OK, heres a thing.

So I have my 2008 AM Strat and she's just great. I've been reheasing "Shine On" by Floyd for a gig and am just nailing the opening solo with my Strat.

But

When I get to later part of the solo and need to bend 20 (22) on the top E right towards the end of the solo the (22) is noticably quiet and screwing my till then, frankly awesome solo.

Got some nice smooth compression going on and the whole thing is sound great till then!


Gotta fix?

Cheers and all

Jedi

Is it fretting out slightly? Not enough to silence the string, but just enough to confuse, maybe. Worth raising the saddle to find out.

Yeah OK I can have a look at that, its not squealing out, its just not as loud, like a real volume drop..

Really odd, cos musically in the solo that note really needs to sing!

+1. For what it's worth, I've encountered this same issue on high frets - it's sometimes confusing in that in that position it can come down to extremely fine tolerances and so be very hard to spot. Fretting out is usually much easier to spot lower on the neck, where you can also hear it more easily.

To test if this is the right diagnosis then, just as VerySlowHand says, raise the saddle - and raise it a lot to begin with so as to definitely remove the fret-out, if that is indeed the issue. You can then gradually lower the saddle again in increments to just above the critical point.

Of course, if you raise the saddle and the problem is still there... well then we have to put our thinking caps back on!

Cheers - C

You know I been thinking about this at work today and I reckon that my ear is being coloured from listening to his live performances from Delicate Sound of Thunder and Pulse with, you know, the stunning tech axe set up, the Pete Cornish Rig, the amps, the EMG's, the stadia, the mix, the mastering, the fingers.....

That gives his axe and that solo alot of its "Sing"

Perhaps something in his compression is lifting the quieter notes in a way my poor old CS3 just can't

Cheers and all

You are bending your high E string away from its own pole piece, placing it over the B string's. The B string's pole piece is noticeably lower in height as compared to that of the high E's. By necessity and coupled by the natural aftermath decay of the bent high E string, there would be a prominent drop in volume from that high E string.

Raising the high E's saddle will bring the string even further away from the pole piece(s) thus exacerbating your problem.

Raise the B string's pole piece.

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You dig?

Hi Martian: you've come up with a slant on this that had never even crossed my mind. How interesting!

Now I'm off to experiment with high fret string bends on guitars with staggered pole pups. Today's new morsel of food-for-thought for me!

Thanks - C

With respect (honestly), I don't think that's the problem. You're never THAT far from a pole piece when bending... otherwise all pickups would be designed to compensate and since they're not, every guitar would suffer from such volume loss, which they don't.

I'm thinkin tha tpossibly if you are running a higher action to improve sustain, you might be using less finger pressure than needed to correctly sound the note. I have noticed this in the upper register of my strat and now press a little harder to improve the contact with the fret. Give it a try.

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60th Anniversary AD Strat, Deluxe Nashville Tele, Player's P Bass. Mesa/Boogie Mk IV combo, Marshall JCM800, 1960A cab, Genz Benz El Diablo 60, Genz 2x12" cab, too many neat little practice amps and kit projects!