GregP

zeegit: Your Squier is grounded properly, it seems. This is what SHOULD happen when you touch your strings! If you look at the electronics, you should even see a wire coming from the bridge (which connects, therefore, to the strings) to ground. You should do likewise if you haven't already. In addition to the process of eliminating ground loops, you need to connect your bridge to ground. This is done different ways for different guitars, but the only thing you need to concern yourself with is getting a wire from the 'strings' to ground. In other words, you don't solder to the strings themselves, obviously, but you need to make it electrically continuous. If your strings touch a wood bridge, you can't ground the bridge for obvious reasons. But using your craftiness and ingenuity, you need to ground a wire from any location that's electrically continuous with your strings. In a strat, this is often the trem claw! In a telecaster it's any part of the bridge. In an LP, there's usually a small wire that leads from the bridge post (the post connects to the bridge, the bridge connects to the strings-- electrically continuous!). I've done modified GuitarNuts shielding for both my electrics (with help and guidance from LoveKraft and others!), so if you have any questions, I'm pretty familiar with the sometimes-ambiguous wording. Greg

You do not need to compensate, which counteracts the effect of pulling the string sharp by pressing down on it when fretting a note. It should be mathematically perfect without compensating. The guy from BuildYourOwnGuitar mentions this, but uses an LP JR bridge anyhow, seemingly because it was what he had on-hand or what fit his budget. But you shouldn't compensate under normal circumstances. Greg

You can't get the Variax electronics seperately, as far as I know. You'll just have to get the cheapest Variax (the 500?) and gut it. Regarding the wood contrast, I agree that even a different mahogany would have worked better. BUT, that failing-- I think he should have gone for the gusto and just made the rear access panels in the same red as the top. It'd contrast, but still be consistent with the guitar. In any event, even he seems to acknowledge it was a bad choice. If it bugs him enough, you could see an update photo some day: "I just HAD to make new panels," or "I stripped them back down and dyed them red." Greg

Single-coils are notorious. The ebb and flow of the hum is due to standing in different parts of the room or holding it at different angles. All normal behaviour. You could also have a ground loop if you did something funny with your wiring. The best way to avoid ground loops, in my opinion, is to just send all grounds to a central spot (eg. a steel washer), then to ground. All that bent prong stuff and wiring to the back of pots are potential sources of ground loops. And yes, you might be a better conductor! It's entirely possible! Greg

Too bad about the rear access plates, but the rest is killer!

The inexpensive Yamahas are very very good value for money. I have one that's on loan to my gf's sister, but I actually prefer it to my Guild for certain kinds of music. Then there's my friend Scott who got one for $350 CDN almost 15 years ago and it's still his #1 guitar. And this is a guy who can afford something else and who's a superior guitarist to me, playing daily--often for several hours. Greg

Sounds great. Nice little tune, too!

It doesn't have to go to the back of the volume pot. Particularly if you've used foil to shield your guitar; going to the pot may cause ground loops. They really just need to all end up at ground, which is the ground lug of your output jack. That's the final destination. A highly recommended way is to use "star grounding" which means that all your grounds go to a central spot OTHER than a volume lug (make sure you take that volume pot's bent lug away from the pot shell and put a wire on it, too!) such as a metal washer, and then one wire to the ground jack. Or in other words, despite the myriad diagrams, the only real destination is the output lug, and the only real problem that can come of wiring up your grounds (other than making sure they eventually make it to the ground lug of your output jack!) is that the circuit will want to keep taking the path of least resistance to places OTHER than the output jack. (ie. a ground loop). Greg

Looking forward to this! I've always had an eye on their kits, waiting for them to decide shipping to Canada is OK. Greg

Sick! That's great.

Holy hell.

To get high-output performance, single-coil-sized humbuckers are typically wound with very fine wire. A machine has the consistency and precision to do it, but I'm not sure about doing it by hand. Of course, you can either: a ) give it a try, you have nothing to lose! b ) use 'normal'-sized wire but just expect different output levels and sound in advance. You might be pleasantly surprised! To a previous question, though, yes you can use normal polepieces. Lots of SC-sized humbuckers, like the Seymour Duncan "Little '59" do this. Greg

I can't stop 'cooing', so I guess it's Mickguard after all.

