The New Tone Thread

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The BB pros are not anything like regular Burstbuckers. BB Pros are hot and biting, but not terrible. You might like them. But if vintage-ish PAF sound is your goal, go with regular Burstbuckers.
 
For what it's worth, the BurstBucker 1, 2, or 3 are my favoritest Gibson humbuckers. They all sound gorgeous to me. The 3 is slightly overwound but still has that airy PAF kind of tone to it. The 57 Classic is a real beauty too.
 
That's kind of the general opinion that I've gathered as well, Greg. Seems that the BB Pros weren't all that popular amongst the Les Paul community. I shoulda paid more attention to the pics in the listing. But oh well, I'll give 'em a spin and see how I like them. From Gibson's chart, they're not as hot as the 500T/496R, but reviews tend to mention that they have a pretty aggressive high end (ice-picky). I have a feeling that I'll end up getting the true BB 1/2 pair eventually. And I'll learn a valuable skill along the way.

I'm actually pretty excited to learn how to solder. Rather than have my first project be on my beloved LP, I bought a couple of little $8 soldering project kits off of Amazon. I feel like quite a geek, but I'd rather screw up an FM radio kit and a headphone amplifier than sheepishly take my guitar in to a tech with a tangle of wires and globs of solder all over it :D
 
Haha, I don't think anything is as hot as the 500T. Not from Gibson anyway. And it's ceramic. Those BB Pros might b nice though.

Soldering is easy. You'll get it no problem.
 
Tad, what year is that Aria, where was it made, and are those the original pickups?
 
Greg_L said:
Haha, I don't think anything is as hot as the 500T. Not from Gibson anyway. And it's ceramic. Those BB Pros might b nice though.

Soldering is easy. You'll get it no problem.
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Thanks for the vote of confidence, I'm anxious to fire it up and see how I do.

notCardio said:
Tad, what year is that Aria, where was it made, and are those the original pickups?
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It's a 1984 RS Inazuma III, made in Japan. It has a pretty hideous black/yellow tiger stripe paint job, which I always thought was aftermarket. But I've since found a couple more like it on the internet, so it must have just been a rare factory option. It has a double locking trem, and coil-tapped humbucker pickups. As far as I know, the pickups are original...at least they look identical to the catalog photos that I found. They're the rail-style instead of pole pieces.

As bad as the pickups are, this thing has a pretty amazing fit and finish to it. The action is fantastic, and the unbound fretboard edge is smooth as glass, even after the neglect it suffered in my teens/early twenties.

I found a catalog pic of it, except the paint job: http://www.matsumoku.org/temp_pages/nikki_cats/beat/pg3.jpg
 
That's why I was asking, because I wondered if it was a Matsu. If the pickups were MMK45's, I'd be interested in buying them from you. But then, if they were MMK45's, you probably wouldn't think they suck so bad.
 
Expect the first attempts to be messy, Tadpui. You couldn't do any worse than I did, unless you burn a hole in something. It gets easier. My Les Paul has a 57 classic in the neck which I love, and a BB2 in the bridge which I don't hate.
 
So, ummm...I think that I'm failing soldering 101. Thank goodness this isn't the innards of my Les Paul :D

026 small.webp
 
Oh crap, one of those green boardy things. If it were mine, I'd rip that crap out and put some real wiring in. Who knows, I might have one in my 2012 Les Paul. I haven't had occasion to look inside. ;)
 
Robus said:
Oh crap, one of those green boardy things. If it were mine, I'd rip that crap out and put some real wiring in. Who knows, I might have one in my 2012 Les Paul. I haven't had occasion to look inside. ;)
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Please pay closer attention to what's going on here instead of just firing off rambling posts. There are many other threads in here you can pollute at will. Thanks.


Anyway, yeah that's some bad soldering. Lol. You got a PRACTICE KIT though, so no harm, no foul. Keep practicing. :)

It looks to me like you're not using enough heat.
 
Nah, this is a kit that I bought off of Amazon. It's supposed to be an FM radio receiver, but I have a feeling that it will never receive any FM radio stations at this rate :)

I wanted to practice a bit before unleashing my mad soldering skillz on my beloved instrument. It's a good thing, too!
 
Greg_L said:
Please pay closer attention to what's going on here instead of just firing off rambling posts. There are many other threads in here you can pollute at will. Thanks.


Anyway, yeah that's some bad soldering. Lol. You got a PRACTICE KIT though, so no harm, no foul. Keep practicing. :)

It looks to me like you're not using enough heat.
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Yeah, it's pretty terrible :D

I thought that all of the horrible scorch marks were an indication of using too much heat. So I dialed it back a bit, and couldn't melt the damn solder. Dialed it back up and instantly vaporized the solder. So now the house smells like some Apple assembly plant in China, and I probably have ruined my project kit within the first 3 installed components. Off to a great start!

