The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #51

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    Well, the guy I had work on it glued a shim to the pickguard and then glued the pickup to the shim, carefully making sure that the pickup height was level and straight. It looked pretty good when I picked it up from him, but today I took the pickguard off to try to get the tone pot to work and when I put it back on, it is now out of alignment again and pretty much unusable. The Low E side is much higher than the high E side and the strings are way out of balance through an amp. I can push it down and make it level, but it will not stay there and just pops back up. I had to masking tape the low E side to the body just to be able to play the guitar to hear what it sounds like. It is also now angled again with the low E side being a bit further away from the neck than the high E side. You guys are lucky and probably live in a bigger town with guitar shops that are experienced with these types of archtops and floating pickups, but we do not have many people here in town with this experience. I even phoned Old Town strings to see if he could do it and he could NOT guarantee that he could. Plus he would be a lot more expensive. I have a very good Luthier friend that I am going see if he might be able to help me with it. If he does, I am going to forget the glue idea and bolt it to the guard. At this point my frustration level is growing and I am now wishing I had just stayed with the stock pickup. I am beginning to hate this guitar. Plus, the guard having been taken off and screwed back on so many times now, one of the screw holes in the neck is striped!

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  3. #52

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    This guitar and whole experience has been a nightmare from the start. When it was first shipped to me, the courier company LOST the guitar and had no idea where it went. It eventually showed up about two weeks later with no "sorry" or explanation. Then, it was brand new guitar, but I had to spend $80 to get the frets tabled and a few of them resealed. If that wasn't enough, the stock pickup had been wired incorrectly with the ground and leads reversed. Never could get the tone thumbwheel to work?? Finally got all that done so the guitar was playable and rushed into the idea of getting a better pickup for it. Not that the stock pickup sounded bad at all, but I figured a high end archtop should have the best pickup I can get for it. So, from the recommendations here, I phoned Kent Armstrong and on his recommendation ordered one of his Johnny Smith 12 pole versions. No idea what this new pickup sounds like because I could never get it installed on the guitar to be usable. So last night my Luthier friend and I took the pickup off and the flange was wobbling really bad with about 1/2" of movement. So I emailed Kent and said it has to be sent back to him for repair. I have zero confidence that it will come back solid enough to work properly. Compared to the stock Asian model, his pickup is not as well made or as solid for mounting. I sent the pickup back in the mail today and asked if he would give me a full refund for it. To be honest, I am so sick of all the issues with this guitar, that I have emailed the store I bought it from in Edmonton and asked if I can return it.

    It is a very pretty guitar, but on the playability side of things, I have never been that impressed with it. The low strings are kind of "dead" and it just does not sing to me. I have owned and played many cheaper archtops in my days (ES175, Washburn J6, Ibanez's, Epiphone's, etc. and they all played better IMHO. The biggest mistake I made was selling the Washburn J6 I had. It was perfect in almost every way for my needs!

    Live and learn
    Last edited by Tim Z; 01-17-2019 at 04:47 PM.

  4. #53

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    That's really too bad about your experience with this guitar.

    My Eastman 810CE is an "almost" perfect guitar from the start -- other than I don't very much like the sound of the pick up.
    I haven't changed it out but I have thought about doing it for a while, with the KA handmade 12 pole being the obvious first choice.
    I think you are on the right track despite the problems.

    All frustrations aside (which they obviously aren't), it sounds like the installation was boogered up from the start. I bet you can still get where you want to with this guitar if you have some patience. I'd take it back to your tech and get him back on the job.

    Perhaps taking off the pick-guard after sending it to the tech wasn't the best idea ever? Just sayin'

  5. #54

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    Quote Originally Posted by Longways to Go
    Perhaps taking off the pick-guard after sending it to the tech wasn't the best idea ever? Just sayin'
    How would I have been able to fix the tone pot without taking it off? Plus, the flange was broken, so that would have developed into a bigger problem. This has nothing at all to do with me taking the pickguard off! Besides, it is all irrelevant now, as the shop I bought it from has agreed to take it back for a full refund. From the start, nothing has worked well with this guitar for me, and I will be happy to see it go.

  6. #55

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Z
    Thanks for all the responses. This morning I took it apart again and it was immediately obvious that they wired the lead and ground wrong (reversed) at the pickup. The fix was as simple as reversing those two wires at the pickup. Buzz is now gone and the guitar is very quiet.
    I have exactly the same problem with an Eastman Ar810 I recently purchased secondhand (buzz which gets much worse when the pickup is touched).

    When you say it was "immediately obvious" that the lead and ground were wired wrong, what exactly made it obvious?

    I am going to take a look at the wiring tomorrow when I put a new set of strings on, but I really don't have much experience with this sort of thing.

    Thanks!

  7. #56

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    It depends on the pickup and the type of wiring it has. If the lead from the pickup is coaxial, with a center lead and a braided sheath, the core should be hot, and go to a leg on the volume pot, while the braid should go to the case (ground) of the pot. For some pickups it's not so obvious, and you need to consult the manufacturer's suggested wiring diagram to find the correct color coding.

  8. #57

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    The pickup doesn't have an attached wire, but rather two terminals that you can solder onto.

    I am reasonably sure that the thing was wired up the wrong way around. Having switched the two wires around, the buzz has lessened. However, I suspect that there is another problem: there is still some buzzing which gets a little worse when my hand is near the tone/volume knobs. The buzzing stops altogether if I turn the tone down completely or if I touch the output jack.

    I think I'll have to have somebody with a bit more experience take a look at it!

  9. #58

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    Sounds like a grounding issue. Could be a loose wire on one of the pots, or somewhere else. It's also possible that the strings aren't grounded. That should be done through the tailpiece, with a wire from one of the ground points to the tailpiece. But if the strings aren't grounded, the noise is usually stopped by touching the strings. I would suspect a faulty ground at one of the pots.

  10. #59

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    If touching the pickup makes the buzz worse that does seem like the pickup wires are reversed.

    If touching your strings does not reduce the buzz, that suggests the strings aren’t grounded through the tailpiece. My AR810CE tailpiece wasn’t grounded. I temporarily connected a short wire between the grounded side of the output jack and the tailpiece to confirm that. Many months later, the temporary fix is still there! I’d rather play the guitar than tinker with it.

    A few years ago an Eastman rep acknowledged that their Chinese sourced thumbwheel pots don’t have the greatest audio taper. It’s usable, but a little frustrating to make quick volume adjustments when most of the volume drop occurs over a small portion of the rotation.

  11. #60

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    There are multiple places that hot and ground can be reversed, or grounding can be absent, or a ground loop can be occurring. Usually a "star" configuration is recommended with the back of the volume pot being the center of the grounding scheme to avoid ground loops (multiple paths to ground).

    With a pickup with just two lugs, it doesn't matter which one the hot or ground is connected to- the pickup generates alternating current. Trace the wire to the volume pot and check whether the shielding is soldered to the back of the pot. If there are two pots, their grounds need to be connected. Often this is accomplished with a piece of copper or aluminum tape on the back of the pickguard, or a wire can be soldered from the back of the tone pot to the volume pot.

    The shield of the wire to the jack should be soldered to the back of the volume pot and the hot to the center lug. With something like Mogami wire rather than braided shielding, that can be easily reversed and then you're sending the ground signal to the hot side instead of ground. Check the jack to make sure the hot is soldered to the tip lug and the shield is soldered to the sleeve lug.

    If there is a string ground, that should be soldered to the back of the volume pot); a string ground is not necessarily required because the circuit is grounded to the amp through the output jack. That assumes that the amp is properly grounded, of course.

  12. #61

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