Bareknuckle Telecaster Pickups - Feedback Problems

[Henry-S]

Hey guys I didn'tr know where to post this so sorry if its the wrong place.

Basically I got myself a set of The Boss pickups for my Telecaster and got them fitted at Mansons during June. Now I had bought a new guitar amp aswell and hadn't really played on it much because its a Peavey 5150 with a cab so didn't have any room for it.

Now i have room I have been playing a lot and over the past two months have been getting a lot of feedback off the pickups and I'm not sure if its just "nature" or if something is wrong with the pickups.

When i have my Telecaster on the front position I get no feedback, this is when i have my 5150 set on Pre Amp leve 6-7 and Volume level 3 on the Lead channel.

But when i move the selector switch into the middle position with the strings totally dampened I get feedback, and its even worse when i put the selector into the Back position.

Now I know that when you dealing with distortion then you get feedback, but this amount seems very extreme for the volumes that I am at and have tried using different leads and even invested in a brand new planet waves cable to see if helped the problem, but it hasn't. I post regulary on Sound on Sound and few of the people have said i might have a microphonic pickup?

Now I am living in Cornwall which is a fair trek from mansons guitar shop and I'm kinda clueless about what I need to do? Because maybe its totally normal to experiance feedback at those kinda settings because The Boss run hotter than say stock telecaster pickups, but I suppose thats why i am on here to find out.

Help would be appreciated

Thanks

[MDV]

Is the feedback low frequency that changes if you move the guitar aruond or is it a an uncontrollable high pitch squeel?

[Henry-S]

erm i can't be sure, but basically it sounds like the

"squeel" kind, I am going to go over to my house probably this evening and record with my laptop the actual sound, i might even do it on my "digital camera" and do a short film of where i am standing n stuff.

Basically i tried leaving the amp in the room and taking my guitar outside the room, and it was still going "Weeeeeeee" the only way i can get rid of the sound, is to roll back the volume on the guitar.

but it doesn't seem very good, which is a shame, because i love the tone of these pickups and i appreciate that when your dealing with distorted guitars then feedback is always a problem, but this seems a little TOO much feedback. It really destroys the sound, I will try and find an mp3 clip of a song but basically it will be like this

short stabbing guitar part, but when i stop the guitar between the stabs its feeding back which seems very odd :(

Just hope someone can shed some light onto what is goin wrong

thanks

[_tom_]

This happens to me aswell sometimes  :? I have wax potted humbuckers though..

[MDV]

It does sound like microphony so far.

Some feedback is to be expected at high volume but just standing on the spot and twisting and turning the guitar around makes it change pitch and volume and even dissapear. I get it on all my pickups, bar EMGs (BKS, two sets, swinsheads, kent armstrong, various stock). That sort of feedback also isnt close to the volume of the guitar.

A steady loud high pitch squeel is micrpohony.

[Henry-S]

Well i am going to have my dinner and then i will go over and record on my digital camera what it sounds like,

the volume is mega loud, like proper piercing loud :(

so what happens if this turns out to be mircophonic, do i need new pickups? Is this covered by the ole life time guarantee?

i'm going to go over in a sec and go and record what it sounds like and hopefully someone can really give me a defo answer of what it might be!

:) thanks for all the replies

[PhilKing]

One thing that can give problems with tele bridge pickups squealing is the shielding plate.  If this has come lose it might be the cause.  Does the squeal go away if you turn down the treble on the amp?

[Henry-S]

I will check when i go over again, the amp is at a friend just a walk over the road, so i can always go in and test it.

I recorded about 1mins worth of footage, showing the clean, then distorted channels and just how badly the squeel goes on the back position. I will upload it very soon.

the only thing which seems to help the sound go away, is by turning the  volume down, like say i roll back the volume on the guitar then it goes down, but when i have it up full i get the feedback really badly.

will upload it very soon

[Ratrod]

It's not a thinline Tele, is it?

[Gary]

I get a similar problem with my Strat (with Apache set) but only when I'm playing in our local church. There's no problem when I'm playing but when I stop I get terrible feedback. It's strange because it's never been an issue in rehearsal rooms or gigs when I'm usually playing at much higher volumes. I haven't managed to figure it out yet but I think it may be the building - loads of echoes and awful acoustics.

[steve]

Hi, im coming in late on this one.
It may sound silly but do you have a dimmer switch for your lights.
Or does this happen wherever you go.
Computer monitors and dimmer switches can have a strange effect on pickups.

[Tim]

OK,

Gary's problem is easy........it's just high volume,loud playing.......anything will feedback if you're not careful when playing loud and is to be expected.

The Tele set..............Teles are notorious for feedback.........pickup mounted directly to a metal bridge is going to cause problems and it invariably does.The main culprit with Teles is the bridge grounding plate which can sometimes work loose and cause michrophony............not on a BKP as we put two cap head allen bolts through to secure it as well as potting it on.However I still think this may be the problem especially as you mention mid and bridge settings as the problem.
Sometimes it can even be the bridge..........in the past I've even potted a bridge assembly and bedded it back onto the guitar with wax between the bridge and guitar........messy old job but it is a know cure for Teles.

A quick and easy solution is to send the bridge p/up back to us, let us repot it then you'll be able to take that out of the equation.If you still get problems I bet it's coming from the bridge itself.

[Henry-S]

I have tried with the lights turned off and with lights turned on makes no difference, the lights are "tube" lighting, dsoy uo get extra "humm" but thats life, but this isn't hummm or anything its squeeling.

here is the sample clip to watch, this is on the distorted (lead) channel of my Peavet 5150, with a Marschall 1960a Cab. I'm using a proper speaker cable to link the peavey to the cab and the cable i am using to connect the guitar to the amp is a Planet Waves cable which i bought for £20 about 1 week ago.

I first start with the front position, then the middle position the the back position, the volume is not altered at all on the guitar so its exactly the same volume throughout the recording.

The avi is encoded with Divx, because my digital camera goes to .mov and usually they are 60+ megs, have managed to get this down to about 4.5 megs so should be an easy download for anyone on Broadband 512k.

Thanks and here is the link, i'm sure you;ll agree the sound ain't nice and be warned its loud noise (the amp is setup with modest preamp and volume levels, the volumes are about pre 6-7 and volume 2-3)

download the file from

Here

also thanks for the reply Tim hopefully the video will help the situation.

[Tim]

Like I said, mail it back to me, I'll repot it and send back by return......at least you'll be able to rule that out then.

[Henry-S]

Thanks Tim, yeah i saw that, just thought the video might be useful so either you or others could say "oh its normal" or "no thats not normal".

I will get the bridge pickup removed in the next day or so and will send it up via special delivery.

Thanks :)