Duncan Custom doing VH II

[jnew]

Thanks bro.

Yep, feedback is a little testy but not quite as bad but that could be because the Custom I'm using is much newer and more recently potted whereas my DSD is older than dirt. I'm pretty sold on the Custom now. I'll have to do some more VHI. With a little 6 band or micro amp thumping the front end, it does a pretty remarkable job too.

[fivecoyote]

Can you guys who have tried 300K pots describe the difference with higher-output pickups vs. 500K? Have a Tone Zone tele in my Tele, very cool but VERY sensitive to sweet spot with 500K. DiMarzio recommends 500K pot but....

[JimiJames]

I use either plain CTS or Gibson 300's
My Volumes are A's and my Tones are L's (with no higher that a .05 for transparency, and shaving the highs if needed)
Certain pickups that "almost" fit can be helped by a simple pot change if the pickup is too bright or dark. In General, seems like
the industry match's Humbuckers with 500k and the Singles with 250k. No rules of course.
For me, because I rely on constantly tweaking the volume so, a 500k is not right for my technique because of the sweep.
It is not as gradual as a 250k or a 3 hundo. Of course YMMV and might not need a 250/300k pot for your technique & tone so go with what sounds best to your ears. These things are imperative to building ones own technique; in turn, forms your style.
So decide for yourself what's best with the sum of all your parts. The beauty is that all this can be had for a cheap mod expense (like strings, picks, straps, etc.), the R&D is invaluable.

In the '90's I also had a TZ in one of my Basswood Blue Marble Fender H.M. Strat's and used it with a 500k, No tone pot. Pickup/Volume/Output jack.. After listening, the high's need to be tamed so instead of a .01, .022, or .05cap, I just changed out the pot conducive to what I needed to get out of that pickup.

Never heard of a TZ in a Tele ? Ritchie Kotzen thing...

[jnew]

Yeah. One of those things you just have to play around with. I liked the 300K with the DSD because it helped tame some of the trebly piercing bite. Then I used my SH-5 with a 500K for a while. For fun, I put the DSD back in leaving the 500K. What? No treble issues. Why? Maybe because now I'm going from guitar to effect pedals to 1st head back to pedal board through reverb back to 2nd head. A lot of cable now cutting into transfer of highs. just gotta play with it.

[stef]

I keep changing the pots too.
There's a difference between a single 500k vol and the volume+tone combination (two 500k's).
The DSD sounded way to trebly and piercing with a SINGLE 500k, much better with a SINGLE 250k in my ash azusa.
Now I'm on the 500K volume and 500k tone (22nf cap) with SH5. The best sounding so far IMO

[jnew]

I pretty much put the SH -5 right back in. I've come to love that thing now. 500K pot only.

[fivecoyote]

Tx muchly guys. btw that Duncan Custom sounds frickin' great! Tx for posting...

[jnew]

[bmf5150]

I think the pickup sounds great, wonder how they compare to the evh Frankenstein pickup??what gear did you use??amp specs ?any pedals??what speakers?

[jnew]

Hey Stan, been a while, hope all is well. Basic rig run down is the Duncan Custom with the same old beat up, 1 piece Swamp Ash Strat w/old, original 6 hole Fender tremolo. Brass nut of course. Only pedals are the homebrew EP-3 and an analog delay right after it. Just like the echo-plex would have been. Delay only on for DTNA. Amp is everything on 10 except VOL I which is only on about 6. Yep, amp has lots of "IT", for lack of better words. Was always changing between 820/.68 and 2.7K/.68 on V1. I Liked both so I settled somewhere in between at 1.5K. .0022 coupler. Filtering is 16uF on the pre-amp, 16uF on the screens, 100uF on the PI and 50uF mains. V2 uses a 330uF bypass. Like that low end business there. I do have an additional .022 in parallel with original .022 for the PI input coupler so that would make .044uF there. I like this a lot. NFB has 100K resistor on the 8 ohm tap. Old RCA 6CA7's for power tubes, one long plate Syvannia 12AX7 for V1 and the others are miscellaneous RCA's. Variac on 85VAC which with the original JTM-45 RI Power transformer that this amp uses, put the plate voltages waaay down low. Like 275 if I recall. So had to change the bias resistor to get the bias up around 70 or 72mA's for this. And just for fun and more sag, a GZ-34 tube rectifier.
One speaker output to a 20 ohm load and the other to a home brew line out with the little Jensen 4:1 step down transformer. The power amp is the home brew 68 spec 100 watter (all the same specs) but modded for power amp only. Pure clean power with no tone controls. Volume and presence are the only knobs that do anything. Cab is a Marshall 4X12 w/cane grill clothe and Jim Seavall's Paper Voice Coils pre-rola, 20 watters.

[bmf5150]

Well it sounds great..I would not doubt it's the pickup he used at one point. I don't think it's much different that the frank pickup...I'm like u I like the 2.7 and 820 so I had a switch on the back of my amp to switch between them..

[jnew]

Frank pickup? You must be referring to what was in the original Frankie. Or, are we talking about a production model Frankie?

[rgorke]

I think he means the one you can buy that is in the Franky clones. Runs about 14k with an A2.

The more I think about the Custom is that Ed liked the MM1300 and DSD and asked Seymour to make him a pick up just like them but make it look like a PAF so no one knows what he is using.

Again pure speculation just an idea.

[jnew]

I support that idea 100%.

However, about the EVH PU, @14K DC Resistance and an AlNiCo II, I cannot imagine that sounding right for the VH I and II stuff. Later VH with all the high gain stuff, maybe but I don't really go there so I can't speak logically or from experience.

[rgorke]

I support that idea 100%.

However, about the EVH PU, @14K DC Resistance and an AlNiCo II, I cannot imagine that sounding right for the VH I and II stuff. Later VH with all the high gain stuff, maybe but I don't really go there so I can't speak logically or from experience.

It is suppose to be whatever is in the Franky, currently.