ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

dr.barlo please post your results. I've got a Strat waiting for some mods

thanks Artie, once the p/u's arrive, I think I'll try recording something. I think I'm becoming more of a fan of 0.033µF caps, and that 0.0068µF cap is pretty nice too.

Brett
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Brett Valentine said:
Here's a pic
f7e8_1.JPG
Click to expand...

Beauty. Gotta love them Hamers
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Brett Valentine said:
dr.barlo please post your results. I've got a Strat waiting for some mods

thanks Artie, once the p/u's arrive, I think I'll try recording something. I think I'm becoming more of a fan of 0.033µF caps, and that 0.0068µF cap is pretty nice too.

Brett
Click to expand...

Will do.

B :cool2:
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Brett Valentine said:
Thanks, I was considering just trying the '59 or a set, but was wondering about the Phat Cats. Saw the end of Soundstage with Robert Plant, and one of the guitarists had an old trapeeze Goldtop with P 90's and the tone he was getting with his fingers was brutal. . .

Actually, an A5 'bucker based guitar might be a good change. How good is the C5 for "touch?" Would a '59(b) have better dynamics?
Click to expand...

Phat Cats have an amazing amount of mojo. When I first played on one I was surprised at the sheer amount of mojo that my fingers were unleashing. They are very sensitive to picking style and tone/volume knob use. Lead tone is good, rhythm is good, distorted is good, clean is good. At the time I had a phat cat in the neck and a C5 in the bridge of my LP... I found myself using the phat cat for everything because the C5 sounded dull by comparison, not as sensitive to touch... looking back, I should've gotten a 59 and then gotten "more" by turning my gain up. Phat Cats will give you mojo where you didn't think you had mojo.
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

More mojo is a good thing!
Just waiting on pickups. Hopefully some time this week.
here's the same guitar as pictured above, but in non flourescent lighting
satfintermediate2csmallko3.jpg


funny thing, when I picked up the SATQ, this was the guitar I was originally looking at.
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Got back from the Dutchess County Fair this evening, installed the pickups (I forgot about the braided wire. When I reverse the phase, one pickup shorts out. I'll either wrap the neck p/u's wire in electrical tape, or see if I can wire the 2 pickups series/parallel.

Trying to figure out how you do that with a Switchcraft p/u selector and a mini toggle (there's something simple I 'm not seeing at the moment).

Tone wise, I was surprised how dark the neck p/u was, more like a humbucker. The bridge was warm but still with some bite. Rolling off the bass brought out a lot of "snap."

Big improvement over the Duncan Designed.

It's late so I'll have to really get into it tomorrow.

Brett
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

This is what I came up with. Don't know if it will work correctly, so I'll post this as a separate question.
(image removed to avoid future confusion. . . suffice it to say it was incorrect)
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Okay, yes, that wiring diagram works.

Nice sound. I'm not sure which one is the thicker tone or the thinner one, but it's more useful than the reverse phase. Gives me the the 4 pickup selections of the Hamer Taladega. . .
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Opps! I take it back, no bridge pickup!!!

DETAILS:

Series:

All 3 toggle positions are 2 pickups in series

Parallel:
Neck position - Neck pickup
Middle position - Both pickups
Bridge position - Both pickups
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Artie came through with the correct diagram
brett_valentine.jpg

here's the finished cavity (not quite as neat as when I started. . .)
1asmallvj3.jpg
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Nice range of tones. I took it to the store I ordered the pickups from and spent some time with a friend who works there and we ran it through it's paces in a Fender Super Sonic.

I have to rethink the treble bleed circuit. With the 500k pot and the Kinman mod, as the volume get's below about 8, the top end loses it's high end liveliness, and the bottom end drops out (different response than I get with humbuckers). Also, I notice that the Phat Cats get a little dark and covered with the TBX pot and the Mid/Tone switch in the circuit all the time. I might also replace the 500k DPDT Volume control with a 1 meg to brighten things up a bit more.

I might also center in on one tone cap or one bass roll of cap and wire a 3 way mini toggle to allow either tone control or both.

