Guild M75 Pickups

hhuffman

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I bought a M75 over the weekend and have a question/concern about the pups. After hours of trying every P90 equipped guitar in the store at store conditions, the M75 was clearly the most articulate and pleasing sounding for rock/ blues sound I am looking for from this guitar. My issue is that when I got home and played in a my studio environment, then pickups seems to get easily overwhelmed/distorted. Appregios and solos sound great, but as soon as I strummed aggressively they sounded like a distorted mess. Is this typical of this pickup, or can adjustments be made to overcome my issues? FYI, I have strats,, LPs, PRS and many other guitars going thorough the same amp and cab without these issues.

Thank you,
Heath
 

DThomasC

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Have you tried rolling back the volume a little? The Franz pickups, like many P-90's, can be a little gritty and dirty with the volume on 10, but clean up surprisingly when he volume is rolled back. It depends a lot on the amp.

I admit that it doesn't make sense as the output of these pickups isn't very high, so it's no as though they're overdriving the amp...
 

kakerlak

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Can you post and audio/video clip? It's hard for me to imagine the M-75 is driving your amp noticeably harder than your LPs or PRS, in particular. Could there be some sort of sympathetic vibration/buzzing or a feedback issue at play here, rather than the pickups simply overdriving the amp more than you prefer? Does it sound buzzy/growly unplugged when you play it hard?
 

GAD

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Am I correct in assuming that you bought a Newark Street M75?

What amp?
 

Quantum Strummer

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My experience with the NS Franz repros is they do drive amps really well…or too much so, depending on your taste. When I plug my Aristocrat into my Hi-Tone (Hiwatt repro) I dial back the Normal channel volume a notch, otherwise the preamp crunches more than I like. (I use the amp mainly as a clean platform.) Backing off the guitar's vols a bit, particularly the neck, helps too. I think this has to do with the pickups emphasizing particular frequencies rather than their overall output level. My SG Special, with P90s, is subjectively just as loud into the amp but doesn't smack it as hard.

-Dave-
 

hhuffman

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Am I correct in assuming that you bought a Newark Street M75?

What amp?

Yes, new Newark Street, and amp is a PRS Archon 50, going through Line 6 Helix using the 4 cable method (bypasses pre-amp)
 

hhuffman

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Thanks Kakerlak, I'll record an post some videos this evening. Maybe equal settings played through both the M75 and my LP.
 

hhuffman

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Have you tried rolling back the volume a little? The Franz pickups, like many P-90's, can be a little gritty and dirty with the volume on 10, but clean up surprisingly when he volume is rolled back. It depends a lot on the amp.

I admit that it doesn't make sense as the output of these pickups isn't very high, so it's no as though they're overdriving the amp...

Every night I play, I play all of my guitars through the same amp/helix settings, so I've gotten to know the characteristics of each guitar. This is the first guitar that I would have to make changes to the amp to keep it from degrading the sound at the volume I play (just above bedroom) but I'll try it and see if lowering the amp output fixes the pickup distortion.
 

DThomasC

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Every night I play, I play all of my guitars through the same amp/helix settings, so I've gotten to know the characteristics of each guitar. This is the first guitar that I would have to make changes to the amp to keep it from degrading the sound at the volume I play (just above bedroom) but I'll try it and see if lowering the amp output fixes the pickup distortion.

Actually, I was suggesting rolling back the guitar volume. You'd think the results would be the same as turning down the amp, but they're not. Lowering the guitar volume changes the frequency response of the pickup, generally making it less peaky. For exactly this reason, some players keep all the knobs on their guitars up full all the time. I suppose if that's the sound you want all the time, then it makes sense.

I find that with my M-75 into a AC15ish amp, if I roll both the volume and tone back to around 7 or 8 then I can get an airy sound that that still has lots of sparkle and top end, but is not in-your-face, so is very good for chord riffs and rhythm work. Turn the volume up to 9 for a little bite. Turn it up to 10 to bark. Then back down to 7 to step back. All of this with 1/4 turn of the volume knob. I adjust the tone knobs to get the clean sound that I want, then don't touch them. For whatever reason, my tone controls always seem to end up at almost the same setting as the volume for the clean work. There seems to be a narrow range in there where you get the open top end. If you leave it up full the sound is decidedly brighter, but with a certain amount of glare that's completely counter to the airy crisp sound that I can get by backing off the tone controls.

FWIW, I believe the NS Aristocrat has so-called 50's wiring.

