Legacy pickup question

[crunchman]

I just bought a really nice u.s.a. Legacy, great guitar, I am very impressed with the build quality and playability.Its a 2012 greenburst h-s-s,maple neck,abalone dots,natural binding,schaller locking tuners.The guitar appears as if it has never been touched, all paperwork included. Anyway, I cannot get these alnico 5 pickups to quack at allnin the #2 and #4 positions.I suspect the reason for this is the higher value pots used, I must have a strat that quacks, that tone is the main reason I love strat style guitars so much.Any help is appreciated, my thoughts are to first change out the pots and see how that works, the have Lindy Fralin rewind these p/u's if I am not satified....Thanks again.

[Salmon]

My Legacy is a standard SC-SC-SC pickup configuration and it quacks. You should be getting it in the neck-middle between position. I could understand it not being present with the HB bridge-SC middle between position, at least when the HB is not in the split state. I doubt the pots are the reason. If the pickups are balanced they will quack regardless of how much treble, bass and volume range you can dial in. Is this a standard Legacy HB? Is it possible that the previous owner changed the wiring so the knobs effect individual pickups? That might throw things off.

[suave eddie]

It could be that you are not used to the PTB™ (Passive Treble and Bass) tone controls which function completely differently than conventional Fender Strat controls.

It may be useful to read this post:
http://guitarsbyleo.com/FORUM/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=707

[Salmon]

You cannot adjust away the quack with the PTB system. The quack comes from the position of the pickups and their relative sensitivity. So unless he finds the PTB tonal qualities so foreign that he is mistaking the difference as a lack of quack there must be something else that is causing it.

[crunchman]

Thanks for the input folks.I think there are alot of factors.New guitar,new amp and haven't played in about 2 years.Still I am not hearing the notch positions like I am used to hearing, its a very distinct tone.I think I am so used to vintage hots with a blender wiring that my ear won't accept less, so to speak.The blender increases quack significantly, I assume by creating a greater imbalance bettween whater pick up combination you are using.I guess I will revert to my old favorite which is a global tone and a blender pot, why fight it.Thanks again!

[Ray Barbee Music]

Pickups farther away from each other have more comb filtering effect (commonly known as "quack"). Your blend system is blending neck/bridge, which are farther apart than neck/middle or middle/bridge, so will have more of that. You can add that by adding a blending pot, personally I've never found that pot very useful off 10, so I just put an expander switch like on a Comanche or S-500 that links the bridge/neck when I flip it. That is the sound you aren't hearing, because without that switch, it isn't there.

[crunchman]

The blender also adds the neck to the bridge and vica versa, and the bridge to the #4 position.I guess I just got so used to it.I'll play some more and see where I stand.Thanks for the input!

[Salmon]

Pickups farther away from each other have more comb filtering effect (commonly known as "quack").

Can you explain a little more about this? If I understand this correctly there ought to be a quack in the combined position of an ASAT/Tele style guitar. The only case where I have noticed quack in an ASAT/Tele is when there is a 3rd pickup added between the bridge and neck.

Perhaps we need to define what we are referring to as "quack."

Ignoring the concept that the character is a duck and that ducks are supposed to make sounds like "quack!" what I think of as Strat quack can best be described by comparing a normal human voice to that of Donald Duck when enunciating a word starting with "P" "B" "D" "J" "G" and when hard picking "T" or "K." The distinct Strat sound is in the voice rather than the initial attack however I included the consonants in my description because we are talking about playing guitar not speaking words. Although the volume can be brought up from silent when sounding a note to get a violin effect this is atypical. Usually there is a relatively abrupt beginning that trails off when the strings are picked with fingers or plectrums.

I hear Donald Duck very clearly in both of these videos. IOW, the same things that are different in Donald Duck's voice compared to a normal human voice are characteristics of the Strat quack:

[youtube]4yag-OJrJE8[/youtube]


NOTE: This just happens to be an A/B demo of a product but it is a very good example of the Strat quack resembling Donald Duck's voice.

