likely a DP412 Virtual T Bridge or a DP413 Hot Virtual T Bridge(discontinued) and the current similar one is the DP418 Area T bridge   http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/tele/hum-canceling/area-t-bridge

ref: http://www.dimarzio.com/faq/do-you-still-make

Can you post some good pics of the control plate, upside down of course to see the innards? Have you changed the cap? You might give
this a thorough read http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/default/files/diagrams/virtual_area_hs.pdf

Offline proaudioguy

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2012, 01:08:46 pm »
Post pics of the wiring.

Ground loop unlikely to cause this and that would be a very small loop.

The "silver wire" is likely a shield drain wire.  Does the pickup have 4 insulated wires plus the "silver wire" inside a larger insulation that covers all 5 conductors?  That is standard stuff.  I have a FRED from the mid 90s and that's how it's wired  I have some much older 'buckers from the 80s and they are the same way.

The idea here is that you have 2 coils, one has the magnetic poles through it and the other is essentially a dummy coil.  The red and black wires make up one coil and the white and green make up the other.  The coils are wired in series, and each coil is wound in the opposite direction.  (this is the color code I am most familiar with, YMMV)  The shield drain wire is that "silver wire" which runs the length of the overall cable which has a FOIL shield.  When you strip the outer insulation the foil strips too but that silver wire is touching it inside the insulation so your pickup wire is shielded except where it comes out of that insulation.  At least that's how it's supposed to be.  For my single coils with 2 wires I twist the wires which gives a percentage of shielding but the twist also aids in noise cancelling, but I digress.

The ground wire from the bridge, the silver wire, the green wire and the SLEEVE of the output jack should all converge on the back of the volume pot.  The fully counter clockwise terminal on the volume pot should also be grounded to the back of the pot.  One side of the TONE Cap should be soldered to the back of the tone pot and the back of the tone pot should have a wire running to the back of the volume pot.  The other side of the tone cap should be attached to the center lug of the tone pot.  The fully CCW lug of the tone pot should be connected to the fully clockwise lug of the Vol pot.  The pickup RED wire should be connected to the fully CW lug of the volume pot.  The center lug of the volume pot should be connected to the TIP of the output jack. That is IT.  There is nothing else that needs to be done here.

Make sure to use good quality pots.  I prefer CTS.  Some would say for your stacked 'bucker a 500K Vol would be better, but I think 250K is OK usually.  Worse case you lose a little output level.  Same with the tone.  Worst case you lose a little top end by using a 250K.  Wire it all very cleanly, and use a good quality iron and rosin core solder.  Be sure to use a good known cable to the amp.  Comparing to other guitars is OK I think since you have so many guitars.  To me the symptoms sound like the volume control outer lug is not grounded.


Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #21 on: June 22, 2012, 01:55:33 pm »
Thanks for taking the time to type in such a comprehensive answer. I think I can respond to nearly everything in it.

The "silver wire" is likely a shield drain wire.  Does the pickup have 4 insulated wires plus the "silver wire" inside a larger insulation that covers all 5 conductors?  That is standard stuff.  I have a FRED from the mid 90s and that's how it's wired  I have some much older 'buckers from the 80s and they are the same way.

There is no "larger insulation"; that's one reason why I was contemplating adding a spiral shield to the wires coming from the pup. In fact, I can't even see the white and black wires that Dimarzio's sheet says are permanently soldered together; they must be under the pickup itself. All I can see are green, red and silver wires, which are wrapped around each other on the way to the control cavity. BTW, this pickup is probably about 15 years old. I bought it new and I don't believe I ever did anything to it out of the ordinary. I also never used this guitar that much, and certainly not with a high gain amp where I was trying to keep the volume control turned down a good deal of the time. In retrospect, I think this beast (it is a great, raw sounding Tele) has always been played with the volume on either 10 or 0.  :icon_biggrin: But now I want to use the volume control with this more responsive amp.

The ground wire from the bridge, the silver wire, the green wire and the SLEEVE of the output jack should all converge on the back of the volume pot.  The fully counter clockwise terminal on the volume pot should also be grounded to the back of the pot.  One side of the TONE Cap should be soldered to the back of the tone pot and the back of the tone pot should have a wire running to the back of the volume pot.  The other side of the tone cap should be attached to the center lug of the tone pot.  The fully CCW lug of the tone pot should be connected to the fully clockwise lug of the Vol pot.  The pickup RED wire should be connected to the fully CW lug of the volume pot.  The center lug of the volume pot should be connected to the TIP of the output jack. That is IT.  There is nothing else that needs to be done here.

