The_Kid
Active member
Does anyone have a good website to show a newb how to do this? I'm becoming more and more convinced that the wiring on my axes isnt right. I've eliminated just about any other solution I can come up with other than the wiring just isnt correct.
Maybe some of you awesome gurus can help me determine if its something else.
First my rig: I play through an Axe-fx direct to FOH, and love the tones I have dialed in. The issues I am describing have existed across my axe-fx, Boss GT8/10 modesl, Peavey JSX head, my buddies Mesa Tri-Axis.
My axes, I have lower to mid guitars, nothing special, nothing high end, but nothing pawnshop/garage sale worthless either. They have always suited me well playability wise and for the most part tone wise. What I will be describing is adding 'background' noise or other artifacts that I cannot dial out through my rig or any other piece of gear I've owned.
Things I have noticed:
1) my guitars, both of them, have a super increased audible sensitivity around the whole guitar. I mean I can have my guitar on, I can tap the headstock and you can hear every tap like your tapping on the pup's directly. Strings muted with my other hand, its just as strong so I can eliminate string noise. I can get the same noise by tapping anywhere around the back of the neck or body..or the front of the body. I can also literally hear my straplocks if I shift my guitar around while muting the strings with my hand. I understand sustain on a guitar, but this seems drastically overboard IMO.
2) I can hear some background 'hiss'/noise while playing. Not the type of preamp hiss you get with higher gain type settings. Again, if you look through the gear I've used, when I had my JSX Head, I also ran an ISP Decimator, before and in the loop of the amp. I still had the same sound hiss issues. On my current axe fx rig, I can adjust the gate settings to eliminate the 'amp' hiss that is there, but this noise I'm referring to doesnt show up until a note/sound is made from the guitar through the rig.
3) The last couple days, I was working on a patch for a song my band is doing. I was setting up a boosted Recto patch for a Metallica style sound. For the first time on one of my guitars I noticed almost a high pitch hollow type sound, almost like feedback riding on top of notes I played. It didnt matter frequency of the note I played it was there. Low E, high E....palm mute power chords. My practice setup is my laptop and axe fx into a small mixer and then the main out to my IEM unit. So there was no audible sound, other than the acoustic sound of my strings being plucked.
I've talked with a few people about it and no one can seem to say for sure what they think it would be. Initially I thought it could have been pup's going microphonic. Both guitars came with passive pup's in them, but at one point when I was playing heavier/modern rock were swapped out with EMG 81/85's. I know one guitar had to be routed deeper in order to achieve the right pup height. I noticed the issues with the guitars when I had the EMG's in there as well which was when I was using my Boss GT 8/10. At the time, when I asked for some assistance, I was told to lower my gain settings.....that didnt fix it. I also dont believe I would be running more gain through a light crunch amp in the GT unit than I was running through the Ultra channel on the JSX. If the pups were going microphonic and with the extra 'chamber' below them maybe sound was resonating and causing that issue. Me and my buddy, at the suggestion of a local guy, removed the pup's and placed some foam under the pups to maybe help dampen the sound. We did this on one guitar...and there was no change.
So....long story even longer...Any ideas if maybe the pups are just wired wrong and causing this? I'll add two more short pieces of information. When I had the EMG's installed, I never had the proper pots put in. When I had them removed, I'm not sure what was changed or replaced with pots, but I know on one guitar it had a single tone, 2 volume. I had that swapped as well so wondering if something else is going on with that. The other guitar has the 2/2 configuration for tone/volume...BUT....when I am on the middle pup selection on a 3 way toggle...and I roll down the volume on the bridge or neck...it cuts the volume completely. This is on both guitars as well.
So any ideas? Sorry so long, but wanted to try and avoid any duplicate 'solutions'.
I'm thinking of rewiring the pups and pots...not sure it would help or not.
Maybe some of you awesome gurus can help me determine if its something else.
First my rig: I play through an Axe-fx direct to FOH, and love the tones I have dialed in. The issues I am describing have existed across my axe-fx, Boss GT8/10 modesl, Peavey JSX head, my buddies Mesa Tri-Axis.
My axes, I have lower to mid guitars, nothing special, nothing high end, but nothing pawnshop/garage sale worthless either. They have always suited me well playability wise and for the most part tone wise. What I will be describing is adding 'background' noise or other artifacts that I cannot dial out through my rig or any other piece of gear I've owned.
Things I have noticed:
1) my guitars, both of them, have a super increased audible sensitivity around the whole guitar. I mean I can have my guitar on, I can tap the headstock and you can hear every tap like your tapping on the pup's directly. Strings muted with my other hand, its just as strong so I can eliminate string noise. I can get the same noise by tapping anywhere around the back of the neck or body..or the front of the body. I can also literally hear my straplocks if I shift my guitar around while muting the strings with my hand. I understand sustain on a guitar, but this seems drastically overboard IMO.
2) I can hear some background 'hiss'/noise while playing. Not the type of preamp hiss you get with higher gain type settings. Again, if you look through the gear I've used, when I had my JSX Head, I also ran an ISP Decimator, before and in the loop of the amp. I still had the same sound hiss issues. On my current axe fx rig, I can adjust the gate settings to eliminate the 'amp' hiss that is there, but this noise I'm referring to doesnt show up until a note/sound is made from the guitar through the rig.
3) The last couple days, I was working on a patch for a song my band is doing. I was setting up a boosted Recto patch for a Metallica style sound. For the first time on one of my guitars I noticed almost a high pitch hollow type sound, almost like feedback riding on top of notes I played. It didnt matter frequency of the note I played it was there. Low E, high E....palm mute power chords. My practice setup is my laptop and axe fx into a small mixer and then the main out to my IEM unit. So there was no audible sound, other than the acoustic sound of my strings being plucked.
I've talked with a few people about it and no one can seem to say for sure what they think it would be. Initially I thought it could have been pup's going microphonic. Both guitars came with passive pup's in them, but at one point when I was playing heavier/modern rock were swapped out with EMG 81/85's. I know one guitar had to be routed deeper in order to achieve the right pup height. I noticed the issues with the guitars when I had the EMG's in there as well which was when I was using my Boss GT 8/10. At the time, when I asked for some assistance, I was told to lower my gain settings.....that didnt fix it. I also dont believe I would be running more gain through a light crunch amp in the GT unit than I was running through the Ultra channel on the JSX. If the pups were going microphonic and with the extra 'chamber' below them maybe sound was resonating and causing that issue. Me and my buddy, at the suggestion of a local guy, removed the pup's and placed some foam under the pups to maybe help dampen the sound. We did this on one guitar...and there was no change.
So....long story even longer...Any ideas if maybe the pups are just wired wrong and causing this? I'll add two more short pieces of information. When I had the EMG's installed, I never had the proper pots put in. When I had them removed, I'm not sure what was changed or replaced with pots, but I know on one guitar it had a single tone, 2 volume. I had that swapped as well so wondering if something else is going on with that. The other guitar has the 2/2 configuration for tone/volume...BUT....when I am on the middle pup selection on a 3 way toggle...and I roll down the volume on the bridge or neck...it cuts the volume completely. This is on both guitars as well.
So any ideas? Sorry so long, but wanted to try and avoid any duplicate 'solutions'.
I'm thinking of rewiring the pups and pots...not sure it would help or not.
I'm taking it to a few techs around here. So far the only one that got back to me is the one at Guitar Wireless, but seems like a good guy, and has enough experience from what I see on the site. so...we'll see how that works. (fingers crossed) 