[youtube]c6yRbAYiNf0[/youtube]

[Zippy]

My old Tele doesn't quack. The Strats & Legacy's sure do. Even my Legacy Special does a little bit even though it had the single sized coil humbucking pups in it.

[crunchman]

Only Nashville teles quack, the tone I was refering to is only heard in the 2 and 4 positions on a 5-way.

[Zippy]

Gotcha and I agree. I'm not certain the chaps guitar will quack with the humbucker and single coil. I think he only has 1 "quackable" position if you will.

[Ray Barbee Music]

I find the neck/bridge position comb filters nicely and quacks nicely. It isn't as dark as the middle/bridge or middle/neck.

In any case, what you're hearing is comb filtering. If pickups are too close, it doesn't work as well, which is why 24 fret guitars don't quack right (the pickups are pushed together by the extra frets) and if you are splitting the H in an HSS config, it quacks better using the bridge side coil as active.

A blender only blends neck/bridge, but you'll hear it in 2/4 because one of those pickups is already active in that position. Same with the expander switch ala S-500 and Comanche, which I prefer. And again, your legacy doesn't have that stock, you're used to it, so that is what you're missing.

If you are talking about things that don't include using that, the possibilities would have me look at a pot that measures a lot lower than it should, or a bad solder joint. Anything that darkens up the guitar will hurt quack.

[Salmon]

I find the neck/bridge position comb filters nicely and quacks nicely. It isn't as dark as the middle/bridge or middle/neck.

In any case, what you're hearing is comb filtering. If pickups are too close, it doesn't work as well, which is why 24 fret guitars don't quack right (the pickups are pushed together by the extra frets) and if you are splitting the H in an HSS config, it quacks better using the bridge side coil as active.

A blender only blends neck/bridge, but you'll hear it in 2/4 because one of those pickups is already active in that position. Same with the expander switch ala S-500 and Comanche, which I prefer. And again, your legacy doesn't have that stock, you're used to it, so that is what you're missing.

If you are talking about things that don't include using that, the possibilities would have me look at a pot that measures a lot lower than it should, or a bad solder joint. Anything that darkens up the guitar will hurt quack.

Pickups farther away from each other have more comb filtering effect (commonly known as "quack"). Your blend system is blending neck/bridge, which are farther apart than neck/middle or middle/bridge, so will have more of that.

I really don't see where you are coming from on this. Evidence suggests the opposite of what you are describing. There is no danger of his Legacy pickups being too close together. A Legacy shares the pickup configuration with a Strat. Your description of there being more quack when the pickups are farther apart is not supported by evidence. The standard Strat 3-pickup SC configuration where the pickups are significantly closer together produces more quack than a standard ASAT/Tele 2-pickup configuration where the pickups are significantly farther apart and quack is practically nonexistent. Saying you find that the Tele neck/bridge quacks nicely is just subjective opinion and does not advance the discussion.

[GVDub]

Coming several years late to this discussion, but I'm new here.

I had an interesting conversation with Steve Blucher at DiMarzio some years back about just this topic, and Steve's opinion, backed up with some experience, is that part of that "quack" is how the pickups load the output of the guitar. Stacked humbuckers in a single-coil package, for example, won't exhibit as much quack as plain single-coils will. I was having Steve custom-wind some Virtual Vintage pickups for me, overwound to P90 specs, and we came up with a switching scheme where the middle pickup was reverse wound, and the 2 + 4 positions on the switch would also do a coil-split on the pickups, so I retained the "noiseless" aspect of the Virtual Vintage, thanks to the reverse winding of the middle, but still got sufficient "quack," as the pickups loaded the output like regular SC, rather then HB pickups would. Works a treat. Although my new Fullerton Standard Legacy is likely going to replace the guitar that has those DiMarzios in my regular playing rotation.

So. there you go, for whatever that's worth.