I think if I were to do it again, I might put the switch on the neck volume pot, a bass cut switch on the bridge volume control, and a master Torres control or maybe the Andy Rothstein version. That would keep the guitar looking stock and give me the bass cut without having to run 2 master tone pots plus the master volume pot.
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Brett Valentine said:
Okay, I know it's a sickness, but I just purchased another Hamer (used amber SATF with case) on ebay and am looking for different pickup ideas. Looking for brighter and a bit less smooth than the other (which is an absolute winner).

The first has a Jazz(n)/Pearly Gates(b) combination, how would a PhatCat(n)/StagMag(b) combo work, or would I fare better with a pair of Phat Cats?

I haven't even begun to think about how I might wire this one. . .

Brett

Maybe a Stag Mag in the neck and. . .?
Click to expand...

No offense, but by the looks of your signature, you've got plenty of low / moderate output guitars and pickup combinations. Why not try something totally off the beaten path (for you), like a Full Shred set?
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

TwinReverb said:
No offense, but by the looks of your signature, you've got plenty of low / moderate output guitars and pickup combinations. Why not try something totally off the beaten path (for you), like a Full Shred set?
Click to expand...

No offense taken! I agree with you. I'm considering doing something like that with the Carvin (DC-135). While the M22 pickups were powerful, they seemed to not have much life to the cleaner tones. With the lower gain pickups, it has life, but not necessarily enough power.
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

The Set Lover bridge is definately not bright and not smoothe. I'm not sure if you're looking for the PAF nasally sound or more of an aggressive crunchy, but I'm getting rid of mine because what I want is a smoother sound, fuller sound.
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Thanks Jacob. I'm still working on the SATF right now and will really concentrate on the Carvin at a later date.
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

I pulled out the electronics I had set up since the master volume, master TBX, Master Tone/Mid switch combination that was working for the humbuckers wasn't a good match for the Phat Cats. Frankly, the pickups were too covered sounding and lacked power. I had a feeling that having 3 pots on all the time was sucking tone and power. I decided to go back to something closer to Hamer's wiring scheme (2 volumes, master tone).

I used one of the original Hamer 500K volume pots for the neck and put the push/pull DPDT 500K volume control in the bridge position to also double as the series/parallel switch. Both got the Kinman treble bleed circuit.

I found that I really didn't use all the options I was getting, so I decided to just set up a bass cut switch (still trying out different cap values). Right now, all I have is an on-on-on switch, so the center position is off until the on-on switches arrive.

For the extra hole, I decided to wire the Torres control so that I could completely bypass the tone control. I found an on-off-on switch and wired one side with a jumper wire and the other side with an 0.0047µF cap as an experiment.

The cap in between the Torres and the jack has the effect of lowering the value of the tone cap, so I get the 0.022µF cap of the Torres when it acts as a regular tone pot, and with the 0.0047µF cap in series, I get what amounts to a lower value tone cap (so I still have 2 tone cap options).

In "MID Control" mode, the 0.0047µF cap moderates the effect of the MID Control, making its effect less drastic.

Here's the wiring diagram (oops! the DPDT switch on the Bridge volume pot is inverted. . . I'll have to fix that later).
hamersatf2volume1tonewitw9.jpg


Since there are now only 2 pots on instead of all 3 working as master controls, the tone is stronger and definitely brighter! Also, the Torres MID Control has a more pronounced function.

The series/parallel switch is still giving me fits (it worked for a bit, but not since. . . still trying to trace the problem).

In all, the Phat Cats sound much better, I still have almost all the desired tonal options, and the control cavity is just a little bit less cluttered.

I'll have to put it through its paces again later today.
 
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Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Series/parallel is working. The braided wire for the pickups was touching on the way to the control cavity. Some electrical tape solved that issue. Series mode sounds good with the bass cut and the mids rolled out to about 3. Clear, full sound with lot's of highs.

I might try to add a small capacitor to the series/parallel circuit to cut the bottom end, but I'll have to live with the guitar for awhile.
 
Re: ANother New Guitar. . . P/U choices

Brett Valentine said:
Series/parallel is working. The braided wire for the pickups was touching on the way to the control cavity.
Click to expand...

If I had a dollar for every time I've done this . . .

Anyway, looks great. Bet she sounds killer too. Nice job . . . again. ;)
 
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