The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
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- Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:04 am
- Location: Stockholm Sweden
The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Or what happened to Emmits boat anchor...
The few of You who's still around after the board change probably remembers
Emmit's (also known as mr 4 Bolt or Deuce) boat anchor.
For You who don't. At this time Emmit liked to try out a lot of different
guitars so he was frequently buying and selling, most guitars probably
didn't stay with him for very long. At this time he also had a back problem
so he was very particular about a guitars weight.
Anyway he bought this one off mahogany ASAT one off which supposedly had
been to NAMM 2000. When he got it the seller appearently had underestimated
the weight, so to say the least he was p----d off. There was quite some
discussion aroud this subject, and the "legend" of Emmit's boat anchor
was born.
Around this time I had posted that I had GAS for a mahogany ASAT. I
have always had a weakness for the ASAT shape, I believe this is one
of Leo's most precious gifts to the world. Emmit contacted me and offered
me to sell it. He actually offered me to buy either this or an ASAT jr
he owned at the time. I do love the ASAT body shape but I am no huge
fan of really bright tones, so I ended up buying the boat anchor based
on the fact it had mini buckers and warmer tone then a Jr, I tell You
I'm not even gonna get close to Jr.
So it arrives, and turns out to be a buatiful piece. First class
build, gourgous high quality wood and in a beautiful shape, You
could barely tell it's used.
So more exited than in a looong time, I plug it in and.. Gaaaaaaahhh.
Out comes the most harsh glass breaking ice picking tone You can
possible imagine. No matter what I do I can not get a decent tone.
It was good for flesh finger picking, not much else so it goes
into the closet, and I am very very dissapointed.
Back to my Mahogany S500, which is a very very good peice, but I
was looking soaring lead tones and the S500 doesn't really have them.
Because of that I started to use my Les paul and 339 more and more
and eventually my G&L's didn't see much play time at all. I was
lost to the dark side...
A few months go by and I decide to give the boat anchor another go.
I didn't want to get rid of it (thank God) because it was such a
magnificent piece. This time around I am not so heart breakingly
dissapointed so I take my time and anylyze the situation. Acoustically
I can tell there are great tones in there, so something isn't right.
It came equipped with Seymour Duncan mini's and since I know nothing
about minis I assume that's were the problem is.
I decide to try different pickups. Whe I want to experiment I often
turn to GFS since they are inexpensive. I and order a set of
"Fat minis". They arrive safe and but when I try to install them
THEY DON'T &%¤#! FIT .
It turns out the Duncans have shorter legs and the route isn't
deep enough for the Fat minis grrrrr. What to do now, changing the
route is out of the question, so I have to shorten the legs. I
succeed but it was a pain in the a-- and took the best part of a
whole weekend.
Ok time to plug it in and.... no difference really, A little more
output but it's still an ice pick... back to the closet.
Two Years go by, and it just sits in the dog house without pickups,
(now I feel ashamed about it) while I'm wailing away on my Gibsons.
Come this fall we have the annual Swedish guitar show and there
I run into the owner of Lundgren pickups (http://www.lundgren.se).
I find out he started to build mini's so I tell him about my ASAT.
He let me buy a set of his mini's and promise me I can return
them for a full refund if I'm not happy. What do I have to loose,
I end up buying a set.
The same night I installed them, The legs were a little bit longer
than the Duncans, but they fit in the route, so no problem there.
Time to plug it in... again no difrerence, the only thing I got
compared to the Duncans was lower output...
In the morning as I get ready to pack up the Lundgren mini's and
send them back it, strikes me that I should investigate the electric
curquitry. The ASAT has a little 3 way switch which I never really
knew what it did. So I took my time to figured the switch out and
made a curqiut drawing. It turned out that there was 3 extra capacitors
installed in SERIES with the neck pick up. The swicth controlled
how many of them that were engaged. Anybody that has basic electronic
knowlege knows that this becomes high pass filter, VIOLA! thats
where my yummy tones went.
Now I am really exited so I change the curquit to bypass the switch.
and plug it in... YESSSS, finally it sounds like I think it should.
I rip those caps out and maul them to peices feeling like I just von
WW3.
So now the Gibsons go into the closet and the ASAT one gets all the
action. It's still a bit on the bright side and the lead tones need
a bit more body. So I'm thinking I have switch to use for something,
but what to do with it...
I read somewhere that connecting to pickups in series fattens up the
tone big time. I also read that this too much for humbuckers, but
what the heck, minis are not as fat as fullsize buckers so I'll have
a go at that.
So I turn the switch into a series/paralell and I go straight to tone
heaven. In series it has the fattest juciest bright lead tone You can
possibly imagine, and it works great for chords too. So the ASAT is
currently my no:1. I use the neck pickup for cleaner, and for lead
lead I just add the bridge in series. Utterly perfect for me.
The guitar is bright to start with, and it has mini buckers which
further accentuates this so I can not imagine why anyone would
want to make it even brighter. I do not know if it came like this
from the factory or not. I am pretty sure Emmit didn't do this,
he would have told me about it.
Anway it took a few Years but the story now has a very happy ending,
and i ended up learning a lot in the process.
My apologies for the poor picture quality.
Cheers
L-zr
The few of You who's still around after the board change probably remembers
Emmit's (also known as mr 4 Bolt or Deuce) boat anchor.
For You who don't. At this time Emmit liked to try out a lot of different
guitars so he was frequently buying and selling, most guitars probably
didn't stay with him for very long. At this time he also had a back problem
so he was very particular about a guitars weight.
Anyway he bought this one off mahogany ASAT one off which supposedly had
been to NAMM 2000. When he got it the seller appearently had underestimated
the weight, so to say the least he was p----d off. There was quite some
discussion aroud this subject, and the "legend" of Emmit's boat anchor
was born.
Around this time I had posted that I had GAS for a mahogany ASAT. I
have always had a weakness for the ASAT shape, I believe this is one
of Leo's most precious gifts to the world. Emmit contacted me and offered
me to sell it. He actually offered me to buy either this or an ASAT jr
he owned at the time. I do love the ASAT body shape but I am no huge
fan of really bright tones, so I ended up buying the boat anchor based
on the fact it had mini buckers and warmer tone then a Jr, I tell You
I'm not even gonna get close to Jr.
So it arrives, and turns out to be a buatiful piece. First class
build, gourgous high quality wood and in a beautiful shape, You
could barely tell it's used.
So more exited than in a looong time, I plug it in and.. Gaaaaaaahhh.
Out comes the most harsh glass breaking ice picking tone You can
possible imagine. No matter what I do I can not get a decent tone.
It was good for flesh finger picking, not much else so it goes
into the closet, and I am very very dissapointed.
Back to my Mahogany S500, which is a very very good peice, but I
was looking soaring lead tones and the S500 doesn't really have them.
Because of that I started to use my Les paul and 339 more and more
and eventually my G&L's didn't see much play time at all. I was
lost to the dark side...
A few months go by and I decide to give the boat anchor another go.
I didn't want to get rid of it (thank God) because it was such a
magnificent piece. This time around I am not so heart breakingly
dissapointed so I take my time and anylyze the situation. Acoustically
I can tell there are great tones in there, so something isn't right.
It came equipped with Seymour Duncan mini's and since I know nothing
about minis I assume that's were the problem is.
I decide to try different pickups. Whe I want to experiment I often
turn to GFS since they are inexpensive. I and order a set of
"Fat minis". They arrive safe and but when I try to install them
THEY DON'T &%¤#! FIT .
It turns out the Duncans have shorter legs and the route isn't
deep enough for the Fat minis grrrrr. What to do now, changing the
route is out of the question, so I have to shorten the legs. I
succeed but it was a pain in the a-- and took the best part of a
whole weekend.
Ok time to plug it in and.... no difference really, A little more
output but it's still an ice pick... back to the closet.
Two Years go by, and it just sits in the dog house without pickups,
(now I feel ashamed about it) while I'm wailing away on my Gibsons.
Come this fall we have the annual Swedish guitar show and there
I run into the owner of Lundgren pickups (http://www.lundgren.se).
I find out he started to build mini's so I tell him about my ASAT.
He let me buy a set of his mini's and promise me I can return
them for a full refund if I'm not happy. What do I have to loose,
I end up buying a set.
The same night I installed them, The legs were a little bit longer
than the Duncans, but they fit in the route, so no problem there.
Time to plug it in... again no difrerence, the only thing I got
compared to the Duncans was lower output...
In the morning as I get ready to pack up the Lundgren mini's and
send them back it, strikes me that I should investigate the electric
curquitry. The ASAT has a little 3 way switch which I never really
knew what it did. So I took my time to figured the switch out and
made a curqiut drawing. It turned out that there was 3 extra capacitors
installed in SERIES with the neck pick up. The swicth controlled
how many of them that were engaged. Anybody that has basic electronic
knowlege knows that this becomes high pass filter, VIOLA! thats
where my yummy tones went.
Now I am really exited so I change the curquit to bypass the switch.
and plug it in... YESSSS, finally it sounds like I think it should.
I rip those caps out and maul them to peices feeling like I just von
WW3.
