emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on Apr 26, 2018 0:13:05 GMT
Hi Folks,
I just received my CST-24T Black Flame today and ran it through my JetCity JCA22H and little Hotone Heart attack. On the JetCity’s “clean” channel, the guitar sounds muffled and lacks treble on both neck and bridge. I rolled the bass down and maxed out the treble without much luck. The coil tap improves the clarity and “glassy-ness” a bit. When adding gain, the neck and middle switch positions sound really muddy, while the bridge sounds only slightly better. I tried different guitar cables just in case but that didn’t help. Using a multi-meter I measured directly on the guitar cable and got 5.4kOhm on the neck and 7.6kOhm on the bridge. Roswell’s website says the HAF alnico 5’s should be around 8.3kOhm. When measuring other guitar pickups this way I seemed to get values pretty close to their specs. Maybe the wiring is off?
Honestly it sounds awful in a “something is not right” kind of way. There aren’t that many Youtube videos but the Roswell pickups don’t sound this bad. As I am from Canada, returning the guitar is not really an option since it will not be free, and I paid $55 in customs duty fees. Also the finish and feel is near perfect (aside from a scrape underneath the clear coat on one side) so I really want to make this work.
I have a few other guitars (Squier CV strat and tele, Epiphones) and although some sound dark or muddy, the HB just sounds off. There was a thread that was similar to mine for the Wilkinson pickups but I did not see any similar Roswell issues.
Thanks in advance for any ideas on this issue.
e
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2018 7:06:26 GMT
I only tried the Roswell ST, Roswell TE and Roswell FLT and in all cases I find them muddy and muffled as you do with those humbuckers. I think you should try and change the electronics, maybe even get that 50's wiring which should do well with humbuckers. I swapped my Roswells for Ironstone ST and TE pickups and got new electrics. Now my guitars sing
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Post by Banana on Apr 26, 2018 11:03:24 GMT
Bridge reading doesn't look too bad (considering the variance in electronics), but that neck is definitely fishy. It's about 30% less than listed value, which isn't normal. Pickups themselves are voiced to have quite a bit of bass, underwinding/degaussed magnet only serve the purpose of further robbing high frequencies. Hence why I am not a fan of these Roswell pickups, old Wilkinsons had more mids and treble, as well as output Try to contact Thomann, maybe they can give you a partial refund and you could use that money for Dragonfire or IronGear pickups.
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on Apr 26, 2018 13:52:20 GMT
Thanks for the responses! I emailed Thomann to see what/if they can do anything. I have no problems opening up the cavity and soldering stuff so I will take a look at the electronics tonight. Will definitely keep you posted on the progress. If I was a beginner getting such a beautiful guitar, it would seriously discourage me to play with how bad it sounds (if this is how the Roswell pickups are supposed to sound). But before jumping to conclusions, I will see what Thomann says then take it from there.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2018 16:14:29 GMT
Squire also sells their guitar with un-named pickups which are usually ceramic and need replacing. I never hear folks complaining At least we know the brand of the pups in HB guitars. Some love them others (like me) hate them! I loved the old Wilkinsons though (especially the Strat pups).
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on Apr 28, 2018 21:33:27 GMT
Hi,
Thomann has been emailing me questions and I have been responding as they arrive. I sent them a quick video of the hissing/static when hitting the low strings, and the flubby, fuzzy mess when on the gain channel. It’s less messy when playing coil-tapped so I have been stick to that for now to at least get a feel for the guitar.
The neck is very Ibanez-flat and not too wide or thick. I am really enjoying the neck so far and will give a full review after Thomann gets back to me. I have a Seymour duncan JB bridge lying around that is itching to be installed on something.
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Post by DerAlex on May 2, 2018 11:01:21 GMT
Hi Folks, I just received my CST-24T Black Flame today and ran it through my JetCity JCA22H and little Hotone Heart attack. On the JetCity’s “clean” channel, the guitar sounds muffled and lacks treble on both neck and bridge. I rolled the bass down and maxed out the treble without much luck. The coil tap improves the clarity and “glassy-ness” a bit. When adding gain, the neck and middle switch positions sound really muddy, while the bridge sounds only slightly better. I tried different guitar cables just in case but that didn’t help. Using a multi-meter I measured directly on the guitar cable and got 5.4kOhm on the neck and 7.6kOhm on the bridge. Roswell’s website says the HAF alnico 5’s should be around 8.3kOhm. When measuring other guitar pickups this way I seemed to get values pretty close to their specs. Maybe the wiring is off? You are from Canada so please do yourself the biggest favour ever in your guitar player life and order new humbuckers here: www.vineham.comThese are in my humble but correct opinion one of the best pickups money can buy. I have the Whiskey Burner (A5) set and it is so awesome that people look at my guitar (Harley Benton) and cannot believe what they hear. They are mind-blowingly awesome. Talk to Craig and he will certainly recommend you the best options based on your preferences. Let me know how it turned out!
