1,773 posts
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Post by MartinB on May 13, 2018 22:19:24 GMT
Fire? That’s commitment, I only went as far as smashing them up in a backyard.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2018 7:56:09 GMT
Ah yes I remember those days of smashing my guitars and my paintings too. This is what I did to one of them, became part of my 'Art Protect' series of "instalations in space" ; img host
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2018 13:24:23 GMT
One music school in Denmark has all sorts of instruments painted white and I mean the whole instrument was sprayed white: strings, tuners ... The whole lot so it looks uniform. Looks really good on a large white wall. Will do that in my new studio/living room! HB has some cheap violins, classical guitars etc to do this with maybe even a trumpet
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on May 14, 2018 14:24:49 GMT
I wonder why they only sell guitars as deko instruments? What about all the other instruments?
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 15, 2018 1:48:44 GMT
Hi,
I borrowed a soldering station to work on the guitar at home so here’s some updates:
1) i rewired the guitar back to its original wiring (coil split with the commons to ground, top pins each get the red-white wires of a pickup). The bridge pickup now measured 8.35kOhm at the guitar cable, and the neck measured 5.5kOhm. So the bridge seems ok but still something strange with the neck. Playing the guitar this way I find the neck is still flabby-muddy mess when I add gain but the bridge sounds normal now. The cleans sound ok although a tad muffled. When I coil split, the cleans sound great actually. Sparkly with some decent definition, especially on the neck. So guitar is 1/2 way there I guess. But even with the bridge pickup working as normal, it sounds dark and cheap. Definitely needs pickups.
2) i noticed the tone capacitor was 0.047uF which is usually for single coils. I didn’t have a 0.022uF cap so I put a 0.033uF in parallel with the orignal to get around 0.020uF. I know that when the tone pot is at max that the capacitor won’t make a difference but I really feel like this made a slight difference with the treble. Guitar seems a smidgen less dark while being a tad more sparkly. Could be placebo effect but I will leave this as is.
3) My coworker gave me a set of Artec LPC-210CR pickups. They are cheap pickups but I figured I would change just the neck to see what happens. The neck is 8.35kOhm (not installed) but dropped to 6.3kOhm after wiring it up. If you want to replace the neck pickup on your CST, you will need to unscrew and lift up the bridge pickup since the neck wires must pass through the bridge cavity! So how does the Artec sound? Still a muddy-flabby mess. At first I thought there was no difference but I feel like there is less detail and clarity when playing clean, and even darker sounding when adding distortion. Tomorrow or Wednesday I will try an Epiphone Dot neck pickup then finally install the Seymour Duncan in the bridge!&
I want to order CTS pots and a new switch but they all require larger holes and won’t work with the original knobs. Looks like they need an 11mm hole compared to the 8mm the CST has now. I am not equipped at home for drilling. Will see what I can do! I still feel like the push-pull pot is messing up the neck pickup output, or it could be the switch. Hmm maybe I will reverse the wires on the switch to see if the top position is messed up! Stay tuned!
E
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Post by DerAlex on May 15, 2018 5:58:14 GMT
I don´t know in which part of the world you are located, so here is a link from the US: www.theartoftone.com/set-of-4-bourns-500k-potentiometers-short-split-knurled-shaft-audio-taper/I like the Bourns pots a lot and they are quite cheap - although sometimes a bit hard to get. Those should fit from the diameter - not sure about the length of the shaft though. You need to check with your current ones. But I assume the short shaft ones are ok. And I don´t know what you meant by "rewiring". What you are describing is not normal at all - remove the crappy standard electronics and do start from scratch with good parts. If you already did that you have a wrong wire somewhere (or a cold soldering joint).
