Feedback help.

S

SiggyCertified

Inspired
So... I need some help with this one boys and girls...

I run a 4CM setup with a Victory Super Kraken, and my FM3. I also use a PRS CE with Bareknuckle Rags installed. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to prevent squealing feedback to continue from happening.

All that being said, I've tried to tighten both gates on IN1, and IN2, i've added an extra gate to the chain. I've also tried adjusting the pickup height (didn't help), tried dialing down gain( which helps) I normally prefer it @ noon, so this also greatly messes with my tone as I'm sure you all know, which I'm trying to avoid.... I've done everything I can feasibly think of in order to help the issue.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that the issue does seem to be specific to my guitar as well, I've had my other guitarist plug into my very setup, and the issue goes away. Now, I know that I could lower the "input signal" somewhere, but I also know that there are multiple ways to do that, and I'd like to pick all of y'alls brains to find out what would be the absolute best course of action to try and tame my feedback (which essentially seems to be my guitars fault, the pickups are likely very hot, and I need to tame them somehow.)
 
Paging @Andy Eagle.

I doubt adjusting the gates will help. They target EMI, especially in quiet passages.

Turning down the pickups volume and lowering their height can help. Replacing them with something with less power might help too, but it could be a combination of things.

There are two types of acoustic feedback we encounter, both occur because of the vibrations caused by the speaker in the air make something on the guitar shake.

The desired type shakes the strings and is fun when you want it and know what to do with it.

The undesirable feedback shakes either the body of the guitar, especially hollow body guitars, but also semi-hollow can do it. Or it shakes the pickup, either in its mount, or inside the pickup, and is an uncontrollable shriek.

You can stuff damping material into a hollow body, you can try covering the f-holes, you can clamp your arm tightly against the body, etc., doing something to stop the body from shaking.

For the pickup sometimes they wax-pot the pickup to dampen it, or change the springs to surgical tubing. My PRS SC-245 bridge pickup is prone to that. It’s not potted because it’s supposed to imitate a 50s pickup, which I like, so I have to ride its volume carefully because it can scream like an excited 6 year old girl.

There’s also a magnetic feedback that can occur when we get too close to a tweeter in a speaker. It’s a shrill shriek as the magnetic field in the speaker couples with the pickup. Only getting away from the speaker or turning down the pickup’s volume will help.

Several members here are experienced guitar techs and are sure to chime in.
 
Last edited:
What you describe does sound like a microphonic pickup. It could be a problem with that particular pickup (you can find out by switching to a different pickup on the same guitar), or it might be a characteristic of that pickup type.

If the feedback doesn’t stop when you mute the strings, it’s almost always a microphonic pickup.
 
Yeah it's very possible. The guitar originally came with Mojotone pickups but I swapped them out immediately because I normally love the Bareknuckle high end clarity. That being said it's possible that I may need to swap out the pickups in the guy, or do some kind of dampening like mentioned above.

Also when it comes to muting... the noise does eventually stop, but there's a haunting squeal that happens RIGHT before the mute kicks in.
 
SiggyCertified said:
Also when it comes to muting... the noise does eventually stop, but there's a haunting squeal that happens RIGHT before the mute kicks in.
Click to expand...
I think that's your noise gate kicking in. With the "good" kind of feedback, it stops immediately when you mute the strings.
 
Yeah I think I'm dealing with the undesirable feedback. I do have a floating trem which I'm assuming could contribute to the shaking of the body as expressed above... Interesting for sure. I will have to report back when I get it in with the tech this week. Thanks all for the insight, and please, anyone else... feel free to shed some light.
 
Assuming your amplification works correctly with other gear and the usual proximity issues are also not a problem on other guitars the most likely culprit of uncontrollable unpleasant high pitched feedback is an un potted pickup that has loose internal coils or one that the potting has not fully penetrated the coils. Potting it will fix this issue but it will also slightly change the tone. You could swap out the pickup to check that the issues goes away first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom