ocnor wrote:It sounds really good but I agree with Greg. I'd say back the mic off to about 60cm and see what you get.
Yeah, that's my next test I think.
These are the two mic positions I was using:
And this is a tone with the mic pointing at the 12th fret-ish at about 30m away.
One thing I have noticed is that I keep clipping the body of the guitar with my pick 'cos I rarely play acoustic and when I do I'm normally just messing about finger picking.
That sounds good to me, thought it does seem compressed. Do you still have the limiter on it? Seems like the attack is squashed a little.
I think the best single miking tracks I've ever had on acoustic iss when I put the mic at my forehead level, maybe about a foot in front of me (24-30 cm) pointing straight down at the guitar. But you know, I record acoustics about as often as I record synths.
And this is a tone with the mic pointing at the 12th fret-ish at about 30m away.
One thing I have noticed is that I keep clipping the body of the guitar with my pick 'cos I rarely play acoustic and when I do I'm normally just messing about finger picking.
That sounds good to me, thought it does seem compressed. Do you still have the limiter on it? Seems like the attack is squashed a little.
I think the best single miking tracks I've ever had on acoustic iss when I put the mic at my forehead level, maybe about a foot in front of me (24-30 cm) pointing straight down at the guitar. But you know, I record acoustics about as often as I record synths.
This track has a limiter on it, but the peaks were no where near it. My "tone tester" project has a limiter on it just so that things are at a reasonable level in my cans when I'm comparing stuff without me having to mess with levels, not a hard enough limiter to compress anything though.
I suppose its worth giving pretty much anything a go. After fucking about recording various clips of myself strumming chords with this guitar in different places with different mic placements I've come to the conclusion that its a good guitar and will sound pretty good anywhere provided its in tune.... much like you with cranked Marshalls.
Okay here's the first set of comparo-tones between my old LP Custom T-Tops and the new Bare Knuckles. This is a quick basic same vs same on the same little Johnny Thunders riff kind of thing. I recorded the T-Top tracks before my Guitar Mod Thread and the new ones just now. I made damn careful sure that nothing changed on the amp and mic placement during the days in between the clips.
1978 Gibson Les Paul Custom - original T-Top pickups (before) - Bare Knuckle Riff Raff bridge/The Mule neck (after)
Marshall Plexi 1959
Presence - 1
Bass - 3
Mid - 3
Treb - 3
Vol 1 - 6
Vol 2 - 0
High input 1 only
Marshall 1960B 4x12 - Vintage 30
Audix i5 on axis, 2" off grril, halfway to edge
No EQ or FX in DAW
The riff raff is much cleaner with the volume on 2, they seem about equal on 5 then it has more gain on full.
Its also just a bigger fuller sound, seems to have both more highs and more lows. To be honest though they both sounded good, I was pausing and flicking between the clips on the different settings to A/B them. The main difference is how much quieter the re-wired guitar is!
Neck:
Same as before, the mule is much cleaner and much less noisey. Your T top sounds like it might be slightly microphonic too.
The mule is much cleaner on volume 5 too. Whereas the T Top on 5 was quite gainy and seems like its starting to get a little mushy - like a gainy neck-pickup does. They both sound fucking great on full volume, with a similar level of gain, is there a little more on the Mule? I seem to prefer the Mule slightly, again 'cos it just seems like there's more there. But that might be placebo - I think they're pretty similar.
I do like listening to your clips, 'cos your playing is really consistent and they're really well recorded so you can really listen to them back to back and listen carefully to the sound - its actually really good ear training!
The Bare Knuckle pickups sound great. The only problem with your comparison is that you changed the pots and wiring which in itself could have made a huge difference in the tone. Maybe you had better send me those T-Tops so that I can do further testing LOL.
Another toy that helped destroy the elder race of man..forget about your silly whim it doesn't fit the plan.
ocnor wrote:The Bare Knuckle pickups sound great. The only problem with your comparison is that you changed the pots and wiring which in itself could have made a huge difference in the tone. Maybe you had better send me those T-Tops so that I can do further testing LOL.
Yeah, judging by what Greg said in the other thread, the difference in the roll off is obviously down to the old pots which were probably shagged.
In general the BN pickups are just a bit better. But the stripping and re-wiring of the guitar seems to have made a massive difference too. Must be really satisfying to now have two quality Les Pauls.
I'm not listening in a critical environment, but the biggest difference to me is the lack of hum and noise. I assume the Riff-Raff bridge clip wasn't edited to remove any pre-hum, so my evaluation is that you improved this guitar by 100%. Whether it was the pickups or the wiring doesn't matter. It sounds top notch, and you ought to be rightly proud.
Yes, the re-wire made a huge impact. Huge. It's literally like a whole new guitar. For one, it's quiet. No more buzz. You could clearly hear the buzz in the before clips. That buzz is gone. The pots made a massive difference as well. The taper, range, and just better overall functionality of the new pots make things like volume rolling way way more effective. As you can tell, rolling down to 2 on the old setup didn't do a whole lot. Rolling down to 2 now goes damn near perfectly clean and I don't lose any high end. That is what I'd wanted and hoped for. The amp is a single channel set pretty raging, but just a twist of the guitar volume is basically like switching amp channels. The guitar's dynamics with the new pots and pickups is just off the charts. It goes from docile to insane very nicely. The pickups have much better mids and clarity to me than the T-Tops. Not more mids, just better mids. The crunch is gnarly but defined. No mud whatsoever. I like it.
Okay, now here's some directionless fucking around with the coil splits and tone rolling. Same amp/cab/mic setup as the previous clips.
The Mule - most of this is in coil split mode with various vol and tone knob rolling. The Mule split in half
Riff Raff - I did a little more back and forth between humbucker and split on this clip. Lots of vol and tone rolling too. Riff Raff split in half
Jdod: All those acoustic clips sound pretty good to me dude...Acoustic mic'ing is an art about like mic'ing a cab, it just takes trial/error & patience to find what works for you...
I've had decent luck pointing the mic at the bridge of my acoustic, then squirm/move around a little until it gets a little more full sounding...And yes, you have to play pretty precise recording an acoustic, the mic will pick up all kinds of noises...
If you're almost clipping, turn your pre down, & back off the mic, as suggested...
Sounds good dude...
Greg: Wow man, that's a night/day difference to me, all the tones are usable IMO, but the new p'ups are waaay better to me...More clarity, more chunk, & less noise...Pretty awesome upgrade dude...
Gibson, Fender, Ibanez, Jackson
Ceriatone, Marshall, EVH
TC Electronic, MXR, Yamaha
My music @ Reverbnation
Ha thanks! Just imagine it in the hands of someone that knows how to play. I bet it'd be mind blowing.
Minerman wrote:
Greg: Wow man, that's a night/day difference to me, all the tones are usable IMO, but the new p'ups are waaay better to me...More clarity, more chunk, & less noise...Pretty awesome upgrade dude...
Thanks miner!
I'm super stoked about this. I really feel like I just bought a new guitar. Seriously. That's what it feels like. It's a new guitar. New electronics, new setup, it's all good. It looks fucking awesome, and it sounds even awesomer. I'm gonna chalk this one up as a big win for teh gerg! 8-)
I'm super stoked about this. I really feel like I just bought a new guitar. Seriously. That's what it feels like. It's a new guitar. New electronics, new setup, it's all good. It looks fucking awesome, and it sounds even awesomer. I'm gonna chalk this one up as a big win for teh gerg! 8-)
Yes sir!!!! I think you did a hell of a job all around on that thing man, I bet it is like a new guitar now...The noise difference is massive to me, that alone is worth the price of admission dude...The new p'ups sound just fuckin' great to me, I expected a difference, but not that much...
Congrats dude, that's one of the few upgrades I've saw that make such a drastic difference...
Gibson, Fender, Ibanez, Jackson
Ceriatone, Marshall, EVH
TC Electronic, MXR, Yamaha
My music @ Reverbnation
Minerman wrote:
Yes sir!!!! I think you did a hell of a job all around on that thing man, I bet it is like a new guitar now...The noise difference is massive to me, that alone is worth the price of admission dude...The new p'ups sound just fuckin' great to me, I expected a difference, but not that much...
Congrats dude, that's one of the few upgrades I've saw that make such a drastic difference...
Thanks man.
I think, well, I know, just the ground wire would have made the guitar less noisy with nothing else being done. So I could have just done that. The old pots went wongo, so the new pots now let the pickups breathe through a complete range. So I also could have just done pots and the ground wire and been fine. The T-Tops are okay. In hindsight I'd like to hear them in a grounded guitar with good pots! I didn't know the pots were as bad as they were. Choosing the pickups was a little mind-numbing. I had two criteria - PAF type tone and output, and cream bobbins. I didn't want any hot metal pickups, and I certainly didn't want any hideous gold covered LP Custom-correct looking pickups. So after searching all the big names and boutique-ish pickup winders, the Bare Knuckle guys seemed to be the best bet. They offered exactly what I wanted, they supposedly hand make their products, they made mine and got em to me by my deadline, and I think I did good. So all in all, a complete redo was definitely worth it and the guitar is a bonafide straight-fire killer now.
WhiskeyJack wrote:everything just sounds clean and tight. I love it man.
Forgive my ignorance but wtf purpose does a coil split serve?
Thanks dude.
A coil split just splits a humbucker into a single coil. A humbucker is two coils working together to cancel hum and has a thicker sound. A single coil is just half a humbucker. The coil split function turns off half the humbucker. I have it wired into the push/pull tone pots. Pull the tone pots up, and it splits the humbuckers into singles. The purpose? You get a single coil sound from a humbucker equipped guitar.
The term is often mistakenly interchanged with "coil tap". A tap is actually a second signal taken from within the winding for lower output. So you have full power of whatever your pickup is, or you can switch to the tap which is just less output. It's not a split, just a weaker signal. Splits are far more common than actual taps. I don't know anyone that uses or makes a tapped pickup.
WhiskeyJack wrote:That is sort of genious. Best of both worlds. Why is every guitar not that?
I'm not sure. Not everyone likes them I guess. I've gone my whole life without wanting or needing it. My Goldtop has splits but I never use them. Now my Custom has splits, and I still don't foresee much use from the feature, but it's neat to have.
I suppose people that just want to use one guitar for everything can get a lot of mileage out of coil splits.
You need two things to split a humbucker:
1) Some kind of switch obviously
2) The pickups have to be able to be split. Typical two-conductor pickups can't be split. The pickup has to be a 4-wire.
Have to echo everyone else's comment about the noise being gone - this made a huge difference in my mind.
But if you had crap pickups, it would just be "nice". These pickups sound excellent and with the wiring and pot changes, it's a big step up.
The clarity remains when you roll back on the other clips, so you don't lose that tone.
Now you have to decide which one you like better - the Goldtop or the Custom. Decisions, decisions, decisions...
Great thread - lots of people are going to find this helpful when wondering how to do it and the results it yields.
We should sticky this.
People want something for nothing, they want it right now. Either they can't tell quality or don't care but feel it is important that everyone agrees with them.