Everything is just as you describe it, with this exception: the tone control cap is grounded to the back of the volume pot instead of the tone pot. There is no wire from the back of the tone pot to the volume pot now, but there was one until yesterday when I removed it to see if it was necessary. Since there was no change, I left it off. Continuity readings with my meter show the tone pot's back to be grounded anyway, presumably through the metal control plate.

Make sure to use good quality pots.  I prefer CTS.  Some would say for your stacked 'bucker a 500K Vol would be better, but I think 250K is OK usually.  Worse case you lose a little output level.  Same with the tone.  Worst case you lose a little top end by using a 250K.  Wire it all very cleanly, and use a good quality iron and rosin core solder.  Be sure to use a good known cable to the amp.  Comparing to other guitars is OK I think since you have so many guitars.  To me the symptoms sound like the volume control outer lug is not grounded.

The pots are Alphas, 500k. The outer lug of the volume pot is grounded to the back of the volume pot, which is connected to the sleeve of the output jack and also the wire from the bridge.

The only other "odd" thing I notice is that the tone cap is an old chocolate drop style unit. (I've had this guitar since 1970 and I have no idea when that was put in, but it works fine, AFAIK.) Could a bad cap do this?

I am getting a little tired of the drain this thing is putting on my amp building activities (it has become a first class diversion) and I may just have to live with it if I don't come up with something. But then, that's what I always say...before I tear something apart again, LOL.

Thanks again for the detailed response.

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #22 on: June 22, 2012, 02:10:26 pm »
Newsflash: I kept thinking "What is different here?" and then it occurred to me to think in a different direction. Is it possible that this may somehow be amp related? To test this idea out, I took the guitar to a completely different room, plugged it into a J-Station set on a high gain Marshallish setting which then ran into a Twin Reverb and observed the behavior. I did not hear the hum-as-the-pot-goes-down-hands-off (well, you come up with a good name that summarizes it, LOL) syndrome.

But the reason I never suspected the 18 Watter (and I'm not sure I still do, really) is that my Strat that I played on that 18 Watt clip I posted the other day doesn't do this. None of the other guitars that I've tried with the 18 watter does it, so I was sure it was the Tele. But what if it's some combination of this guitar and this amp? Is that possible? (Don't ask, Tyrannocaster; in the world of electronics anything is possible!)

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #23 on: June 22, 2012, 03:15:49 pm »
Lot of work ( for me poor french Canadian ) reading all those post , I'have not fnish yet.

By the way I ' m not the only asking to see some picture ;  Control plate .  As the Emperor Napoleon once said: A picture is worth a thousand words.

 On our video screen, a picture is welcome.

Offline fdesalvo

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #24 on: June 22, 2012, 03:32:02 pm »
Take the original amp into that room - or were you always running into the J-Station?

Newsflash: I kept thinking "What is different here?" and then it occurred to me to think in a different direction. Is it possible that this may somehow be amp related? To test this idea out, I took the guitar to a completely different room, plugged it into a J-Station set on a high gain Marshallish setting which then ran into a Twin Reverb and observed the behavior. I did not hear the hum-as-the-pot-goes-down-hands-off (well, you come up with a good name that summarizes it, LOL) syndrome.

But the reason I never suspected the 18 Watter (and I'm not sure I still do, really) is that my Strat that I played on that 18 Watt clip I posted the other day doesn't do this. None of the other guitars that I've tried with the 18 watter does it, so I was sure it was the Tele. But what if it's some combination of this guitar and this amp? Is that possible? (Don't ask, Tyrannocaster; in the world of electronics anything is possible!)
~F
"Ruining good moments since 1975."

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #25 on: June 22, 2012, 04:40:46 pm »
Which "original" amp? Anyway, I have used the J-Station in the same room as the 18 Watter is now (it's the room with my work space and also my computers, so there is plenty of noise potential. I never heard the weird hum from the J-Station there either and I know I have used the Esquire with it. I have several other amps too and I haven't noticed it with them but until I actually try them out and listen for it with the Esquire I will be suspicious of them all. Conversely, I have played the 18 Watter in lots of different rooms (and houses/playing spaces) and never noticed this before either, but that was a) not usually with the Esquire and b) before I put in the second gain stage.