Coo. Now I see where y'all are coming from. I'm just a bit thick sometimes. I thought you were saying that a mini-bucker is "always" mounted in a retrofitted P90 ring. idch, I dunno what I'm gonna do about the name change. Greg

Holy hell, I can't believe I never noticed before. It's one of those things that was hiding in plain sight. No photo (camera is teh suXorZ) but picture if you will: A green Hydro 'junction box' or whatever it's called... actually, it might even be a phone hookup... I don't know these things. In any case, one of those boxes that technicians of some sort dig around in. It's 4 feet away from where I play guitar. It's on the outside, I'm on the inside, but it's that close, nonetheless. I think I can FAIRLY safely say where most of the EMI is coming from. <grumbles> Greg

Yes, my apartment is truly teh suX0rZ. Depending on where I'm standing, the single-coil can produce less hum than the humbucker! (due to some sort of alignment with the phase of the EMI or whatnot... beats me how to describe what's actually happening) Crazy high gain, though... that will amplify the hum of ANY humbucker. If it's humming like made in clean and mildly driven settings, that's when I'd really worry.

When I think of mini-buckers, I think of these: These are on a Firebird, but they have also been on various ___Hawk models, and probably on other Gibson guitars. I have no doubt that people have mounted a type of mini-humbucker inside a P90 shell, and never have. I saw that earlier thread with the sweet-looking zebra mini-humbucker. But when I think of "mini-bucker", the above is what I imagine. One custom-chosen set of photos isn't conclusive proof in a world populated by hundreds of kinds of pickups. Greg

Hum at high gain is the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. If you want less hum, you're better off going with an active (EMG, but not HZ) solution. The Mighty Mites are probably already potted, but not shielded. Nobody makes shielded humbuckers that I'm aware of. To shield, you simply put a metal cover on and make sure the cover is soldered to the baseplate, assuming the ground is also soldered to the baseplate from the factory (normally this is the case). Other than that, you could wrap some copper foil around the coils and make sure it connects to the ground. That's what I did with my bridge pickup. Sometimes hum is inescapable. My apartment is LITTERED with EMI (electromagnetic interference) and no shielding job in the world will help me out. If shielding were foolproof, nobody would own noise gates, etc. Greg

Does not compute, but you know more than I do, and that's not just an opinion but a fact. Still, in the interest of not just bowing to superior knowledge-- I saw a type of mini-bucker that sat in a retrofitted P90 shell, but I highly doubt that's the case with the Gibson-style minibucker, which was a creation onto its own. The tabs at the bottom of the picture posted earlier in the thread suggest an entirely different way of mounting than what the P90 uses. Li'l 59 has the same form-factor as a hot-rails. It's still a single-coil-sized humbucker, which is still not a minibucker. Still, just because I continue to doubt that it'll be a direct retrofit doesn't mean that you can't do it. There's nothing magical going on, they're just holes in the wood. Even if you make your own pickup rings or need to alter the cavity in some way or another, I'm sure it "can" be done. Greg

I don't know what the heck people are doing half the time when they're intonating. What do you mean "fret flat at the high frets"? The only place that you can intonate your guitar properly is at the 12th fret. After that, if different positions on the fretboard produce dramatically different results, it's 'cause your fretboard is screwed. If by "fret flat at the high frets" you DO mean the 12th fret, I'm afraid you're still prolly screwed. Your bridge was installed at the wrong place. If you do get a replacement, make sure it gives you more 'travel' for your saddles, or make a fresh installation at a new spot in new holes. Finally, a mere installation of an Earvana nut won't necessarily clear everything up, though I suspect that it couldn't hurt in most cases. Greg

what mattia said. A single-coil sized humbucker (like the Hot Rails) is not a mini-bucker. A P90 is not a mini-bucker. Only a mini-bucker is a mini-bucker. Greg

SICK!

Nope.

Halfway between fully-forward and fully-back is too much, IMO. When compensating during the intonation process, a saddle will NEVER need to be closer than its scale length, it will only ever need to be longer (ie. further back). Give yourself a few mm of wiggle room to move the saddle forward just in case the actual mounting process goes wonky, but the further back you put the bridge to begin with, the more likely you'll get a properly-intonated low "E" string. I've had guitars in which I had to take out the spring behind the saddle and STILL could've used another millimetre or two of extra space. Greg

That crazy non-bookmatched green one is fascinating. I'm so used to seeing bookmatched pieces that the grain pattern looks so foreign and weird! Keep up the work!