Recomend a good guitar electronics tech?

[Lazy_Tiger81]

Hi everyone. does anyone know of any good guitar tech? I need to reset the action and neck of my epi lp. Also i need the electronics to be rewired again. When i switch between pickups the sound on the next pickup will be weak but it will slowly increase in volume to normal. I don't think its a switch problem though. Does anyone know what is the problem? Cold solder joint?

Also the 2 tone knobs doesn't have "gradual" tone modulation. Eg. there seems no effect on the highs from 10-7 but from suddenly all the highs are cut as i turn the knob from 6-5. Is it possible to remedy this problem? Also is there a type of circuit that can prevent the highs from being cut too much as i roll back the volume knob?

Currently using a epi lp with duncan 59 neck and c5 bridge wired with coil split for c5 only.

 

[Newbie]

About the pickup part, i recommend Beez.

 

[gargamelesp]

for the setup go with malcolm (empty 71). His setups are great and you watch him do it so you know exactly what hes doing and you can try playing until you are happy with the setup. Im happy with mine. My fender plays easier than my esp now, but my esp is going to him soon

 

[Lazy_Tiger81]

hehe thanks. i've heard about malcolm from another thread. too bad he doesn't do electronics!

 

[Ablue]

The fluctuations in volume is probably due to bad contact somewhere. Could be the switch or the jack.

As for the drastic taper of the pot, this is common on korean and chinese guitars. The electrionics used are usually not a true audio taper pot. Change the pots to CTS pots and this problem should go away.

If you want to maintain your highs you need to put a small value capacitor on the vol pot. The problem is, what value will work? There's no sure fire value. Some people combine the capacitor with a resistor in series/parallel and get good results. Ibanez uses a 330pf cap to achieve this and fender recommends 680 pf. Use this as a starting point for experimentation. If you don't like it, u can easily clip the capacitor off with a pair of cutters.

 

[mikemann]

To get to the crux of the matter, you might want to provide more details. Like did you install the PUs recently, was the problem there b4 or aft the installations?

If you bought it with this from someone already installed, you might want to send it in for a fixup to your needs.

If you had wanted this installed yourself, did you find out if the configuration is reccomended.

My suspect is that by putting a coil split, you will have problem in mix (neck+bridge) mode when you have the split. This is because in mix mode, both vol and both tone pots have an effect on the overall output. This is the way EPI/GIBSON LP are wired up to be. A case of impedence mismatch.

Also both PUs are different models, so the output impedence could be different anyway.

One way is to rewire it as individual controlled, but you will need to get used to the new config.

That's one of reason why a LP and a strat sound distinctly different.

Either case, an experienced tech is recommended. If you like you can also look me up.

 

[Lazy_Tiger81]

Thx ablue and mikemann for the tips.
The pots are actually some made in japan pots from davis. not the stock pots.
i think i should be clearer in bout the volume problem. the decrease in volume happens when i switch from bridge to neck or vice versa. to alleviate this problem i have to put the switch to the mix mode position for a like 5 seconds (bridge and neck pu). after that it will be ok when i switch it to any single pickup. sound weird huh? If idon't do this, then the volume will still gradually increase after about 10secs. its not an amp problem cos it works ok with another guitar.

In mix mode the volume doesnt suffer whether the coilsplit is activated or not.

The problem with the pickup switching only happened about 6mths after i've got the new PUs fitted at quite a popular guitar repair place. The problem with the tone and volume has been always there.

argh so frustrating, sometimes i wonder why a guitar with 2 capacitors and 4 pots can give so much trouble but a computer with millions of parts can run for 3-4 years without breaking down. hahaha....

 

[empty71]

hehe thanks. i've heard about malcolm from another thread. too bad he doesn't do electronics!

I do do electronics but I'd rather not Kai Chin at Guitar Connection and Joe at Davis knows their stuff way better than me. I'm only adept at basic wiring which I feel everyone should know. It's basically un-soldering and soldering the new pickups, capacitors or resistors to the same spot.

The in-phase, outta phase, series, parallel stuff boggles me and I would recommend sending your guitars to the guys mentioned above.

 

[buluhairy]

About the pickup part, i recommend Beez.

i agree with you. he's very knowledgable abt these things. if you don't believe, go attend his guitar maintenance clinic. it's FOC. shoot him any question abt maintening guitar. he'll probably have the answers. like they say, beez is 'gawd'. he will even service your guitar in front of you. if you're lucky, he might give you a free gift. & i heard that yamaha send their tech to japan for training.

 

[Char]

About the pickup part, i recommend Beez.

I recommend Beez from Music Plaza too. You can actually see him do the work patiently in front of you.

 

[Lifehouse]

Beez. Saw him recently doing some electronics on 2 90's JEM. I had him wired my Parker Nitefly for EMGs. Wonderful job.

 

[popeye]

About the pickup part, i recommend Beez.

is he doing it as a personal service or part of Music Plaza's service?

If it's Music Plaza's business, I think one cannot always get Beez to do when he brings the guitar there. Any of the available technician will do it.

 

[Lazy_Tiger81]

actually i've got another guitar rewired by beez before. yep i agree he's pretty good, knows his stuff and quite honest too. friendly as hell.
As to whether he is doing it as a personal service or not heh heh lets just keep quiet about this.

About the pickup part, i recommend Beez.

is he doing it as a personal service or part of Music Plaza's service?

If it's Music Plaza's business, I think one cannot always get Beez to do when he brings the guitar there. Any of the available technician will do it.