New Member - Starfire IV Tone?

[DeluxeToneJim]

G'day Fellow Guild Aficionados,

A buddy of mine recently mentioned this forum to me and although I'm not much of a forum user I thought I might spend some time here seeing as it seems to be full of people who share my passion for Guild guitars

I recently acquired a 1974 Starfire IV Stereo and was just wondering about the tone of Starfire semi-hollow body models. Mine is incredibly 'warm' tonally. The low mids seem a lot more full on - which makes chord clarity a little underwhelming (except maybe for Jazz). Here in Australia the USA made Guilds are quite rare and I don't know of anyone with an SFIV to compare it to to see if mine is much 'different'. I would love to hear any other SFIV or V owners interpretation of the tone of their guitar. I'm wondering if mine is so warm sounding purely because of the all mahogany with mahogany block construction? That's my assumption. In any case - it's a beautiful instrument!

Here's my current collection. I recently let a Newark St Series Aristocrat M75 go but am now regretting it. Apart from some minor set up and 'finishing off' flaws from the factory it was a damn great sounding guitar that was fun to play!

Cheers - Jim.

1974 Starfire II
1974 Starfire IV
1999 X150
2002 X150D

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[Zelja]

Hey Jim, welcome to LTG from another Aussie.

I would have expected your SFIV to be the brightest of the 4 guitars you have, especially assuming it has the original HB-1s.

Is that a master volume on the guitar? Do you know if it is original? If it is after market then maybe that could be an issue if for some reason it is a low resistance pot.

What is the other switch on the guitar doing?

Where are you at in Oz?

 

[GAD]

Mahogany Starfires Starfires definitely have a warmer tone than maple. I always described it as "smokey". I actually really liked the tone. I've never had a muddy-sounding HB1 but anything's possible, especially on a guitar that's 40+ years old. Also the IV will have a less lively tone than a II due to that big heavy block in the middle.

I had a Stereo Starfire that looked just like that. You need to hope that it's NOT the master volume pot because it's a stacked pot affair that you'll never get out of the guitar.

This is a pic of me trying to slide it out through the F-Hole. There was no way to get it out of the pickup cavity, either. I think they built the guitar around it. This one was stiff and had some issues so I wanted to replace it, but it never happened.

 

[bluesypicky]

Hi Jim. Lot to love in the SF-IV.... checked youtube yet?

 

[walrus]

Welcome, Jim!

walrus

 

[DeluxeToneJim]

Hey Jim, welcome to LTG from another Aussie.

I would have expected your SFIV to be the brightest of the 4 guitars you have, especially assuming it has the original HB-1s.

Is that a master volume on the guitar? Do you know if it is original? If it is after market then maybe that could be an issue if for some reason it is a low resistance pot.

What is the other switch on the guitar doing?

Where are you at in Oz?

G'day - thanks for the welcome. Great to see another Australian Guild owner here.

The SFIV is completely original. They came with the Master Volume and the switch near the control is an out of phase switch that works in the middle position (both pickups on - switchable as either in-phase or out-of-phase). It's a quirky sound in out of phase mode but I really dig it.

I'm up on the Sunshine Coast in Qld.

Cheers - Jim.

 

[DeluxeToneJim]

Mahogany Starfires Starfires definitely have a warmer tone than maple. I always described it as "smokey". I actually really liked the tone. I've never had a muddy-sounding HB1 but anything's possible, especially on a guitar that's 40+ years old. Also the IV will have a less lively tone than a II due to that big heavy block in the middle.

I had a Stereo Starfire that looked just like that. You need to hope that it's NOT the master volume pot because it's a stacked pot affair that you'll never get out of the guitar.

This is a pic of me trying to slide it out through the F-Hole. There was no way to get it out of the pickup cavity, either. I think they built the guitar around it. This one was stiff and had some issues so I wanted to replace it, but it never happened.

Hey - thanks for your insight, much appreciated. I think I've worked out the issue. I plugged a regular mono cable in to the SFIV today and hello - all the tone returned, including a noticeable bump in output! (although only the bridge pickup worked of course). So... I now need to determine if the reason why the tone of the guitar sounds like a pillow is over the amp is due to something being sucked out via the stereo to mono cable that I have been using or if I should get the guitar output jack replaced and rewired so that it is set up as a regular mono output guitar rather than stereo. Do you know what would need changing to convert it to mono? Any info greatly appreciated!
Cheers - Jim

 

[GAD]

Hey - thanks for your insight, much appreciated. I think I've worked out the issue. I plugged a regular mono cable in to the SFIV today and hello - all the tone returned, including a noticeable bump in output! (although only the bridge pickup worked of course). So... I now need to determine if the reason why the tone of the guitar sounds like a pillow is over the amp is due to something being sucked out via the stereo to mono cable that I have been using or if I should get the guitar output jack replaced and rewired so that it is set up as a regular mono output guitar rather than stereo. Do you know what would need changing to convert it to mono? Any info greatly appreciated!
Cheers - Jim

The stereo model I owned came to me with the jack replaced and the guitar converted to mono. I wonder if this was a common problem. At the very least it probably annoyed played who didn't care about "stereo" in a guitar.

IIRC, the "stereo" wiring of the guitar is just one pickup to one channel and the other pickup to the other channel. The volume pot I showed is huge because it's actually a stacked affair where the circuit for the bridge pickup has its own pot stacked on top of (or under) the pot for the neck pickup and they're all attached to a single shaft.

If you're using a stereo to one-mono cable, and a regular mono cable solves the problem, I'd venture a guess that it's the stereo-mono cable that's causing you grief. The stereo jack has three connectors (tip, ring, barrel) as opposed to just two for a mono jack (tip, barrel). A mono plug just shorts the ring and barrel connectors which puts both pickups signal leads together, which is what would have happened at the pickup selector switch (depending on wiring) on a mono guitar anyway.

If it's the cable, you should be able to "fix" the issue by either using a mono cable (as you did), or actually using stereo with two amps with a cable like this: