PRS SE Torero squealing doing my head in!

lysergene

lysergene

Member
Someone out there needs to help me with this. I'm going mental. I just want to play guitar.....

I have just bought a second hand PRS SE Torero which comes with EMG 81 and 85 pups in the bridge and neck respectively.

My regular guitar is a Michael Kelly Hex Deluxe with Irongear Hot Slags (Hot Passives).

I spent a while calibrating my Axe FX II XL to the new guitar: setting the input level to tickle the red light when strumming hard and setting the global amp gain so that the distortion levels are the same. I also damped the tremolo springs so they would not make a noise. I don't use ridiculous amounts of gain and I have kept my master volumes fairly low as I had noticed cranking them caused a bit of feedback from the Michael Kelly.

All good. Until I hit the rehearsal studio. I noticed what I can only describe as microphonic feedback coming from the guitar when I muted the strings.

It's like a constant tone somewhere between 500hz and 1k (at a guess). It creeps in during slower palm muted sections also. I even took the strings off to check. Still the same.

I went and bought foam padding for under the pickups and replaced the springs with latex tubing. Still the same.

I explained all of this to the tech guy at EMG. He said "EMGs don't go microphonic, try turning your gain down". I had turned my gain down to the point where I was getting less distortion than the Irongears. Still the same.

I have just bought a brand new new EMG 81. Still the same :mad:

Is there anything else in the wiring that could cause this? Could it be a shielding issue, or do I need to look at a specific parameter on the Axe FX?

Again, my other guitar doesn't do this at higher gain settings with a louder volume. There are still no strings on the guitar and it still gives this sound with ALL of these EMG pups.....my friend's LTD doesn't do this and he uses higher gain settings?

My rig consists of the guitar, the axe fx, a matrix power amp, various cabs. It does this through my studio monitor speakers and other amps as well.

Any ideas??

Is there anything else in a guitar or the wiring that can cause what sounds exactly like microphonic feedback?
 
Last edited:
s0c9 said:
back off the gain ??
Click to expand...

Haha! I tried that man. Still does it with the gain right down. It should give me at least what I get from the Irongears.... This guitar feeds on a crunch setting with no strings on the guitar.

To be fair, these patches were honed to the passive guitar. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with the amp compression settings or dynamic depth. I assumed I could just crank the gain down and play.
 
Last edited:
Find some one with an emg equiped guitar and compare! I bought a charvel on ebay some time ago and it had what was supposed to be an emg 81 in it. It sounded good at low volumes but turned up it would pick up my voice and send it through my amp. Emg tech told me it was not possible. I sent them some close pictures and they replied back that I was the proud owner of a fake EMG. I swore for a few minutes, and replaced it with a real emg 81, and all has been good ever since.
 
Post a recording of it?

Anytime I have anything going wonky with active systems (pickups or preamps), I look at the battery first. Then I check all the solder joints - it's rather unbelievable how terrible a lot of factory and "guitar luthier" soldering jobs are. It's like a lot of people forgot how to solder, so they just slab a big glob of it down and hope for the best.

Outside of that, I'd solo each pickup and see if one or the other is the cause of it. I'd also pull up a couple of the factory presets to see if they exhibit the same behavior. Do you have a real amp you can plug into (or take the guitar to a store to plug in for a bit)?
 
paranoid said:
Find some one with an emg equiped guitar and compare! I bought a charvel on ebay some time ago and it had what was supposed to be an emg 81 in it. It sounded good at low volumes but turned up it would pick up my voice and send it through my amp. Emg tech told me it was not possible. I sent them some close pictures and they replied back that I was the proud owner of a fake EMG. I swore for a few minutes, and replaced it with a real emg 81, and all has been good ever since.
Click to expand...


I have heard a few stories about fakes. I'm pretty sure these aren't though; they come as standard with the Torero and the logo on the 85 is slightly orange which is correct for the guitar I think.

I also bought a new EMG from Amazon. Seems to be the same. I could send that back and keep trying until I get a good one.

I'm going to go to a music store to see if their EMG equipped guitars are as lively as this.
 
selta said:
Post a recording of it?

Anytime I have anything going wonky with active systems (pickups or preamps), I look at the battery first. Then I check all the solder joints - it's rather unbelievable how terrible a lot of factory and "guitar luthier" soldering jobs are. It's like a lot of people forgot how to solder, so they just slab a big glob of it down and hope for the best.

Outside of that, I'd solo each pickup and see if one or the other is the cause of it. I'd also pull up a couple of the factory presets to see if they exhibit the same behavior. Do you have a real amp you can plug into (or take the guitar to a store to plug in for a bit)?
Click to expand...


So faulty wiring can cause similar symptoms to microphonic issues? If so then fine, I'll buy new wiring. The reason I ask is that all three of these pups do it. The 85 is a slightly lower tone. My new black chrome 81 does it less than the plastic ones.

I've seen a few posts about the solderless pups doing this specifically. Maybe those three metal prongs aren't the best idea.

I'll post audio if it will help. There are a few vids on YouTube demonstrating microphonic pickups. It's basically that.
 
So I went to a local guitar shop and tried three guitars loaded with EMGs. A crappy part exchange thing they had, an Epiphone LP and a USA Jackson.

They howled like mad when I turned up the gain and volume. They made the same noises when I scratched the pickups with a finger nail. They all stopped howling or altered pitch when I gave the pickups a prod.

I'll restring this guitar and try it again at rehearsal. If it's still doing my head in I'll stick some nailbombs or something in it and use the EMGs in another guitar.

Thanks loads for your responses man!

