The Hub

I have a customer with a 2018 Gibson SG special with mini-humbuckers who is complaining about the pickups being too hot (distorting their amp too easily). I took resistance readings and, to my surprise, the readings are very high. The neck humbucker (see photo) reads over 16kohm and the bridge reads 23kohm. From the specs I've seen, mini-hums more typically come in around 6-7kohms. Has anyone seen this with Gibson mini-hbs that appear t…

Hello, I am building a bass VI for a customer. As with a Fender Bass VI he wants a control plate with 4 slide switches. 1 on/off switch for each of the 3 pickups, but with the 4the switch he wants to control the phase of the middle pickup. Any suggestions as how I should wire that? thanks!

We install a lot of LR Baggs pickups, but nobody has ever gotten more excited about their new pickup than Andy Wood. If you don't know Andy, watch this fun video.

Hey all, I have a client who wants a fishman soundhole pickup and a k&k mini wired to a volume pot on a Martin 000. Both pickups are pre-wired to their dedicated output jack, so I know some splicing has to be done. I wanted to reach out and see if anyone has any tips or tricks on how to make this smooth sailing?

Hi everyone, We’re really excited to be joining The Looth Group as new sponsors, and we wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves. I’m Ben, and together with Paul McGill we run Go Acoustic Audio. Paul is in his 50th year of guitar making — a milestone that speaks to both his craftsmanship and his persistence in chasing better sound. He’s spent a lifetime building instruments for players at every level, listening closely to what works…

Would you have any recommendations on wiring configurations and piezo controllers to replace the electronics in my Music Man Reflex, which used to have the Game Changer system? The guitar has an HSH pickup configuration with a piezo bridge pickup. It has three existing holes for Volume/Tone/Blend, a blade switch slot, and a 3-way switch hole. When I bought this guitar about a decade ago, the Game Changer system offered a mind-numbingly a…

It was only a matter of time before one of these arrived on my bench. The neck on this 71 SG Deluxe is caving through to the neck pickup cavity— In a similar fashion to what happens on old jr’s. Both sides of the cutaway have cracks that extend through to the pickup route and I can flex them easily. Problem is that the cracks are not straight and wander all over. I worry about being able to get enough glue in there because of this. Thin…

I have a customer with a PRS Semi Hollow Special 22, it features two Duncan humbuckers in the bridge and the neck, and also a Narrowfield pickup in the middle. He wants to drop the volume pot down from 500k to 250k to have the humbuckers a bit darker overall. The issue that he has with this is the middle pickup is already quite dark, and how wants to retain its sound. I was wondering if adding a resistor of 250k to the hot lead coming f…

Hey! I had a customer drop off an ultra clean 60’s L4 and he has a repro de Armond rhythm chief he wants installed. Does anyone have any experience installing these with minimal modifications? It has the pole that mounts on the fingerboard which I’m hoping is the only mod. I ordered a repro guard and it will need to be notched for the pickup and have the volume and tone control mounted. Does anyone have any experience mounting a jack to th…

Friends - I have an unexpected problem with my 1989 P Bass-Plus. I suspect that the Series-Parallel switch is grounding out (ie, short circuiting) when the 3-position pickup selector is in the P pickup position (disengaging the J pickup and all 3 pickups). I am waiting for feedback from Fender as to whether there is both a wiring diagram for this bass and the possibility of getting a direct replacement switch. Has anyone worked on these…

Ok. I am stumped. PRS Studio is in. 3 pickups. 5-way selector switch. 2 pots. Here's the dilemma: Customer wants two concentric pots installed. The front pot would be volume for the neck & middle pickups on the top knob, the bridge volume bottom knob. The rear knob is for tone. Top knob controls neck & middle pickups tone, bottom controls the bridge tone. I've gotten the skeleton of this sort of figured out but I don't....ha ha? The PRS 5-way…

Hey everyone! I'm finishing up my latest build and looking for help with the wiring. It's a 3-pickup configuration with a standard 3-position toggle switch. The plan is for 3 pots: master volume, master tone, and a volume just for the middle pickup (as a blend so that it can be added in any position). The 3-way toggle will be a standard Neck - [Neck + Bridge] - Bridge. I looked through @member ' excellent book and didn'…

Hi all, I have 4 TRANCE audio installs imminent... these pickups are glued to the bridge plate similar to the KK audio processes... do any of you have any PRO tips on the adhesive to use, placement ideas (possibly different than manufacturer suggestions, etc) and such? Trance Audio suggests E6000 adhesive...but I'm hoping to find something that transfers the vibration in the best manner... (Hide glue??) These are for live performing ac…

Hey all. I have an '82 Ibanez Roadster bass on the bench. The bridge pickup is their Super J4. My customer wants to tame the noise as much as possible. I've shielded the cavities to minimal effect so I'm thinking of wax potting it but before I do I just want to ask your opinions. The bobbin is quite thin and I don't know what kind of material it's made from. Having watched the Kent Armstrong video where he mentions that old DiMarzios sh…

Hi everyone. I've built a bunch of pickups, in a variety of configurations, but I haven't built a set of blade humbuckers yet. I usually make my own bobbins/flatwork, but since this is my first set of blades, I went ahead and purchased some bobbins to see what they're all about. Which leads me to my question: how does the bobbin retain the blade? With the parts I have, the blade just slides into the top of the bobbin. Not especially snu…

I really dont like doing to much repair work as it takes away from builds, but sometimes a friend will call who needs help so i'll take on the job & when the job comes in sometimes i regret it like i did this time... an older les paul came into the shop & when you turned down the tone on the bridge pickup, it would lose about 80 percent of the signal. almost like it was grounding out. at first im like ok, prob something simple so i chang…

This may be a stupid question. A client has a Bartolini jazz guitar humbucker with no brackets, 5JNB: https://bartolini.net/product/5j/ They want to attach it to an ebony jazz guitar pickguard. How do you do that? My thought was to make a metal tray, bend it to the appropriate shape, screw it to the pickguard, and attach the pickup to the tray with double stick tape. Does anybody sell something like that? Or alternately, how do you attac…

Hey everyone. I’m trying to figure out a wiring scheme for a modded National Triolian resonator guitar. It has a Fishman Resophonic end pin jack pickup (link to that is below) as well as a lipstick pickup that was installed along with a three way switch, and two potentiometers. Essentially what I’d like to do is wire it so there is one volume control for the lipstick pickup, one volume for the piezo, and the three way switch controls eac…