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 17, 2018 18:29:24 GMT
Hi Folks, I ended up ordering new push-pull pots and a switch. To avoid having to drill larger holes (and not being equipped for that anyway), I ordered Musiclily pots and a switch from Amazon (Prime! arrived the next day). I really just wanted to see if it was a component issue before worrying about higher quality components. The Musiclily push-pull pots all measured 495-496 kOhm so pretty much right on the mark. I ended up using 2 push-pull pots so I can coil-split the humbuckers individually. The push-pull switch feels fine on these pots (4 pots for $14 Canadian shipped) and the pots turn smoothly. The 3-way toggle switch is a "Switchcraft" style switch and has a more solid toggle feel than the original Harley Benton box-type switch. Anyway, these components were all metric and fit perfectly without any drilling. So after re-wiring, what were the results? Thankfully the guitar sounds "normal" now! I still have the Artec pickup in the neck with the original Roswell in the bridge. No more fuzzy messy, flabby sounds, even on level 9 gain on my JetCity! The Artec sounds muddy on the gain channel but cleans up really nicely, especially coil split. It seems to lose definition on gain while being glassy and punchy on the clean channel. The JetCity is not known for good cleans but I like the Artec so far. The Roswell bridge has some surprisingly good definition on the clean channel as well. With some gain (at 5 on the JetCity), the Roswell has a modern/digital/Ibanez-y sound rather than a vintage rock tone. I like how clear the Roswell sounds when playing single notes (not chords). Chords have more of a "Papa Roach, Last Resort" distortion rather than a Rick Derringer Hoochie Koo classic sound. When bringing up the gain on the Jetcity above 6, the Roswell loses definition and gets bassy. Not muddy, and not as dark as I thought, but not Megadeth distortion either. With that said, I think the guitar sounds decent for now and more importantly, I don't feel discouraged to play it . I will put back the Roswell neck pickup just to hear how it sounds. Then I will swap in the Epiphone Dot neck pickup, and my Seymour Duncan JB bridge pickup to see what that gives. Thanks again everyone for the tips and recommendations!
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on May 18, 2018 9:07:07 GMT
Some dodgy stuff with the wiring of my CST-24T LH I received this week. I haven't nailed down the exact cause yet but it's resulting in intermittent noise floor increase when using the bridge pup. That pup is showing a funny DC resistance reading too - 16KOhm which is about double the expected (albeit measured via the jack so not reliable) and is inclined to feedback under high gain (that might be due to body resonance and trem design though) when in humbucker mode. Neck pup doesn't exhibit those signs.
I suspect bad wiring/solder spot at the tone pot or perhaps a screwed up grounding scheme.
I have to change the pots anyway as Thomann do their usual screwed up reverse wiring on left handed models yet still insist on using an audio taper pot for tone.
Mine is a deko model so all this is forgivable.
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 18, 2018 14:42:55 GMT
Some dodgy stuff with the wiring of my CST-24T LH I received this week. I haven't nailed down the exact cause yet but it's resulting in intermittent noise floor increase when using the bridge pup. That pup is showing a funny DC resistance reading too - 16KOhm which is about double the expected (albeit measured via the jack so not reliable) and is inclined to feedback under high gain (that might be due to body resonance and trem design though) when in humbucker mode. Neck pup doesn't exhibit those signs. I suspect bad wiring/solder spot at the tone pot or perhaps a screwed up grounding scheme.
Hmm I would notice some dodgy resistance readings when the volume pot was not at max (before swapping it out). What is the neck resistance reading? For the bridge, what resistance value does it read when you coil-split it? Since you received it recently I imagine it has Roswell pickups? I put back the neck Roswell pickup and will check tonight what value I read.
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on May 18, 2018 15:04:45 GMT
The pups are Roswell. Neck is coming in at 8.3 K or so. Which seems correct if it is a HAF-N pup. It sounds good too although bridge doesn't sound bad either.
I might pull out the split-coil pot this weekend and replace it with a regular A500k.
BTW - I agree too that they are very modern sounding - quite trebly compared to the PAF humbuckers I have on other guitars.
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emmsys
Harley Benton Club Junior Member
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Post by emmsys on May 19, 2018 0:31:05 GMT
The pups are Roswell. Neck is coming in at 8.3 K or so. Which seems correct if it is a HAF-N pup. It sounds good too although bridge doesn't sound bad either. I might pull out the split-coil pot this weekend and replace it with a regular A500k. BTW - I agree too that they are very modern sounding - quite trebly compared to the PAF humbuckers I have on other guitars. Ok the neck on mine is also measuring 8.35k. I just finished wiring the whole guitar again because I couldn’t find the reason why my Seymoud Duncan JB (SH-4) was outputting so low. Now I have everything working with 2 push-pull pots (500k) where I can coil-split each pickup individually. The new Musiclily switchcraft style switch is in there too. Everytime I soldered something, or even adjusted a wire I would measure the resistance at the cable. The neck still showed 8.35k before and after, and the JB showed 15k before and after so measuring at the cable is still a good indication of correct or incorrect wiring. E
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3,968 posts
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Post by salteedog on May 19, 2018 10:39:47 GMT
Ok...I measured again..this time in daylight and after calibrating against another guitar. Neck is 8.5K and Bridge is 16.6K. Split the bridge is coming in at about 8.5K. I need to take a much closer look at the wiring - I'm suspecting a grounding problem on the bridge pup.
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2018 11:33:01 GMT
I don't trust guitars without bolt on necks!
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