:sunglasses:
 
That's strange. I love emg pickups for there high gain with low noise. I never have had any that came in factory model guitars. I would assume they are the same as you buy from emg. Maybe they act different with your ac power being higher voltage then here in the states?
 
It's not a signal to noise ratio problem; these are quiet when tracking and I'm not getting any hiss, buzz or RF noise (These EMGs are awesome. I just put my spare 81 in the neck and it sounds great) It's definitely the sound of the pickups vibrating inside the pickup cavity. When I prodded them the sound stopped. I just couldn't make it stop by doing that with my setup.

I'm pretty sure a USA Jackson with a Dual Rectifier would behave the same in any country? If you turn an amp up loud enough this stuff will happen, but it's happening sooner rather than later on my set up. I did notice it happened sooner on the two cheaper guitars I tried.

I may have nailed the problem though: I had adjusted the input level to 'tickle' the red lights with the EMGs and I had adjusted the global amp gain. But (and this is a big but) there is also a compressor which comes first in every preset I have made. With my passive guitar this moves just a little bit, but with the EMGs it is working very hard. This is not ideal.

I have found the BOOST/PAD in the I/O page. Unfortunately you can only BOOST this, so I now need to go through around 100 presets and change stuff around.... good job guitar effects has been a hobby of mine for a quarter of a century.

New on my wish list for Fractal :- A page on the input stage where you can choose Guitar 1 - Guitar 2 - Guitar 3 and be done with it, OR have an actual PAD in the BOOST/PAD page.
 
Personally, I'd recommend ditching the compressor. It's not really needed in front of a gainy amp. Try it without. It may solve the squealing issue and improve your dynamics and tone in the process
 
EBMM Luke with EMGs owner here ......... I've had a 'sucked whistle' effect when using a gainy preset (in fact it was the factory preset 'Rock Concert' which uses a Bogner Red channel amp and enhancer ... I use it for a quick go to preset for headphone practice). The EMGs on a Luke are 'Lukather tuned' but can't be too far away from stock ones.

I've also had the same effect when using a Strat with vintage noiseless singles so it's not just EMGs. This was happening using just closed back headphones .... so I don't think speaker feedback had anything to do with it.

The whistle happened now and again when I lifted any palm mutes momentarily. It didn't happen all the time so I think there's some other factor such as the emi from my laptop's screen or power supply, or even static electricity from me that contributed. My old laptop gave up a week or so ago and my new one seems to emit much less interference - I can't reproduce the whistle now.

Anyway, I agree with Simeon .... the compressor seemed to be the main culprit .... that preset has one first in the chain for no good reason as far as I can see. The input gate settings could also be a factor.
 
simeon said:
Personally, I'd recommend ditching the compressor. It's not really needed in front of a gainy amp. Try it without. It may solve the squealing issue and improve your dynamics and tone in the process
Click to expand...

I have reduced the gate output by 10dB on all of my patches so that hard strums tickle the compressor like they did with my passive guitar. I probably don't need it for the EMGs as their output is already very compressed (I just did a bypassed comparison into a DAW). I'll see what happens at rehearsal level and consider ditching the comp altogether. It did seem to tighten up the faster staccato playing for my passive guitar.

Thanks Simeon
 
maxdown said:
EBMM Luke with EMGs owner here ......... I've had a 'sucked whistle' effect when using a gainy preset (in fact it was the factory preset 'Rock Concert' which uses a Bogner Red channel amp and enhancer ... I use it for a quick go to preset for headphone practice). The EMGs on a Luke are 'Lukather tuned' but can't be too far away from stock ones.

I've also had the same effect when using a Strat with vintage noiseless singles so it's not just EMGs. This was happening using just closed back headphones .... so I don't think speaker feedback had anything to do with it.

The whistle happened now and again when I lifted any palm mutes momentarily. It didn't happen all the time so I think there's some other factor such as the emi from my laptop's screen or power supply, or even static electricity from me that contributed. My old laptop gave up a week or so ago and my new one seems to emit much less interference - I can't reproduce the whistle now.

Anyway, I agree with Simeon .... the compressor seemed to be the main culprit .... that preset has one first in the chain for no good reason as far as I can see. The input gate settings could also be a factor.
Click to expand...


I used to get that when using very high gain settings on my Boss GX 700 (the last box they did which has useable distortions), including low level playing. I tend to use less gain these days and then bump it up when needed for specific applications.

I'm pretty sure this sound is the sound of the pickups vibrating in the cavity. A lower frequency howl, somewhere between 700hz and 1.5khz.

In my experience laptops can be noisy when charging.
 
if it's the pickups vibrating in their cavities, can you not put a thin layer of foam underneath them to prevent this?
 
I have used the foam that comes with EMG pickups and some latex tubing in place of springs. It's all very tight now. The neck is OK but the bridge still howls. I have a feeling it may be because I bought a black chrome one and mounted it with a metal ring. I'll try switching them and see what happens.
 
Last edited:
It could be the cover resonating. It can be fixed but you have to remove the cover and put some material ( such as that blue poster putty ) between the cover and the pickup, then re-install the cover.

Try pressing a pencil eraser against the pickup to see if that helps the squealing. If it doesn't then the pickup may need re-potting.
 
I also own a Torero (the white one and it's freaking awesome :) ) and I haven't had problems like that.
All my EMG equipped guitars never have any squealing going on actually.
This is a Floyd rose guitar so have you tried muting the springs in the back of the guitar?
You can put some foam under or inside the springs, just make sure they don't resonate.
Also try muting the parts of the strings behind the nut.
Not sure if that is the case but it could help.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom