New jaguar tele custom mash up THE BELLYMASTER

[Doog]

Cheers Doog.

I did take the spring out on the low E(tuned to D).

Ah yeah, I see that now; had to mash my face up against the screen

[Hurb]

Haha. Well to avoid anymore broken eyes I won't post a picture but flipped the bridge tonight and much easier to intonate.

Hurry up switch plate!

[Hurb]

The last piece in the puzzle arrived today (the switch plate)
Going to see how it performs at practice tomorrow night.

[Thom]

Class.

[Hurb]

Quick sounds for those not on Instagram

[plopswagon]

Sounds great!

[Bacchus]

I think I will call it jank-caster

Bellymaster or Smellyblaster.

[NickD]

Sounds great, it'll be interesting to see how it sounds in a band context.

[Hurb]

So just finished practice with the guitar.
Good points were the pickups sound great. However I had some terrible microphonic feedback issues. I don't know why as Both pickups should be in potted. We are loud and space was tight so I was close to the amp. Putting the amp on the floor helped a bit but still not great.
My low E kept jumping out of it's saddle, so I need to sort that out. And my strap button stripped out of it's hole! I fixed it with a bit of broken drum stick wood and kept rocking.

So not 100% successful. Needs some refining.

[Doog]

Even Henry Ford didn't make the Model T perfectly the first time; he initially forgot to add wheels!

[plopswagon]

Even Henry Ford didn't make the Model T perfectly the first time; he initially forgot to add wheels included Nazis!

[Hurb]

Made adjustments to the setup. Raised bridge a bit more and added more shim to keep the low action. I tried to get away with a lower bridge as I am not installing a mute. But as I already knew(stupid boy) you just need that bridge high and proud.

Need to understand the feedback and why it happened. As I have checked and the pickups definitely should be potted. Dunno if having no volume or tone might be an issue?

[Doog]

Are you still grounding the existing controls and all that (vibrato cavity and such)?

I used to get a lot of extra noise that bordered on microphonics (oscillatey shit with the wrong/right pedal) on my replacement JM body until I actually got around to shielding the body cavity.

[Bacchus]

Definitely a guitar issue and not a microphonic valve in the amp or something?

[Hurb]

Yeah everything is shielded and grounded.
Listening back on a recording from last night it's not as bad as I remembered it. It was worse early on before I moved the amp to the ground. I may just need to turn down?

I did worry it might be a microphonic tube. I need some time before next practice to try other guitars in the amp at volume and also this guitar into my other amp at volume to eliminate that it's a tube at fault.

[Hurb]

So tried the guitar with the blackstar silverline tonight at practice levels and sure enough it's howling. Where as my black jaguar did not. After a bit of looking I've seen others needing to pot fender wideranger pickups. The bare Knuckle should be potted, but I guess pickups can go bad.

So gonna round up a few smelly candles.

Will report back with my findings...

[Bacchus]

Waxpot all the valves, too, just to be sure.

Do BKP not sometimes do non-waxpotted by request? or that sort of half wax-potting that some people do?

[Gavin]

Wax your bikini line also, just to be sure.

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[Hurb]

So I wax potted the pickups today as per internet instructions.

And the squeal is definitely harder to achieve. But the guitar, particularly the bridge pickup is still somewhat microphonic.



I dunno if it's just the nature of higher output pickups?

What you think?

[MattK]

If that’s a standard Tele mount you have a high gain pickup hanging from a metal plate with springs in compression. That’s what the microphonics sound like too. Can you use surgical tubing instead of springs? and/or wrap some kind of damping around the pickup under the plate?