I appreciate the need for pictures and I did try taking a couple but I have never been able to get shots of wiring that show what I want and I wasn't happy with them at all. My camera is not very good at macro stuff and you HAVE to get close to see the perspective. Both of my cameras are also lousy at doing telephoto closeup, too. :( Point-and-shoots are great for most things, but not so good for this, I'm afraid. I'm thinking about seeing if I can borrow another one from a friend.

EDIT: fdesalvo, I just realized I didn't answer your question about the J-Station. No, I was not using it before, although I HAVE used it before in this room occasionally. I haven't yet tried taking the 18 Watter into the room where the Twin and the J-Station are, mostly because in the past that room has seemed to have more electrical issues than my workroom. Believe it or not. For one thing, the AC outlets there aren't grounded and I have a decent ground here in the workroom. And this is the room I do most of my playing in (the other room is the living room of the house.) Man, there are a LOT of variables to work with here!

stratele52, je suis sûr que si j'étais obligé d'écrire sur ce sujet en français je ne me débrouillerais pas aussi bien que toi tu fais en anglais! Le vocabulaire est assez specialisé et j'en manque. Hé, peux-tu me récommender de la bonne musique "pop" française? Il me semble difficile de l'en trouver; la plupart est des petites filles qui chantent comme les poupées (genre Carla Bruni, yuck) ou les gars qui chassent les groupes anglais et américains, mais 10-20 ans en retard.

Thanks to everybody who has chimed in. If I don't get this sorted out it won't be for lack of help.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 05:17:52 pm by Tyrannocaster »

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #26 on: June 22, 2012, 05:40:30 pm »
 
stratele52, je suis sûr que si j'étais obligé d'écrire sur ce sujet en français je ne me débrouillerais pas aussi bien que toi tu fais en anglais! Le vocabulaire est assez specialisé et j'en manque. Hé, peux-tu me récommender de la bonne musique "pop" française? Il me semble difficile de l'en trouver; la plupart est des petites filles qui chantent comme les poupées (genre Carla Bruni, yuck) ou les gars qui chassent les groupes anglais et américains, mais 10-20 ans en retard.


Je suis plus "Beach Boys , Beatles et la musique Fançaise, de France , je ne connais pas, Carla Bruni , le nom oui , la musique non. Si je m'intéressais à la musique en français , ce serais du Québecois ,( Canadien -Français ) Bien meilleur à mon avis .

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #27 on: June 23, 2012, 05:32:55 am »
Je suis plus "Beach Boys , Beatles et la musique Fançaise, de France , je ne connais pas, Carla Bruni , le nom oui , la musique non. Si je m'intéressais à la musique en français , ce serais du Québecois ,( Canadien -Français ) Bien meilleur à mon avis .

Et la musique Québecoise, ça je ne connais pas. Tu peux me donner des noms à chercher (à préférence à télécharger, puisque les disques ne seraient pas disponible ici - je suis à Portland, Oregon)?

Offline Tyrannocaster

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #28 on: June 23, 2012, 06:06:26 am »
I thought some of you might be interested in hearing what the Esquier sounds like through the 18 Watter. I didn't use my volume control (though there is a fair amount of tone control twisting, LOL) because of the hum issue so dynamically it is not all I would like and I was never able to clean up the sound by lowering the volume on the guitar, but it is still a basic sound I like a lot:

https://www.box.com/s/a281b15438d32f08d6eb

(Song is Questions In A World Of Blue by Angelo Badalamenti, from Twin Peaks. Plus some noodling.  :laugh: It was a throwaway that I saved.)
« Last Edit: June 23, 2012, 06:13:44 am by Tyrannocaster »

stratele52

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Re: A simple guitar wiring question
« Reply #29 on: June 23, 2012, 07:21:45 am »
Ici tu peux écouter beaucoup de musique du Québec;

http://www.postedecoute.ca/catalogue/?format=title&page=1&category%5fid=105187&orderby=release%5fdate%2cdesc

Des artistes intéressants parmis tant d'autres;


Steve Hill ; blues
Les Cowboys Fringants; trad
Offenbach ; rock
Malajube ; rock
Breasfeeders ; rock
Martin Deschamps ; rock
Robert Charlebois
jean-Pierre Ferland
Les trois accords

 


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