Finally got Super-Tele up and running today. I'll personally guarantee, you couldn't squeeze a gnat's nose into that control cavity now after I finished stuffing all that goodness in there. Still got at least one technical issue to solve. And some more shielding/grounding to do.
First the good part:
Wow! Unmistakably Alembic. This thing definitely interprets Fender done Filter-style. And the 3-position Q-switch was a good call. Every note all over the neck, is perfectly balanced, with sting-your-ears clarity. I quickly found the extreme open filter wasn't necessary. 30-45% open was about the range my ears were asking for. The Q response was about what I expected too. The guitar plays and intonates great.
1.) The bridge pickup is dead-quiet, no noise at all. The neck pickup however, whether from a lack of shielding, or from how it's mounted on the plastic pickguard... I got noise there... hum and hiss, and I swear I heard a Spanish language radio station for a minute one time. I just don't know how to shield it any better.
Ignoring the noise issue for a minute.
2.) Each pickup
when solo'd, sounds fantastic, very hot signal. But when the selector switch is set in the middle, so that
both pickups are on, the signal is buffered so much that it's almost unusable. I tried tweaking the trimpot on the preamp a 1/4 turn clockwise to increase gain. (this may have been wrong) Anyway, it didn't help. Attaching a picture of this trimpot.
And for what it's worth, the noise issue present in the neck pickup is not surprisingly also there in the blended signal. I can grab my cable by the metal jack sheath, and most of the hum goes away. Doesn't that usually mean a ground problem?
So I've been playing on it, enjoying what I can... so close, but no cigar yet. I did peel the plastic off though.
