Absolutely agree. See what works best for you, you're the only person the guitar has to satisfy.
You can only make a accurate judgment if you've tried all ways. Till then you're in the dark a little bit. The good thing about this is that were all in the dark, theres so many ways of wiring guitars. Hence clearer minds being willing to listen to others.

Shim'
Where do you get the baseplates, or do you cut them yourself?

Would make a good mod topic mate. Something I've never done and am considering for one guitar.
Show us how it's done, eh mate.

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No no and no

+1

I'm intrigued.

Andy

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Pending Greatness

I get mine from Callaham, looks like the prices on some stuff just went up a little. It is towards the bottom of the page, there is also a picture of a loaded pick guard, with one installed, just below the base plate.

http://www.callahamguitars.com/partsstr.htm

A picture of my RW 60s with one installed. Simply use a bead of silicon adhesive to attach, then solder the wire that comes on it, to the negative terminal of the pickup. I really like the improvement in tone that you get from adding the plate.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Nice one Shim!

I've not seen that done before. I wonder how a brass plate would work?

I have plenty of brass sheets knocking around and reckon i could quite easily make my own. Quite tempted.

Thanks again!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

Are the plates on the Tele bridge pickups brass? I haven't taken mine apart to see....yet.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

I think they might be, but i don't have a Tele to confirm that.

Please report back once yours is in bits!

Cheers!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

I'll have a look at my tele later, it's a baja with customshop pickups.

I'm more interested in making my own plate. All you really have to do to get em to work is have something that conducts magnetism.

May look at cutting my own, depends on whether I can straighten out this bent tin can.

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No no and no

Give me a shout if you want a bit of brass....

Though a "Heinz" base plate does sounds kinda cool!

"Heinz baseplates, delivering a deliciously rich tone" :lol:

Andy

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Pending Greatness

Great idea! I checked the thickness of the extra one that I have, it measures about 1.5 mm, just under 1/16 inch thick, using plastic calipers. It looks like good quality steel. It has a thin layer of what looks like painters tape on the bottom (the side toward the pickup), not sure why. The holes in it are just big enough so that the pickup height adjustment screws will clear. I'd be interested to see the ones that you make, if you decide to make your own. Maybe you could make both brass and steel and see how they sound. You could sell "nikininja base plates" on ebay.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Purely experimental purposes only.

The only reason I can see for the painters tape, is to maybe offer some resistance between the magnets and the plate????

Not entirely sure on that.

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No no and no

I figure I'll put my two cents in:

Essentially, a base plate serves three functions:

1. Ferromagnetic
2. Electrodynamic
3. Increased shielding

It should be noted the ferrous or words such as #1 above mean the metal is composed of and/or predominantly derived from iron.

Mr. Fender used copper plated steel base plates on the Tele bridge pickups in order to stabilize and increase the magnetic pull of the Alnico III polepieces. The steel was copper plated to retard the steel's oxidization and as most know, copper is an excellent conductor. Ferromagnetic steel plates increase coil inductance akin to mimicking more winds of the coil.

The steel of itself aids in the transmission of the strings through the base plate to the bridge plate via the height adjustment screws and here is where the Tele 'twang' is born. Of note is the obvious fact that this twang will not manifest itself by merely putting a base plate on and in a Strat pickup in a Strat pickguard.

As I've said many times, eddy currents are created when anything is added into the circuit's magnetic field. In this case, base plates made of steel, copper , brass and/or aluminum will create eddy currents. These eddy currents invariably shift the tonality of the affected pickup(s) towards mids and lows where it will be most noticeable with a bridge pickup. Consequently, the better conductivity of the metal(s) used for the base plate, its thickness, etc, will all shape the final tonality of the pickup it is teamed with.

In summation: Only 'regular' steel base plates fulfill the three functions as I've stated above. Brass, copper and aluminum are not ferrous metals and therefore, meet only functions 2 and 3. Lastly, the most common forms of stainless steel used with guitar hardware only meet function 3 as stainless steel's inherent properties largely negate any ferrous influence.

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You dig?

Andybighair wrote


Like the ninja said anything that conducts magnetism, not electricity so no brass there matey.

Anything with some iron in it.

Dont some aftermarket pups come with the option of a base plate? looks easy to bash some up from anything a magnet is attracted to tho!

. . . Al

That's worth a lot more than 2 cents. Thanks Martian for the excellent explanation! Now I know not only that the pickups sound better with one, I also have an idea why.

_________________
---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Glad to help!

Be forewarned though, as I've stated above, the size, thickness, metal composition and shape of a base plate all affect the tonality of the pickup it is teamed with. This should not automatically be understood that ANY shape, size, etc. base plate will do wonders for whatever pickup it is teamed with. Oftentimes, shall we say, "one-off" base plates can yield NASTY sounding results too.

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You dig?

Folks,

I hate to resurect an old thread, but I have a confession to make.

I have now changed my mind regarding my previous recommendation of treble bleeds.

I read through all the comments in this thread and thought about a minor but annoying problem I had been having with my humbucker equipped "Lyon by Washburn" and to a lesser extent with my SCN equipped Strat. I was having a problem with a very stridant "G" string on the Lyon. I tried adjusting the humbucker pole pieces as well as the overall height and bass to treble tilt of the pickups. Although I could reduce the stridancy, I could not eliminate it entirely. So, I thought about some of the discussion here regarding the bad side effects of the treble bleed. After giving it much thought, I decided to remove the treble bleed from both humbucker volume pots.

Guess what?

The stridant tones completely disappeared.

I was able to adjust both pickups for a clean and smooth blend from bass to treble. The guitar now sounds better than it ever did.

Since it worked so well with the Lyon, I decided to remove the treble bleed from the Strat. You guessed it. It sounds better than ever.

So, I now have a couple of plastic baggies with three treble bleeds in them. Maybe I will sell them on E-Bay. NOT!

So, no more treble bleeds for me. Thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions. Treble bleeds were an interesting experiment, but I now know that they are not for me.

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Bill