If it matters, I play mostly neck or neck + bridge. Don't find myself on the bridge pickup alone very much unless there's a lot of added gain.
 

hhuffman

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Thank you all for your insightful comments. As I was preparing to make a video comparing these pups with my LP, I tried some of the volume adjustments listed above and they really did wonders. I was able to tame the distortion quite a bit with small adjustments and get the tones I was expecting.

Man, this is a fantastic guitar, especially for the price it is listed at.

Now, onto the second question.....PLEASE recommend some replacement control knobs that keep with the Guild aesthetic but don't look and feel like they come off of a child's toy.

Thank you all again,
Heath
 

GAD

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Guild knob aesthetic is pretty much that of a child's toy. Has been that way for decades. The real Guild alternative for those clear knobs are black knobs that are pretty much the same idea:

Guild-NS-S100-Knobs.jpg


I see a lot of vintage Guild electrics with replacement knobs because a lot of people hate them. To me they're part of what makes a Guild a Guild, probably because I've used them for so long.
 

hhuffman

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That’s interesting, because for me the tactile experience is an important part of bonding with an instrument. All other companies seem to put a lot of thought into the knobs and tuners, and the guilds look nice, but they feel like junk. When demoing for this guitar I played a Revstar RS502t, which I almost bought just for the awesome coating they had on their tuners and knobs. It also had excellent pickups, but I still went with the Guild.
 

The Guilds of Grot

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Hmm. At the beginning of a gig I check my knobs to make sure they are all turned up all the way. Then I never touch them for the rest of the night! I guess this is why I'm a Bassist. lol!
 

kakerlak

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Those clear knobs with the chrome inserts are era-correct for an early '60s Guild (the later end of the first generation M-75 they are reissuing with the Newark Street model). The earlier, fifties Bluesbirds had numberless clear solid Lucite knobs that mounted with a set screw and were back-pained in gold/silver, like this pic I stole off Reverb:

fphqgb6qzxpdnmptz6vu.jpg


I'm not sure there's a modern aftermarket source for repros of these and you'd probably want to swap out the pots for solid shaft ones if you changed them out anyway, but you can get numberless speed knobs (like Gibson used in the '40s) from a few aftermarket parts suppliers that'd be stylistically similar:

%2524_57__44066.1456172695.1280.1280.jpg
 

GAD

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Hmm. At the beginning of a gig I check my knobs to make sure they are all turned up all the way. Then I never touch them for the rest of the night! I guess this is why I'm a Bassist. lol!

I've been the same way for 35 years. A little while ago I decided to swap out the electronics on an expensive Gibson Les Paul because the neck pickup sucked even after replacing it. Holy crap - I finally get why some people constantly fiddle with the volume and tone. This thing is suddenly filled with tones I could never find on a guitar before. I immediately noticed that my Guild X170 is the same way when I got it, but I never pulled the harness to see if I could determine why.

Here's a great video on how the volume and tone should work on a guitar. Having Joe Bonammassa's fingers probably doesn't hurt, either, but this is the kind of behavior I now get out of my Les Paul (only without the style and skill).

 

hhuffman

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Those clear knobs with the chrome inserts are era-correct for an early '60s Guild (the later end of the first generation M-75 they are reissuing with the Newark Street model). The earlier, fifties Bluesbirds had numberless clear solid Lucite knobs that mounted with a set screw and were back-pained in gold/silver, like this pic I stole off Reverb:

fphqgb6qzxpdnmptz6vu.jpg


I'm not sure there's a modern aftermarket source for repros of these and you'd probably want to swap out the pots for solid shaft ones if you changed them out anyway, but you can get numberless speed knobs (like Gibson used in the '40s) from a few aftermarket parts suppliers that'd be stylistically similar:

%2524_57__44066.1456172695.1280.1280.jpg
I think I may have to go that route. Thanks for posting that pic to verify that those would stick with the M75 aesthetic.
 

adorshki

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I think I may have to go that route. Thanks for posting that pic to verify that those would stick with the M75 aesthetic.

Further corroboration:
http://www.vintageinstruments.com/thumbnails/53m75sfulpage.html
You do remember the Youngbloods, right?
Although I must point out as it was graciously pointed out to me by SFIV1967 a while back: the "Bluesbird" name wasn't applied to M75's until sometime in the '70's (I've forgotten exactly, was it '74?), even though Banana himself calls 'em Bluesbirds on that site.
 

Walter Broes

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. All other companies seem to put a lot of thought into the knobs and tuners, and the guilds look nice, but they feel like junk.
"Junk"? Really? So how is a Guild plastic control knob junkier than a Gibson plastic control knob or a stratocaster plastic control knob? (or a Fender or Marshall or Vox plastic control knob?)
 
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