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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Tone resistors and caps

1/1/1998 8:26 PM
Rick	Tone resistors and caps I have a 60`s strat and a relic, the neck and middle pickup sound just alike but the bridge pickup on the relic is to bright.I`ve already hooked up the bridge pickup to the tone knob and it helped some but no cigar. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance Rick

1/7/1998 3:44 AM
Steve A.	Rick: Lindy Fralin makes a backing plate for strat pickups that acts like the plate on some of the Tele bridge pickups. It's coated with wax to help adhere to the back of your pickup and there is a bare wire you solder to the grounded pickup lead. It will cut down on the brightness of a bridge pickup and give it more of a Tele sound. Torres Engineering sells the plates for $12 each (ouch!); look under Resources on the home page here for his phone number. Another suggestion would be to look into the Sup'rStrat wiring harness I designed for a standard strat selector switch and a push-pull pot on one of the controls. With the pot down, the two settings normally using the bridge pickup use the bridge and neck pickups in parallel for a much sweeter sound that is less harsh. For a stock bridge pickup sound, pull the pot out and the two settings that use the neck pickup use the neck and bridge pickups in series for a fuller and more powerful sound (altho it can be a bit muddy like a humbucker). I use a TBX tone control so I'll crank it up to 10 to get a bit more definition out of the series linkage. Here's a link to my page: Click" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/3281/sprstr_2.htm">Click here for the Sup'rStrat Wiring Harness Steve Ahola

1/7/1998 3:44 AM

Steve A.

Rick:

    Lindy Fralin makes a backing plate for strat pickups that acts like the plate on some of the Tele bridge pickups. It's coated with wax to help adhere to the back of your pickup and there is a bare wire you solder to the grounded pickup lead. It will cut down on the brightness of a bridge pickup and give it more of a Tele sound. Torres Engineering sells the plates for $12 each (ouch!); look under Resources on the home page here for his phone number.

    Another suggestion would be to look into the Sup'rStrat wiring harness I designed for a standard strat selector switch and a push-pull pot on one of the controls. With the pot down, the two settings normally using the bridge pickup use the bridge and neck pickups in parallel for a much sweeter sound that is less harsh. For a stock bridge pickup sound, pull the pot out and the two settings that use the neck pickup use the neck and bridge pickups in series for a fuller and more powerful sound (altho it can be a bit muddy like a humbucker). I use a TBX tone control so I'll crank it up to 10 to get a bit more definition out of the series linkage.
    Here's a link to my page:

Click" target="_blank">http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Delta/3281/sprstr_2.htm">Click here for the Sup'rStrat Wiring Harness

Steve Ahola

1/13/1998 2:25 PM
Doc	Steve: This add-on plate interests me. Do you (or anyone else) know what material it's made from? I've seen some Tele pickups with copper plates, some with copper plated steel plates, and I'm not certain which material has what effect on the magnetic field or the tone. I can't see paying $12 for a piece of sheet metal, unless it's got silver or gold in it. I'll just make my own. DiMarzio's Red Velvet bridge pu has a (appx) 1/2" wide strip on the underside, is copper colored, but I'm not sure if it's solid or plated. It's also quite a bit thinner than the usual Tele plate. Doc

1/13/1998 2:25 PM

Doc

Steve:

This add-on plate interests me. Do you (or anyone else) know what material it's made from?

I've seen some Tele pickups with copper plates, some with copper plated steel plates, and I'm not certain which material has what effect on the magnetic field or the tone.

I can't see paying $12 for a piece of sheet metal, unless it's got silver or gold in it. I'll just make my own. DiMarzio's Red Velvet bridge pu has a (appx) 1/2" wide strip on the underside, is copper colored, but I'm not sure if it's solid or plated. It's also quite a bit thinner than the usual Tele plate.

Doc

1/14/1998 2:37 AM
Steve A.	Doc: "$12 for a stupid piece of metal?" That's exactly what I thought- especially since I work at a sheet metal shop (don't ask me about metal- I just manage the HVAC service dept). I figured that I'd bring in one of the plates and have the shop foreman look at it to determine what kind of metal it is, etc., so that he could fabricate more of them for me. But I never did follow through with that idea. The piece of metal is ferrous (will stick to a magnet), not galvanized and is maybe 20 gauge. Its size and shape is roughly that of the top of a strat pickup cover. There is an offset ground wire that appears to be silver-soldered to the plate (so that you can connect it to the grounded terminal). It is dipped in wax so when you heat it up to solder the wire it will adhere to the back of the pickup. If its not perfectly flat it may separate from the pickup causing an annoying buzz/rattle. If you were sure that you didn't want to remove it later I suppose that you could skip the wax and just glue it to the back of the pickup with silicon. In this industry (musical electronics) we pay for the theory and technology, not just the parts. Lindy Fralin seems to know exactly what works best with his pickups, and probably set up a die to punch out 100 of these plates in 5 minutes. With a set of pickups costing almost $250 with tax, who is going to quibble about an extra $12 for a backing plate? Incidentally, while we are on the topic of strat pickups, I've been shielding my coils by wrapping them first with a rayon adhesive tape and then cutting self-stick sheet copper foil to size to wrap around the coil. I finally broke down and bought a conductive paint pen ($16!) and have been shielding the slugs as well, which is very important if you reverse the windings or wire the pickups in series. (Make sure that you check for any shorts between the slugs and the coil before grounding them.) I haven't gotten around to ordering the conductive paint from Stew-Mac yet to shield the control compartments, but shielding the pickups does seem to reduce the single coil hum a bit. (Every little dB helps...) Steve Ahola

1/14/1998 2:37 AM

Steve A.

Doc:

    "$12 for a stupid piece of metal?" That's exactly what I thought- especially since I work at a sheet metal shop (don't ask me about metal- I just manage the HVAC service dept). I figured that I'd bring in one of the plates and have the shop foreman look at it to determine what kind of metal it is, etc., so that he could fabricate more of them for me. But I never did follow through with that idea.

    The piece of metal is ferrous (will stick to a magnet), not galvanized and is maybe 20 gauge. Its size and shape is roughly that of the top of a strat pickup cover. There is an offset ground wire that appears to be silver-soldered to the plate (so that you can connect it to the grounded terminal). It is dipped in wax so when you heat it up to solder the wire it will adhere to the back of the pickup. If its not perfectly flat it may separate from the pickup causing an annoying buzz/rattle. If you were sure that you didn't want to remove it later I suppose that you could skip the wax and just glue it to the back of the pickup with silicon.

    In this industry (musical electronics) we pay for the theory and technology, not just the parts. Lindy Fralin seems to know exactly what works best with his pickups, and probably set up a die to punch out 100 of these plates in 5 minutes. With a set of pickups costing almost $250 with tax, who is going to quibble about an extra $12 for a backing plate?

    Incidentally, while we are on the topic of strat pickups, I've been shielding my coils by wrapping them first with a rayon adhesive tape and then cutting self-stick sheet copper foil to size to wrap around the coil. I finally broke down and bought a conductive paint pen ($16!) and have been shielding the slugs as well, which is very important if you reverse the windings or wire the pickups in series. (Make sure that you check for any shorts between the slugs and the coil before grounding them.) I haven't gotten around to ordering the conductive paint from Stew-Mac yet to shield the control compartments, but shielding the pickups does seem to reduce the single coil hum a bit. (Every little dB helps...)

Steve Ahola

1/15/1998 10:35 AM
Doc	Steve: Thanks for the info on the plate. I don't get the connection with the conductive pen. Where do you use this? How do you shield the slugs, is this before you wind the wire on? Or were you referring to humbuckers here. As an interesting sideline, I learned something about single pickup polarity. It all started when I decided to change the order of the polepieces on texas specials, to get a shorter one on the solid G string and a taller one for the D. With a little heating to cause the wax & lacquer to flow, the magnets could be punched thru and out. But when I pushed them back in the bobbin, the sharp edges cut the inner wraps and ruined the neck pu. So this means there's no tape between the magnets and the wire. If there were, my operation would have been more successful. Anyway, I got a Duncan Custom pickup and installed it with the mid & bridge Texas sp's.This is what I discovered. The duncan pu magnet polarity (north up) matched the Fender, but the winding direction turned out to be opposite. So, I just reversed the white & black wires on the Duncan which allowed hum cancelling in 2 & 4 positions. But if my hand gets close to the duncan's pole pieces, which are now at the start of the winding (hot, signal connection) there's a lot of hum. There is no electrical continuity between the magnets and wires, just proximity. One of SD's tech reps told me (a while before this incident) that all of their single coils have "north up" magnet polarity. So this matches Fender, but apparently (at least wrt the texas specials) the winding direction is opposite. And since the hum pickup is greater when you reverse the connections it seems that when using just one aftermarket pu there can be some problems. So they'll sell you a whole set! I guess I needed a special "straight polarity, reverse wound" to replace one strat pu. Except for thier Tele bridge pickup (Twang King), DiMarzio single coils all have "south up" as their standard. At this point I forget what winding direction is their standard. Ain't nothin' easy anymore. Doc

1/15/1998 10:35 AM

Doc

Steve:

Thanks for the info on the plate.

I don't get the connection with the conductive pen. Where do you use this?

How do you shield the slugs, is this before you wind the wire on? Or were you referring to humbuckers here.

As an interesting sideline, I learned something about single pickup polarity. It all started when I decided to change the order of the polepieces on texas specials, to get a shorter one on the solid G string and a taller one for the D. With a little heating to cause the wax & lacquer to flow, the magnets could be punched thru and out. But when I pushed them back in the bobbin, the sharp edges cut the inner wraps and ruined the neck pu. So this means there's no tape between the magnets and the wire. If there were, my operation would have been more successful.

Anyway, I got a Duncan Custom pickup and installed it with the mid & bridge Texas sp's.This is what I discovered. The duncan pu magnet polarity (north up) matched the Fender, but the winding direction turned out to be opposite. So, I just reversed the white & black wires on the Duncan which allowed hum cancelling in 2 & 4 positions. But if my hand gets close to the duncan's pole pieces, which are now at the start of the winding (hot, signal connection) there's a lot of hum. There is no electrical continuity between the magnets and wires, just proximity.

One of SD's tech reps told me (a while before this incident) that all of their single coils have "north up" magnet polarity. So this matches Fender, but apparently (at least wrt the texas specials) the winding direction is opposite. And since the hum pickup is greater when you reverse the connections it seems that when using just one aftermarket pu there can be some problems. So they'll sell you a whole set! I guess I needed a special "straight polarity, reverse wound" to replace one strat pu.

Except for thier Tele bridge pickup (Twang King), DiMarzio single coils all have "south up" as their standard. At this point I forget what winding direction is their standard. Ain't nothin' easy anymore.

Doc

1/20/1998 11:56 PM
Steve Ahola	Doc: >>>I don't get the connection with the conductive pen. Where do you use this? How do you shield the slugs, is this before you wind the wire on?<<< With the sc pickup upside down, I draw traces connecting all 6 slugs and run it to a narrow piece of copper foil tape that I secure to the waxed cardboard with crazy glue (the piece of foil tape runs up to the foil wrapped around the coil). If I'm not using the pickup as the "hot" end of a series connection, I'll then connect all pickup grounds to the whichever pickup wire isn't the hot one. If I'm running 2 conductor shielded cable then I'll connect the grounds to the shield. >>>So, I just reversed the white & black wires on the Duncan which allowed hum cancelling in 2 & 4 positions. But if my hand gets close to the duncan's pole pieces, which are now at the start of the winding (hot, signal connection) there's a lot of hum. There is no electrical continuity between the magnets and wires, just proximity.<<< Exactly! That's why I grounded out the pole pieces as outlined above- to get rid of that hum! Someone here suggested that a reversed sc pickup might actually be quieter since the outer wrappings of the coil would be grounded and it might act like a shield... >>>It seems that when using just one aftermarket pu there can be some problems. So they'll sell you a whole set! I guess I needed a special "straight polarity, reverse wound" to replace one strat pu.< Many of the aftermarket pickups do come with a RWRP middle pickup, which does help the situation out a bit as far as compatibility goes. With my set of Fralin's, I ended up using a second RWRP middle pickup for the bridge position so that I'd get the hum-cancelling effect when using the neck and bridge pickups together in parallel or in series. I had to raise up the RWRP bridge pickup to balance the volumes, but it does work ok (at least until I can afford to prepay $80 for a custom wound RWRP Lindy Fralin bridge pickup). I had originally tried the spare middle pickup in the neck position, but there was too much compromise involved concerning the tone so I put the neck pickup back in. With my Van Zandt's, I just swapped the RWRP middle and NWNP bridge pickups- I don't think that the VZ's are as carefully calibrated for their position as the Fralin's are. Steve Ahola

1/20/1998 11:56 PM

Steve Ahola

Doc:

>>>I don't get the connection with the
conductive pen. Where do you use this? How do you shield the slugs, is this before you wind the wire on?<<<

    With the sc pickup upside down, I draw traces connecting all 6 slugs and run it to a narrow piece of copper foil tape that I secure to the waxed cardboard with crazy glue (the piece of foil tape runs up to the foil wrapped around the coil). If I'm not using the pickup as the "hot" end of a series connection, I'll then connect all pickup grounds to the whichever pickup wire isn't the hot one. If I'm running 2 conductor shielded cable then I'll connect the grounds to the shield.

>>>So, I just reversed the white & black wires on the Duncan which allowed hum cancelling in 2 & 4 positions. But if my hand gets close to the duncan's pole pieces, which are now at the start of the winding (hot, signal connection) there's a lot of hum. There is no electrical continuity between the magnets and wires, just proximity.<<<

    Exactly! That's why I grounded out the pole pieces as outlined above- to get rid of that hum! Someone here suggested that a reversed sc pickup might actually be quieter since the outer wrappings of the coil would be grounded and it might act like a shield...

>>>It seems that when using just one aftermarket pu there can be some problems. So they'll sell you a whole set! I guess I needed a special "straight polarity, reverse wound" to replace one strat pu.<

    Many of the aftermarket pickups do come with a RWRP middle pickup, which does help the situation out a bit as far as compatibility goes. With my set of Fralin's, I ended up using a second RWRP middle pickup for the bridge position so that I'd get the hum-cancelling effect when using the neck and bridge pickups together in parallel or in series. I had to raise up the RWRP bridge pickup to balance the volumes, but it does work ok (at least until I can afford to prepay $80 for a custom wound RWRP Lindy Fralin bridge pickup).
    I had originally tried the spare middle pickup in the neck position, but there was too much compromise involved concerning the tone so I put the neck pickup back in. With my Van Zandt's, I just swapped the RWRP middle and NWNP bridge pickups- I don't think that the VZ's are as carefully calibrated for their position as the Fralin's are.

Steve Ahola

1/14/1998 4:01 AM
Dave H.	Doc, I remember reading an interview with Jerry Donahue where he said his new guitar was going to be a Strat not a Tele but he wanted a Tele bridge pu sound. He said they put a plate on the back of the Strat bridge pu but this didn�t quite do it so they added a thin plate to the top to simulate the Tele bridge plate and that did it for him. They recessed the scratch plate on the back side around the pu to fit the plate so the guitar still looked like a stock Strat. If it sounded right to J.D. then it must be very close. I can�t remember the material or thickness of the the plates. I�ll see if I can find the interview and let you know. BTW the plate on the back of my Tele pu is about 3/16" thick and looks like brass. Dave

1/14/1998 4:01 AM

Dave H.

Doc,

I remember reading an interview with Jerry Donahue where he said his new guitar was going to be a Strat not a Tele but he wanted a Tele bridge pu sound. He said they put a plate on the back of the Strat bridge pu but this didn�t quite do it so they added a thin plate to the top to simulate the Tele bridge plate and that did it for him. They recessed the scratch plate on the back side around the pu to fit the plate so the guitar still looked like a stock Strat. If it sounded right to J.D. then it must be very close.

I can�t remember the material or thickness of the the plates. I�ll see if I can find the interview and let you know. BTW the plate on the back of my Tele pu is about 3/16" thick and looks like brass.

Dave

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