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Post by DerAlex on May 2, 2018 11:02:32 GMT
Oh, and replace the crappy electronics - either DIY or order a prewired harness on ebay.
50s wiring is highly recommended too.
But YMMV ;-)
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 2, 2018 13:41:57 GMT
Hi Folks,
Thanks for all of the comments and recommendations! Thomann is refunding me a surprisingly nice amount for the troubles I am going through. I have soldering stations at work so I will try to figure out where the issue is before replacing anything. The refund easily covers everything but the pickups, so I can get CTS pots, orange drop caps etc. with some leftover for pickups. The customer support at Thomann is amazing and extremely responsive, really happy on that end.
I have not heard of Vineham pickups and will definitely take a look at them. I could order the pots/caps from Tone Emporium or we (at work) can probably even get them from our electronic components suppliers. Will keep you posted and hope to have a proper review soon.
e
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on May 3, 2018 7:20:53 GMT
You'll save money buying from regular electronic component suppliers - presuming you know the specs for what you want. That said, none of the usual parts are crazy expensive anyway. Pots are where you are most likely to be charged over the odds by specialist guitar parts resellers. You'll pay for the magic 'mojo'.
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 3, 2018 17:40:32 GMT
Hi Folks,
I unsoldered the input and output wires of the volume pot (and joined them together) to bypass it in case the volume pot was the issue. Unfortunately the output was still low, muddy etc. For fun I measured the volume pot and it showed 566kOhm. Talk about a cheap pot! Anyway, tomorrow I will bypass the tone pot to see if that's causing the issue.
e
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 4, 2018 23:06:59 GMT
Hi Folks,
So it looks like the issue might be the push-pull pot or the wiring of said pot! I have my guitar wired as a “normal” 1 volume 1 tone pot without any push-pull stuff. The red-white wires for coil splitting were removed from the PP pot and taped up. After doing this, the neck pickup measures 6.2kOhm at the jack and the bridge is 9.5kOhm. Note that when I was solderng stuff I measured the pickups directly (with the pickups completely disconnected from the electronics) and they measured 8.3kOhm and 8.4kOhm which is pretty much on spec.
So how does the guitar sound? No more flabby-fuzzy mess in the bridge regardless of the gain on my Jetcity! It is not a high-gain pickup so it sounds better for rock than metal. I noticed that increasing the gain on the Jetcity makes the bridge sound darker. Not muddy though. But rolling down the gain even a little drastically reduces the dark sound.
The neck sounds a tad muddy but a billion times less flabby. It still showed up as only 6kOhm. At a gain of 9 or 10, it is too bassy and fuzzy.
As an aside, I’ve only started learning/playing guitar about 1.75 years ago and enjoy tinkering/modifying guitars as much as playing them. My coworker is a great guitar player and we play for fun during lunch break on my Peavy Studio Pro 112 that I leave at work. Anyway I will start another thread soon to give a review of the CST-24T once I play it a little more. Thanks for the tips and support, I will keep updating this thread with more tests I do on Monday when I confirm if the issue was wiring or the switch on the PP pot.
E
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 6, 2018 12:58:23 GMT
Hi,
Has anyone changed the pots on their CST-24? I will change the electronics and was wondering if I would need to drill larger holes or need the short or longer pots shaft. Any tips will help! Thanks!
e
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Post by spacelord77 on May 12, 2018 14:34:45 GMT
Hi, Has anyone changed the pots on their CST-24? I will change the electronics and was wondering if I would need to drill larger holes or need the short or longer pots shaft. Any tips will help! Thanks! e I have 3 HB´s all with Wilkinson pups, one is crap, the ST-62, but only because of a ****ty trem that does not keep the guitar in tune. The CST-24 and the DC-Custom are fully stock and will stay like this, i love the Wilkinson equipped guitars, and i would like to add a SC-450 plus to my HB collection, but the roswell pups are a big question mark to me, since i am not into modding guitars and have red mixed opinions on the roswells... I am super happy with the Wilkinson versions, as can be seen in the below video!!
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