So now the Gibsons go into the closet and the ASAT one gets all the
action. It's still a bit on the bright side and the lead tones need
a bit more body. So I'm thinking I have switch to use for something,
but what to do with it...
I read somewhere that connecting to pickups in series fattens up the
tone big time. I also read that this too much for humbuckers, but
what the heck, minis are not as fat as fullsize buckers so I'll have
a go at that.
So I turn the switch into a series/paralell and I go straight to tone
heaven. In series it has the fattest juciest bright lead tone You can
possibly imagine, and it works great for chords too. So the ASAT is
currently my no:1. I use the neck pickup for cleaner, and for lead
lead I just add the bridge in series. Utterly perfect for me.
The guitar is bright to start with, and it has mini buckers which
further accentuates this so I can not imagine why anyone would
want to make it even brighter. I do not know if it came like this
from the factory or not. I am pretty sure Emmit didn't do this,
he would have told me about it.
Anway it took a few Years but the story now has a very happy ending,
and i ended up learning a lot in the process.
My apologies for the poor picture quality.
Cheers
L-zr
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- Posts: 3340
- Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:00 am
- Location: Seattle
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark sid
Nice story! Reminds me of a recent post on a Fender that took years to finally come together in the sonic sense (cannot find the source that quickly). And you wonder how it would sound with the original pups given that removing the caps was the main thing. Not exactly a 'sweet switch' in its original form
And hurray for hog ASAT's:
- Jos
Edit: fix image link after album was lost.
And hurray for hog ASAT's:
- Jos
Edit: fix image link after album was lost.
Last edited by yowhatsshakin on Mon Dec 19, 2011 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
- Posts: 96
- Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:04 am
- Location: Stockholm Sweden
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Mmmm nice
I did try it with the Duncans after "the fix", little more output otherwise very similar.
The Duncans are butt ugly with the S on the cover, so I'll stay with theese ones.
If You have time I'd like to know a little bit about the bottom ones with buckers,
specially the one on the right, with dual buckers and a rosewood fingerboard.
Cheers
L-zr
I did try it with the Duncans after "the fix", little more output otherwise very similar.
The Duncans are butt ugly with the S on the cover, so I'll stay with theese ones.
If You have time I'd like to know a little bit about the bottom ones with buckers,
specially the one on the right, with dual buckers and a rosewood fingerboard.
Cheers
L-zr
-
- Posts: 3340
- Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:00 am
- Location: Seattle
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Hey L-zr
The 4 shown are L-to-R T-to-B: ASAT Jr., ASAT "Super", ASAT HB, and 25th Anniversary. On all but the HB, you can get information on G&L's Custom Creations Department page. I have not been able to find a lot of info on the HB except that about 35 were built in 2004. It uses an G&L AW4370B Alnico bucker in the bridge position whereas the 25th Anniversary uses updated MFD buckers similar to the ones used in current F-100 model.
- Jos
The 4 shown are L-to-R T-to-B: ASAT Jr., ASAT "Super", ASAT HB, and 25th Anniversary. On all but the HB, you can get information on G&L's Custom Creations Department page. I have not been able to find a lot of info on the HB except that about 35 were built in 2004. It uses an G&L AW4370B Alnico bucker in the bridge position whereas the 25th Anniversary uses updated MFD buckers similar to the ones used in current F-100 model.
- Jos
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Cool Story, typically a light capacitor can be wired in series with the neck pickup to get rid of the boomy overly bassy/muddy neck pickup. Are you sure one of the modes on that switch was not a bypass? Personally I would have kept it so that you could have bypass or hi-pass.
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- Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:04 am
- Location: Stockholm Sweden
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Oh, I should have known the 25th, must have been away for too long.
Shiryrgim, the cap's turned it into an ice pick. It was either 1, 2 or 3
cap's in series. Even without caps it's by far brighter and less muddy
then ALL my other guitars. You need a little mud to get soaring lead tones.
To make it absolutely perfect I would like a little more.
Cheers
L-zr
Shiryrgim, the cap's turned it into an ice pick. It was either 1, 2 or 3
cap's in series. Even without caps it's by far brighter and less muddy
then ALL my other guitars. You need a little mud to get soaring lead tones.
To make it absolutely perfect I would like a little more.
Cheers
L-zr
Last edited by Lazer on Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- Posts: 49
- Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2010 6:58 am
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
yowhatsshakin wrote:Hey L-zr
The 4 shown are L-to-R T-to-B: ASAT Jr., ASAT "Super", ASAT HB, and 25th Anniversary. On all but the HB, you can get information on G&L's Custom Creations Department page. I have not been able to find a lot of info on the HB except that about 35 were built in 2004. It uses an G&L AW4370B Alnico bucker in the bridge position whereas the 25th Anniversary uses updated MFD buckers similar to the ones used in current F-100 model.
