scgmhawk
Well-known member
I just checked and actually my position 4 isn't noise canceling either, although it does seem to have "less noise" than 1, 3 and 5.
What guitar does Vood have his eye on?
- Thread starter tot_Ou_tard
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duhvoodooman
Addicted to solder....
Yes, that sounds exactly correct. Position 4 doesn't actually sound exactly like 1, 3 and 5. There is some degree of noise cancellation from the RP/RW pickup down at the bridge. But it's physically too far away to have much effect on the neck p'up. That's the one generating the residual hum you can hear in position 4.scgmhawk said:
duhvoodooman
Addicted to solder....
Update on my new XV870:
I swapped the bridge and middle pickups last night, and also rewired the switch to run the bottom tone control on the bridge and no control on the middle pickup, as Bloozcat has suggested. Also took the opportunity to clean up a rather sloppy cut-out job on the 3-ply pickguard; a few minutes with some fine sandpaper smoothed out all the rough looking spots. Reassembled it, put on a new set of 10's, and it's smokin' now! :AOK: :dude: :rockon: The guitar plays very well--I like the 12" radius neck a lot--and these GFS Vintage Alnico Staggers are a nice sounding pickup, with excellent clarity and top-end bite. And now that the fretboard has darkened up nicely with the oiling I did, the appearance of the guitar is really quite striking. I'll have to post a couple of new pics, to show it off.
While it will take time to demonstrate its durability, the quality of the finish on both the body and the neck looks very good. I haven't found any detectable finish blemishes at all. As I stated initially, the quality of the electronics seems very solid, and the hardware on the guitar is of much higher quality than I would have expected on an inexpensive instrument. The tuners, in particular, work very smoothly and hold tune well. Setup on the guitar was excellent, as well. I still need to check intonation, though it sounds pretty good by ear. The only adjustment I had to make was to slightly raise the low E string height at the bridge to get rid of some very slight buzz on a couple of frets. It was set a bit too low, considering the fairly flat neck radius.
I advised Jay at GFS that Scgmhawk's XV870, like mine, wasn't hum-cancelling at the #4 switch position, suggesting that the Xaviere factory might be systematically switching the bridge & middle pickups during assembly. I also mentioned to him that I found it odd that the volume pot on mine was a linear taper and the two tone pots were both audio taper. Though there's not a hard & fast rule for this, my experience is that most guitars use the opposite scheme--audio taper for volume (to better match how the human ear perceives volume change) and linear taper for the tone controls. As they stand, the pots in my XV870 are perfectly functional, but almost all the tone change happens between 1 and 5, and most of the volume change between 7 and 10. Jay is checking back with the factory on both the pickup swap error and the control pot taper issue. So hopefully my feedback to him on these minor quality issues can drive some improvement.
I swapped the bridge and middle pickups last night, and also rewired the switch to run the bottom tone control on the bridge and no control on the middle pickup, as Bloozcat has suggested. Also took the opportunity to clean up a rather sloppy cut-out job on the 3-ply pickguard; a few minutes with some fine sandpaper smoothed out all the rough looking spots. Reassembled it, put on a new set of 10's, and it's smokin' now! :AOK: :dude: :rockon: The guitar plays very well--I like the 12" radius neck a lot--and these GFS Vintage Alnico Staggers are a nice sounding pickup, with excellent clarity and top-end bite. And now that the fretboard has darkened up nicely with the oiling I did, the appearance of the guitar is really quite striking. I'll have to post a couple of new pics, to show it off.
While it will take time to demonstrate its durability, the quality of the finish on both the body and the neck looks very good. I haven't found any detectable finish blemishes at all. As I stated initially, the quality of the electronics seems very solid, and the hardware on the guitar is of much higher quality than I would have expected on an inexpensive instrument. The tuners, in particular, work very smoothly and hold tune well. Setup on the guitar was excellent, as well. I still need to check intonation, though it sounds pretty good by ear. The only adjustment I had to make was to slightly raise the low E string height at the bridge to get rid of some very slight buzz on a couple of frets. It was set a bit too low, considering the fairly flat neck radius.
