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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
 Posted - 07/29/2006 : 20:17:29
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i have a strat with the eric clapton active mid boost installed and when i use my od2 ds1 or fz3 i notice its like a volume drop when the pedal is turned on..i have gone back to using my old strat with passive pickups whare this problem doesn't happen but i miss the active pickups on a clean setting they really beef up the sound and the strat i have them in is a old squier one of the early jap ones it has a lovely neck and i miss playing it i read a post where stahlhart thought that a ds1's output could be made louder by changing some of the components inside would this work for me...? the volume control on the guitar is 1 megaohm i think this is the same as most boss pedals is this the problem...?dave gilmour used a emg system with a similar mid boost and never seemed the have a problem using pedals and i've heard the edge of u2 uses clapton strats in the studio and he is a big pedal freak so is there some mod i could do.....?this was one of my first question when i joined the forum so hopefully this time i might get a solution...!!! stinkfoot stahlhart dingus......help...! |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2006 : 21:32:53
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My initial guess would be that the problem and the solution are somewhere explained in here:
http://www.whirlwindusa.com/tech03.html
http://www.provide.net/~cfh/strat.gif
First thing I'd probably try, just for grins, would be lowering the volume control resistance in the "Clapton" Strat to 250K or 500K -- it's either going to be this or the difference in signal level output between the passive circuitry and the active circuitry that's going to be causing the difference in behavior between the two.
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2006 : 22:11:24
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| Franzoni.. could it be a low battery in your actives?? |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 07/29/2006 : 22:22:11
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I assumed a healthy battery... good point.
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 10:05:45
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| thanks for the replies...i put a brand new battery in only the other day...the fender and the whirlwind articles were very interesting it looks like i'm not the only one with these issues...!!on the fender site someone asked the same question about the volume control.. as stahlhart suggested i think i will drop the value down to maybe 500k 'just for grins' and see what happens,it should be easy enough to change anyway if i don't like it,as i wrote in a previous post the sound of this guitar into a good valve amp(i have an old marshall head) and a cab with good speakers is super to my ears...its a pity it just can't get on with overdrives etc the mod/delays have no problems at all...it will probaly be a few days until i can pick up a 500k pot so i will let you know how it turns out...thanks again for the replies.... |
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StratoSphere
Double Platinum Member
Canada
2232 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 16:48:36
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i know how to fix it...
get a Gibson  |
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 07/30/2006 : 21:22:57
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i would have to sell a vital organ to afford one stratosphere.... i'm sort of playing around with the idea of reinstalling two greenbacks i have instead of the vintage 30's i'm using at the moment to drop the volume ..i already have valve converters installed to drop the the output volume of the marshall down to 30 watts.. another thing i've noticed especially with country players is they put perpex screens in front of their amps to stop them blasting everyone else..!!i did an outdoor gig recently and i thought my sound was a bit 'lost' with the dist/overdrives i grew up using the amps natural drive and controlling it with my guitar i actully finished the gig cranking the marshall and using my cs3 as a booster with my passive strat and it sounded great to me....but as
most of our gigs are pubs and clubs its not always an option..all suggestions are gratefully recieved as usual folks...!! |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 03:58:52
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Hopefully you'll report back on the outcome -- I'd be really interested in knowing if the volume control resistance change has any effect on the signal drop you're experiencing... thanks much.
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 07/31/2006 : 04:04:46
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You might even have to go lower than 500K, from what I read in that one forum... it sounded like the recommended value for the control was 25K. (!) That seems bizarre to me for a pickup volume control, but then the active electronics must be a factor. And then EMG was mentioned for that -- not sure if the "Clapton" active circuitry is from EMG...?
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2006 : 07:42:17
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| i'm going to try the volume pot change first anyway to see what it does...the emg vs fender'clapton' system is i think much the same thing... from what i understand the emg dave gilmour set has the midboost the same as claptons but also has a mid scoop on the other tone pot....i'm very busy in work at the moment so it might take a couple of days until i get to it.. theres a bank holiday weekend coming up so i'll try to find time then....i have a couple of orginal fender pots i think the orginal volume is 250k i might try that first... |
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Dingus
Silver Member
USA
472 Posts |
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 08/04/2006 : 22:00:53
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"The active circuit of the Eric Clapton Strat demands a 50K volume pot. However the pickups are not ever connected directly to the volume pot so it should not be changed for a 250K pot that is normally required for passive pickups. The optimum 250K load for the pickups is provided for by a fixed resistor in the circuit. Simply exchange the original pickups with Kinman's."
I got this information from chris kinmans site he makes pickups in oz its a great site especially for fender lovers...what do you think stahlhart..? i thought the value for the volume pot was 25k but if chris is right (and he seems to be fairly knowledgeable about pickups)changing the value won't do anything...i think my only option is to either leave the circuit board in place or rip it out and go back to a passive strat and use my pedals.....his site is www.kinman.com and i found the info in the faq section.... |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 08/05/2006 : 04:59:40
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I thought that you said that you had a 1 megohm volume control installed... (?)
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FRANZONI
Double Platinum Member
Ireland
3543 Posts |
Posted - 08/05/2006 : 07:59:54
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sorry... the midboost is 1 mega ohm but i am fairly sure the volume is 25k and not 50k i bought the kit off the place where dingus got his link ..guitar electronics but it was a few years ago and the only pot value that was in my mind was 1 megaohm... i had forgotton that the volume was 25k and what annoys me most is you even mentioned it in one of your replies i think what confused me was that i read in the specs of the od2 and the ds1 that their output impedances were 1k so i thought the if the guitar volume is equal the the pedal output.... no boost..but now i know its 25k and not connected to the pickups... i'm lost..??? i'm starting to think that the midboost system is just to much for overdrive/dist/fuzz pedals it was designed to drive a already dirty valve amp into overdrive... i was reading an article about dave gilmour and he has gone back to using his old black passive strat ....once again sorry for the mix up..... |
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stahlhart
Platinum Member
1318 Posts |
Posted - 08/06/2006 : 14:29:45
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I'm inclined to agree with you -- onboard active electronics are probably more suitable if you're going to go directly to a tube amp, to hit that first preamp a little harder than the signal from a passive pickup -- once you've got an overdrive pedal in betweeen it starts to get redundant. You do have the onboard equalization, though, but perhaps you could accomplish the same tone setup with a GE-7 or a PQ-4. in the chain.
The only other thing I could see it being, if it were not an impedance problem, would be the pedal's circuitry limiting or compressing the input if it crosses a certain threshold -- mabye the signal needs to be a certain amplitude passing though in order for the pedal to work optimally. But then you'd think that rolling back the volume to put out a signal amplitude equal to passive circuitry wuold compensate for that. Dunno.
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boss overdrives and active pickups......
