Treble Control Response on G&L Legacy

Hi All,

I'm finally a G&L owner after picking up this beauty on Aus EBay last week. She's a '97 S-500 that has had '96 Legacy pickups and electronics installed by the previous owner. He sent the original MFD pickups as well but the neck one is broken . After a good setup and change of strings I'm happy as a pig in mud with how she plays. The acoustic resonance and unplugged volume is the best of any strat style guitar I've owned (and there have been many).

Unfortunately the guitar is SUPER bright when plugged in. The middle treble tone control doesn't really do anything until it's dialled down to 2. Then there's a rapid treble roll off between 1-2, and then it's mud from 1 down to 0.

Could some Legacy owners please tell me if this is normal, or should I go looking for poor solder joints, bum pots and capacitors etc. etc.?

I'd also be interested to know what wood she's made of. The second pic shows a small unpainted patch on the inside where the grain is visible. I think it's alder but I'm not very good with wood types!

Anyhow, feedback would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Phil.

Is it possible that the previous owner accidentally wired the controls in reverse, i.e. for a lefty ? That would result in a very limited range of response with all control in a narrow range on the dial.

It sounds like the last owner may have replaced some parts with different values than stock,
I'd look at the potentiometer values first....maybe the treble pot has a 1M instead of a 500k pot.

here's a schematic:
http://www.guitarsbyleo.com/GALLERY2/main.php?g2_itemId=432

Alder, and no, not normal. New pots should fix that up right.

Thanks for your help everybody.

Looks like I'll be going for a tour of the control cavity this weekend with multimeter in hand........

That's a beautiful guitar philby. It definitely sounds like that pot is shot.

I'm in Melbourne too - do gig around at all? I'd like to see that guitar in action!

Thanks Blarg. You're about 3 years too late to see me gigging! My bandmates have fled to different parts of the world leaving me at home with two kids, a project studio and a bunch of nice guitars Do you gig with a G&L? I gigged for 3 years with an ASAT Special and not a single guitarist I spoke to had ever seen one before.

The new S-500 is really the bizz. Once I can find a replacement neck MFD pickup I'd like to put the original MFD's back in to get a different palette of sounds. I've already got a couple of strats that nail the strat sound very well.

Nice looking S500!!

Thats a shame about your band mates, there's plenty of other people out there though if you ever need to play again. I've only ever seen one other guy playing a G&L, an ASAT deluxe - that was in Fremantle a few years ago. I do a few gigs here and there with mine, I play in a soul/jump blues band called 'The Spokesmen'. It's been a bit quiet of late since we lost our regular gig but we have a radio slot lined up (I think) on the 'Soul Time' show PBS in a month or so. That should land us a few more gigs.

The MFD pickups on the S-500 are killer, I have one in the middle position on my ASAT Classic S. You might want to consider putting up an ad in the marketplace section of this forum. You never know.

Great idea about putting up an ad Blarg. I tried to buy a new neck MFD from the G&L online shop but the quoted postage was $81 USD for a $99 USD pickup. Ridiculous! Australia is in a different hemipshere, not a different planet.

It's soooo hard to get a gig in Melbourne these days. There are soooo many good bands and the venues are spoilt for choice. I don't know how anyone does it for a living anymore. In our halcyon days our band played a slot on the B stage at the Falls Festival and a couple of gigs at the Corner Hotel for the Melbourne Festival of Song, but after a 6-month layoff it got too hard to get back in and we all sorta gave up.

Good luck with the radio gig. Let us know when it's on.

Great idea about putting up an ad Blarg. I tried to buy a new neck MFD from the G&L online shop but the quoted postage was $81 USD for a $99 USD pickup. Ridiculous! Australia is in a different hemipshere, not a different planet.

That is ridiculous! Especially when you put it in the context of all the cheap crap we can buy that's made in China these days. It blows my mind that I can buy a string of Christmas lights that was made in China and shipped over oceans to the USA and over road and/or rail to my local Lowe's, all for $2! I know they get great deals due to bulk, but still, $81 to ship something that probably weighs less than the box of Christmas lights is a crime!!

I tried to buy a new neck MFD from the G&L online shop but the quoted postage was $81 USD for a $99 USD pickup.

I've recently heard a couple stories about sky high international shipping costs from the
G&L online store. I can't say for sure, but I think with some contact with someone at G&L you can
get down to earth shipping costs.

It seems the online store might have it's default shipping costs set at express overnight..or maybe priority 3 day.

Maybe I'm completely wrong , Craig might be able to shed some light on the high shipping costs with a little investigation...and if something is strange with the shipping calculator maybe it could be fixed.

Elwood

It is a hell of a lot. I was going to order some bridge saddles and it was going to cost a similar amount. It's not uncommon among companies to charge an extortionate amount for international shipping, usually because they're the sole manufacturer or sell them very cheap and need to make their money in other areas. Some even charge more for the handling involved - like what, an extra line on the envelope?!?!?! Get out of here.....

The only international shipping options on the online store are UPS Worldwide Expedited and UPS Express Saver. They're both about $80 USD for a single pickup. There's a disclaimer down the bottom of the page that says 'these fees do not necessarily represent UPS published rates and may include charges levied by the store owner'. So a significant component of the cost is possibly being levied by G&L.

Although it's my fault for living outside the US, I still think international buyers deserve some more realistic postage options at the online store. I love G&L stuff but that love is being sorely tested......

I tried to buy a new neck MFD from the G&L online shop but the quoted postage was $81 USD for a $99 USD pickup.

I've recently heard a couple stories about sky high international shipping costs from the
G&L online store. I can't say for sure, but I think with some contact with someone at G&L you can
get down to earth shipping costs.

It seems the online store might have it's default shipping costs set at express overnight..or maybe priority 3 day.

Maybe I'm completely wrong , Craig might be able to shed some light on the high shipping costs with a little investigation...and if something is strange with the shipping calculator maybe it could be fixed.

Elwood

I have brought this up several times with Dave and Steve, in the past. I suggest using the Contact Us link in the On-Line store and make yourself heard that way. You might ask if there are alternate lower cost shipping methods they could use.

Sorry I could not be more helpful.

Thanks Craig. I used the Contact Us link at the on-line shop to query the international shipping charge, so I hope to get a response soon.

In the meantime I've found a couple of guys locally that re-wind broken pickups, mainly vintage stuff though. That still may work out better in the long run.

Cheers, Phil.

Philby: Have you tried contacting Mick Brierley? He's in Adelaide and has a wonderful reputation. Try googling 'Brierley pickups'.

Sorry to dredge up this old post, but I'd like to give two Big Thumbs Up to Mick Brierley for re-winding my broken neck pickup. G&L never did respond to my e-mails re. shipping a new one internationally so thumbs down there. Thanks to Blarg for recommending Mick.

Mick gave the broken pickup a full scatter wind by hand to the original DC resistance and also wax potted it. This was followed by several winds of protective tape so that the wire could not possibly catch on the pickup guard (a common problem apparently). The repaired pickup now looks about 100x more durable than the originals and sounds fantastic. It ended up costing about 25% of the cost of getting a new pickup to Australia! If I need new pickups for my guitars I know who I'll be buying them from...... Did I mention he's an incredibly nice bloke too?

I'm glad to hear it's ended well and significantly cheaper than expected. I intend to do business with Mick in the next couple of weeks.

Just yesterday someone was telling me about the damage done when a string caught the side of a pickup (on a tele style guitar), so it does indeed happen. It's very fine wire that they use and it would only take a slight force to break it.