I advised Jay at GFS that Scgmhawk's XV870, like mine, wasn't hum-cancelling at the #4 switch position, suggesting that the Xaviere factory might be systematically switching the bridge & middle pickups during assembly. I also mentioned to him that I found it odd that the volume pot on mine was a linear taper and the two tone pots were both audio taper. Though there's not a hard & fast rule for this, my experience is that most guitars use the opposite scheme--audio taper for volume (to better match how the human ear perceives volume change) and linear taper for the tone controls. As they stand, the pots in my XV870 are perfectly functional, but almost all the tone change happens between 1 and 5, and most of the volume change between 7 and 10. Jay is checking back with the factory on both the pickup swap error and the control pot taper issue. So hopefully my feedback to him on these minor quality issues can drive some improvement.
ShortBuSX
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I dunno bout you DVM, I reckon itd be nice to be able to play it right out of the box, but all the tinkering, adjusting and tweaking is pretty damn fun too!
Sure beats gettin bored with it and THEN taking it all apart.
To me this only increases the perceived value.
Sure beats gettin bored with it and THEN taking it all apart.
To me this only increases the perceived value.
duhvoodooman
Addicted to solder....
I tend to agree, especially when talking about an inexpensive instrument. You wouldn't want or expect to have to do this stuff on a $1200 American Strat, but on a sub-$200 guitar, it's all part of the "bonding" process. (Insert audio clip of "Getting to Know You" from The King and I here.) Then again, it's easy for me to say that, since I do most of my own work.ShortBuSX said:
I want to stress again that, while I spent a lot of time in this thread discussing the "problems" and how to fix them, GFS/Xaviere got all the "big stuff" right with the XV870. It plays, sounds and looks good, and it's a great value for the $170 price tag. :AOK: All of this other stuff is detail work....
ShortBuSX
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duhvoodooman said:
Yeah, but even if you didnt...a sub $200 guitar is great to learn on, or hone your skills.
If it werent for that $99 Squier Strat I got last year, and its wiring issues, I probably would still be intimidated with soldering.
Tone2TheBone
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Cool beans. Now all you need is a Callaham block in that baby.
Bloozcat
Leggo of my HoHo!
C'mon, DVM...
You would have been going out of your mind if everything had been perfect and all you had to do was just play it....
Think of the torture...
I wonder what pots are in this thing...quarter size? Dime size? What value? 250k?, 500k? Audio? Linear? I've gotta check 'em with my VOM...What's the 5-way switch look like? And the cap...yeah, what kind of cap did they put in this thing, and what size?...
Aw hell...mayday, mayday, I'm goin' in....!!
oke:
(I always like to cast my characters in my little stories after myself...
)
You would have been going out of your mind if everything had been perfect and all you had to do was just play it....
Think of the torture...
I wonder what pots are in this thing...quarter size? Dime size? What value? 250k?, 500k? Audio? Linear? I've gotta check 'em with my VOM...What's the 5-way switch look like? And the cap...yeah, what kind of cap did they put in this thing, and what size?...
Aw hell...mayday, mayday, I'm goin' in....!!
oke: (I always like to cast my characters in my little stories after myself...
)
duhvoodooman
Addicted to solder....
Sh-h-h-h-h!!! You're gonna let the cat out of the bag here, BC! :nono: The other Fretters are gonna figure out that I like working on guitars....and pedals....and amps....and....Bloozcat said:
Bloozcat
Leggo of my HoHo!
duhvoodooman said:
Shoot....that cat's runnin' down the street with it's tail on fire...:rotflmao:
duhvoodooman
Addicted to solder....
Because this string of postings is rather disjointed and a lot of it centers on me addressing a couple of minor problems with the guitar as received, I've started a new thread (in the Instruments/Other Brands forum, where it properly belongs) which will contain a proper review and updated photos. The photos are there already; working on the review next:
