MFD Squealing with Fuzz?

[nlove002]

I recently acquired a wonderful Clear Orange US ASAT Bluesboy 90 and I love it. The neck is comfortable and fast despite being beefy. It's got a great sound, somewhere between a Tele and an SG w/90's. I primarily use muffs but I recently decided to break out my Vick Audio Fuzztache which is a solid clone of the old silicon Fuz Face. I dialed in a fantastic sound with my HSS Strat with an unpotted PAF-style humbucker in the bridge, so I thought I'd give it a shot with my new ASAT. The weird thing is that, on the bridge MFD pickup (or both pickups together) I get a horrible squeal. I thought maybe it was something in my signal chain so I gradually removed everything else so it was only the Fuzztache in between my ASAT and Lone Star Classic and the squeal was still there. I know the MFD's are a unique design; are they just not compatible with Fuzzes? I know it's not the level of gain because the Muffs I use are much higher gain and don't have the same issue.

[Craig]

I recently acquired a wonderful Clear Orange US ASAT Bluesboy 90 and I love it. The neck is comfortable and fast despite being beefy. It's got a great sound, somewhere between a Tele and an SG w/90's. I primarily use muffs but I recently decided to break out my Vick Audio Fuzztache which is a solid clone of the old silicon Fuz Face. I dialed in a fantastic sound with my HSS Strat with an unpotted PAF-style humbucker in the bridge, so I thought I'd give it a shot with my new ASAT. The weird thing is that, on the bridge MFD pickup (or both pickups together) I get a horrible squeal. I thought maybe it was something in my signal chain so I gradually removed everything else so it was only the Fuzztache in between my ASAT and Lone Star Classic and the squeal was still there. I know the MFD's are a unique design; are they just not compatible with Fuzzes? I know it's not the level of gain because the Muffs I use are much higher gain and don't have the same issue.

Does it squeal going direct into your amp? Does it happen with just certain settings on the fuzz pedal and guitar? Is this a new guitar or did you get it used?

Check out the G&L Knowledgebase for posts on microphonic/squeal pickups. There are several with some suggestions to resolve it.

Let us know once you get it resolved and how it was resolved.

Hope this helps.

[KenC]

Keep in mind that MFDs are very hot compared to many other pickups. A while back I tried literally every G&L guitar I own with an Ebow, and every one of them squealed uncontrollably. The pickups were just too hot to use with it.

I wonder if your MFD might be hitting the pedal's input harder than it's designed to take. If you have any sort of clean boost that goes below unity gain (that is, can also be used to cut the signal), try running that before the fuzz and see if the squeal goes away.

Also, if you start with the level knob at zero and slowly turn it up, does it immediately start to squeal?

Ken

[Miles Smiles]

I know it's not the level of gain because the Muffs I use are much higher gain and don't have the same issue.

So maybe you try to lower volume with the master volume control. Does it squeal all way down? If the squealing is feedback, it might affect a certain frequency only and there might be several (mechanical) ways to fix that.