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GMC Forum _ GEAR & PRODUCTION _ My New Old Guitar :)

Posted by: twist Sep 23 2010, 11:11 PM

Hi everyone,

just wanted to share my happyness

I own a Charvel Modell 3DR built in the late 80s. The guitar originally has a jackson single coil in the neck position (dont know the exact type) and a jackson j-80c humbucker at bridge position. I was always somehow satisfied with the sound but there were some strange things. First and most annoying: On the 5-way switch there was only one position that made a "good" sound. I always thought this must be my own opinion and i just dont know the specialties of the other positions. Second, the humbucker produced way more noise than the singlecoil.

Soooo... just a few weeks ago i got a new friend, he is a luthier. So i showed him my instrument and he immediately told me that the 5 way switch is somewhat wired in a total mess. We than sat together and rewired the whole thing. Now i have a 3 way switch to get the usual stuff: SC neck, SC Neck and HB Bridge, HB Bridge. Additionally i have a pus/pull volume poti with which i can split the humbucker to get only one coil aka. a second singlecoil (one in neck position one in bridge position then) After that the guitar sounded way better already. But with the wiring corrected we heared that it was about time to replace the Humbucker with something with a bit more punch and less noise. I found just the sound i wanted with an EMG HZ F-H1 Humbucker!

After all we had rewired the whole thing and built in a good pickup now it just sounds awesome. I played the whole day just because i like it how it sounds now. And a nice side-effect: Now i can do pinch-harmonics much easier

Posted by: Fran Sep 23 2010, 11:14 PM

Great to hear. A good set-up and minor tweaks can do wonders with guitars Enjoy

Posted by: Bogdan Radovic Sep 29 2010, 10:15 PM

Congrats on refreshing this guitar. Good setup can do wonders for an old instrument. Keep rocking!