My main problem so far is when I heat the joint with the iron, then apply the solder, the solder runs past the joint and up the tip of the soldering iron. I figured that I wasn't heating the joint enough, so I started leaving the iron in place longer. Hence the scorch marks. You're probably right, with more heat I could leave the iron in place for less time, heat the joint properly, and get the solder to settle in the joint.
 
Tadpui said:
Nah, this is a kit that I bought off of Amazon. It's supposed to be an FM radio receiver, but I have a feeling that it will never receive any FM radio stations at this rate :)

I wanted to practice a bit before unleashing my mad soldering skillz on my beloved instrument. It's a good thing, too!
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How the's 2204 coming along?
 
Tadpui said:
Yeah, it's pretty terrible :D

I thought that all of the horrible scorch marks were an indication of using too much heat. So I dialed it back a bit, and couldn't melt the damn solder. Dialed it back up and instantly vaporized the solder. So now the house smells like some Apple assembly plant in China, and I probably have ruined my project kit within the first 3 installed components. Off to a great start!
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Solder will melt very fast with proper heat. That's the idea. Especially on a PCB like you're dealing with there, you don't want to keep heat on it for long. You can lift a trace, then you're really in trouble. It should just take just a quick touch of iron and solder and bam, done. With actual pots and wires, it's a little more forgiving.
 
Oh by the way, the brown shit is not necessarily "burn". Sometimes the flux in the solder turns brown. Or it could be impurities or something. Brown when soldering is not necessarily bad.
 
Greg_L said:
How the's 2204 coming along?
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The 2204 is good, but not great. The repair guy found that there was some resonance happening with V1. He tightened things a bit, basically tensioned the pin connectors, and when I tested with his 1x12 in his shop it sounded great on both inputs. But when I got it home and put it back on top of the two 4x10 stack, it was doing the same horrible zappy buzzy thing on the high input. I fiddled with placement of the cabs relative to the wall, and ultimately just unplugged the A cab and just used the B cab. It isolates it from the vibration well enough so it doesn't do the Flash Gordon gunfight sounds. It's a half-assed solution, but I've been enjoying it so much, I haven't had the heart to return it to the guy so he can finish the job. I mean, they're designed to sit on top of big, resonant cabinets...if it can't do that, then it's certainly defective. But holy shit it sounds good. I've been meaning to post some tones here, but life has been getting in the way.

I rearranged my pedalboard yesterday, added a couple of old neglected pedals, and once I got it all plugged back in I spent an hour blasting away through the 2204. There are some heavenly tones to be had out of that amp. Made my ears ring until this afternoon. I do love that amp.
 
Cool man. That's weird about the noise though. I wonder if supporting the board better will help.
 
Tadpui said:
So, ummm...I think that I'm failing soldering 101. Thank goodness this isn't the innards of my Les Paul :D

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alrite .... first .... you've said gun and you've said iron, so which ya' using? A gun is too big and hot for a beginner ..... I'd use an iron .... 25-30 watts.
Very first thing .... before even plugging the iron in, clean the tip .... it should be nice shiny copper .... I'll use a little sandpaper if necessary. Then you turn it on and let it get to operating temperature .... 10 minutes ought to do it but maybe as little as 5.
Now .... tin the tip ..... take the solder ( should be 60/40 rosin core .... and it should be thin ..... thick solder takes more heat ..... ) take the solder and touch the tip ..... solder should melt immediately and cover the tip. Might be too much and it'll glob up ..... just give the iron a good flick ..... like you were flipping water off a brush and the extra solder will fly off and it'll be tinned properly. You'll want to aim it so you don't flip melted solder in your eyes or on something you don't want hot solder on which is most everything.
Alternatively you can wipe it (quickly ) with a wet cloth. Do it quick so you don't cool the tip.

Now you take the tip and press it firmly against the spot you're soldering to and at the same time the wire that's sticking into the board ..... give it only 2 or 3 seconds then touch the solder to that spot right on the tip of the iron. The solder should run off onto the spot you want it and all of this is pretty quick ...... 3 -5 seconds ..... you remove the iron and let it cool ...... it 's VERY important that the wire does not move before the joint is cooled or you'll have a cold solder joint that will need to be reheated. It's pretty obvious when that happens ..... you'll be looking at the joint and all of a sudden you'll see it crystallize and go kinda flat grey. If it cools correctly you won't see much change.
Most of the soldering tutorials will tell you that you apply the solder to the wire or the spot on the board and let the iron heat them up enough so they melt the solder ........ but I find touching the tip at the same time melts it much faster and keeps from overheating things.
As Greg said, you don't want to lift a trace ...... I can fix that but you might not be able to ..... it can be a PIA even for me ...... so this entire process is very quick when it's done right and that's why the practice is important.

To me those dark spots look like cooked rosin ...... that suggests to me you might be using a fairly thick solder but I don't know that for sure of course.

Then when it's time to do another joint ..... wipe the tip clean with that wet cloth and go to town.






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