Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Guild Humbuckers somebody must know something
- Thread starter wold
- Start date
-
- Tags
- guild humbuckers know something
If you are talking about the Guild humbuckers with the chrome covers, they are the same. They are awesome pickups that often get overlooked.
I used to have a set in a hollow body bass and then in a musicmaster. I sold them a while back to find a different bass purchase. When I see them for sale, I am always tempted to pick up another set.
The deep/hard switch is downstream from the pickup, and has nothing to do with the pickup itself. You could hook one up to any pickup. I personally think they are a bit limiting as they only give you a high-pass or low-pass filtered tone. On the couple of Guilds I've tried with it this seems to be the norm, and you can't hear the 'raw' pickup.
A cheaper source of replacement pickup covers might be the Dearmond reissue humbuckers that went into those '90s Dearmond basses? They did a Starfire, and maybe an SG-shaped Jet Star. They did a Jet Star patterned on the '60s 'Gumby' basses rather than the '70s SG-style basses.
I think you can find NOS examples of those Dearmond pickups, plus a few guys ripped them out and put Darkstars in Dearmond Starfires a few years ago, so there are probably orphaned examples out there too. The vintage Guild pickup is still probably the better option for authenticity.
There is a circuit reproduced in here, that covers the switch:
Help with Circuit - Guild Starfire Suck Switch
The tone control seems to control how much of the neck pickup's signal is fed to ground, either through 44 nF of capacitor (two 22 nF in parallel, the cheapskates) or how much is fed to ground through 22 nF capacitor and the inductor. From my own messing around with inductors I've found that an inductor and capacitor in series, sent to ground, crudely 'notch' out some mid frequencies, with the treble frequency retention set by the value of the capacitor. Good for dialing out the 'honk' of a hot humbucker maybe, but this is all passive circuitry so everything results in signal loss, bleeding, weird interaction of components etc.
I think Guild were angling for bassists that wanted a sort of radio-button preset feel. This is true of '60s instruments from Italy and Europe in general. You get a pickguard with maybe a volume control on there and then six bakelite push buttons. When you see the reverse of these it is a rat's nest of capacitors and resistors, and the switches are labeled 'bright', 'lead', 'dark', etc. You don't get anything as explicit as 'neck pickup' but simply a tailored output from one or more pickups that has a certain tone the manufacturer thinks you want. I guess the 'Baritone' setting on Guild basses and Gibson EB-2s is semi useful if you play in The Cure or want a twangy passage where the bass won't be missed, but it is a curio of a specific period, and notably a period before active electronics were properly thought about (a few manufacturers added primitive fuzz, tremolo and EQ circuits to their instruments, such as Vox).
I *think* that the switch basically works by routing the output of the pickup through that second 22 nF capacitor when the switch is made, and presumably the 22 k ohm capacitor blocks the signal from simply bypassing this side of the circuit? When the switch is open the pickup is routed through that 22 k ohm capacitor, and the inductor is always in the circuit, bleeding signal to ground. As such you never hear the raw output of that pickup without some signal being sent to ground as the tone control is never bypassed.
Thanks Axstar. That is great info though i must confess that I would I have to go back to school to have a complete understanding of the circuitry end of this. So, does this mean that the output of the pickup first goes through the deep hard switch?
I am looking at restoring this bass to its grand original self. Interestingly this bases original owner was in a competing band to mine 45 years ago (local). I was jealous of him. I always wanted his bass. I spoke to him last week and he was floored that it is still I. Town. He is a much better bassist than I.
I am looking at restoring this bass to its grand original self. Interestingly this bases original owner was in a competing band to mine 45 years ago (local). I was jealous of him. I always wanted his bass. I spoke to him last week and he was floored that it is still I. Town. He is a much better bassist than I.
Apologies, I've been confusing the 'Deep/Hard' switch with the earlier 'Suck' switch that was on '60s Starfire basses. The Deep/Hard switch routes the output of the neck pickup through either a 220 k resistor (deep) or a 3.3 nF capacitor (hard). The hard setting will have a roll off in the bass, whereas the 'deep' setting allows the bass response of the pickup to pass, but for whatever reason bogs down the output of the pickup with a fixed resistor, which is probably causing the volume loss you report. In the other setting the bass roll-off will also probably come across as volume loss. Neither setting gives you the full, unadulterated sound of the neck pickup.
No inductors as far as I can tell!
So in short, yes! The neck pickup is routed through the Deep/Hard switch before it hits any of the other circuitry. I would bypass the 220 k ohm resistor so that the 'Deep' setting is purely the raw output of the pickup at full volume. You could solder a jumper wire over the resistor and keep it there, just to keep the original circuitry in there.
OK, remember you are dealing with someone who is less than a circuitry novice. So please bare with me. You are saying that the Deep/Hard switch kept in the loop but the 220 should be jumped so the deep setting is raw from the pick up? So then what happens to the hard setting side of the toggle?
I was originally thinking a 3-way switch if you wanted those options still. However, if you jump the deep switch, the hard side would work as it did before.
I had assumed the toggle was as three way. Then I played it and right away thought, why? Still the reasoning escapes me. Wish I had a switch for the switch! Any other ideas? I still want to maintain as much originality as possible.
I received the Jet star neck pickup today. It is by all reckoning the same as what is in the bass right now except this one has the cover.
I received the Jet star neck pickup today. It is by all reckoning the same as what is in the bass right now except this one has the cover.
I wonder if either original knob would fit on a push/pull. That would be really a cool way to go.
I' d like to post some pics of the Deep/Hard switch hang tag. The description of the switch is sort of cryptic. And the bass itself but making that happen from my device is proving difficult. Any pointers?
I' d like to post some pics of the Deep/Hard switch hang tag. The description of the switch is sort of cryptic. And the bass itself but making that happen from my device is proving difficult. Any pointers?
I've confused myself again! I thought you had a Jet Star, but that is definitely a Starfire!! Is there an inductor under the pickup? It will look a bit like this: https://images.talkbass.com/attachments/transformer-and-bisonic-jpg.476575/
Either way there is a way of getting the full volume from the pickup, and that wee switch will be easy to replace with a 3-way switch as it isn't the push-to-make switch Guild used on older basses.
If it is wired as Deep/Hard switch rather than a 'Suck' switch then there won't be an inductor. I don't know my Guild history well enough to know when they stopped using the inductor and the byzantine tone control circuitry. If you wanted to keep the switch original and just wanted the 'Deep' setting to be the full output of the pickup then simply solder a jumper over the 220 k ohm resistor coming from one side of the Deep/Hard switch. However I'm not sure exactly what is going on inside your bass.
Please can you take some photos? I can only find photos of earlier Starfire wiring or messed about modified instruments online.
Either way there is a way of getting the full volume from the pickup, and that wee switch will be easy to replace with a 3-way switch as it isn't the push-to-make switch Guild used on older basses.
If it is wired as Deep/Hard switch rather than a 'Suck' switch then there won't be an inductor. I don't know my Guild history well enough to know when they stopped using the inductor and the byzantine tone control circuitry. If you wanted to keep the switch original and just wanted the 'Deep' setting to be the full output of the pickup then simply solder a jumper over the 220 k ohm resistor coming from one side of the Deep/Hard switch. However I'm not sure exactly what is going on inside your bass.
Please can you take some photos? I can only find photos of earlier Starfire wiring or messed about modified instruments online.
I never found this circuit to be all that useful, just another bell/whistle they added for who knows what reason.