- Jos
Does that HB have the MFD in the neck? I have always wondered if they made one with that combo. I think that would be a perfect combo. The MFD in the neck is the nicest sounding neck pickup I have ever heard and I love a bridge humbucker to get crunchy. I may have to build something with that combo some day.
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Hi Daryl,
The neck pup of the ASAT HB is the same as for the Legacy (or George Fullerton), i.e. a G&L Vintage Alnico V. So the ASAT HB is completely devoid of MFD pups. As is, these pups go very well together. When I first played it, it happen to be set on the neck pup. There are some beautiful tones coming out of that pup in a hog body and I only switched to the neck bucker after about an hour of sonic bliss. Then it turned out that these pups are very nicely balanced and that the bucker nicely mellows out the intrinsically larger contribution of high-end frequencies when using a bridge pup. All in all, the ASAT HB is a great guitar. I still wonder why this guitar was built (potential 25th Anniversary model? Test bed for the AW4370B?), and what caused its rapid disappearance.
I do not know whether G&L ever made an HB with a MFD bucker in the bridge with a ASAT Classic style MFD in the neck but you'll never know.
- Jos
The neck pup of the ASAT HB is the same as for the Legacy (or George Fullerton), i.e. a G&L Vintage Alnico V. So the ASAT HB is completely devoid of MFD pups. As is, these pups go very well together. When I first played it, it happen to be set on the neck pup. There are some beautiful tones coming out of that pup in a hog body and I only switched to the neck bucker after about an hour of sonic bliss. Then it turned out that these pups are very nicely balanced and that the bucker nicely mellows out the intrinsically larger contribution of high-end frequencies when using a bridge pup. All in all, the ASAT HB is a great guitar. I still wonder why this guitar was built (potential 25th Anniversary model? Test bed for the AW4370B?), and what caused its rapid disappearance.
I do not know whether G&L ever made an HB with a MFD bucker in the bridge with a ASAT Classic style MFD in the neck but you'll never know.
- Jos
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Definitely can't agree with that, Muddiness is always bad, I can get great thick lead tone without any loss in articulation, every note should ring distinctly, well separated. Overpowering bass takes away from the experience. Some low end yes, but lead tone is mostly in the mids.Lazer wrote: You need a little mud to get soaring lead tones.
To make it absolutely perfect I would like a little more.
Cheers
L-zr
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- Posts: 49
- Joined: Sat Jun 26, 2010 6:58 am
Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
yowhatsshakin wrote:Hi Daryl,
The neck pup of the ASAT HB is the same as for the Legacy (or George Fullerton), i.e. a G&L Vintage Alnico V. So the ASAT HB is completely devoid of MFD pups. As is, these pups go very well together. When I first played it, it happen to be set on the neck pup. There are some beautiful tones coming out of that pup in a hog body and I only switched to the neck bucker after about an hour of sonic bliss. Then it turned out that these pups are very nicely balanced and that the bucker nicely mellows out the intrinsically larger contribution of high-end frequencies when using a bridge pup. All in all, the ASAT HB is a great guitar. I still wonder why this guitar was built (potential 25th Anniversary model? Test bed for the AW4370B?), and what caused its rapid disappearance.
I do not know whether G&L ever made an HB with a MFD bucker in the bridge with a ASAT Classic style MFD in the neck but you'll never know.
- Jos
Thanks for the reply. I had never seen one of those. I had a humbucker in my Tribute series Legacy HB that I absolutely loved. I also love the neck pickup of my ASAT Special. I am curious about how those would work together. I definitely love each of them separately and would love to see them in the same guitar. In fact, I'd love to see them in a semi hollow.
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
If I'm not mistaken, the buckers used in the Tribute series Legacy HB are the same as the one used in the bridge position of the US made ASAT HB shown above, i.e. an AW4370B. And yes, they sound fantastic!darylb wrote:I had a humbucker in my Tribute series Legacy HB that I absolutely loved.
- Jos
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
wow, that's a great story! too funny
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Re: The confession of a heretic who was lost to the dark side...
Tone is always subjective. Everyone has a personal preference and I'm not a huge fan of puny spiky lead tones.sirmyghin wrote:Definitely can't agree with that, Muddiness is always bad, I can get great thick lead tone without any loss in articulation, every note should ring distinctly, well separated. Overpowering bass takes away from the experience. Some low end yes, but lead tone is mostly in the mids.Lazer wrote: You need a little mud to get soaring lead tones.
To make it absolutely perfect I would like a little more.
Cheers
L-zr
I will try ty darken the tone even more and no high pass filter will ever get close to this baby again.
Cheers
L-zr