I have a USA standard strat 2005 model. It suffers enormously from wolf tones when playing through an overdriven amp. I have to turn down tone pots to lower than 5 to get rid of them, but this makes the tone too wooly. I replaced all the electrics with new cts pots, texas special pickups and used cloth covered wire for all connections. Wolf tones still present even if pickups are screwed right down so that the pickup plastic cover is actually lower than the underside of the pickguard. I have packed the trem springs to prevent resonance there.
Any suggestions?

What is a wolf tone ?

Fisrt time I read and heard playing a Strat with pickup plastic cover is underside the pickgard.

Probably not your guitar but gear you use.

+1 on that. what is a wolf tone? feedback?

The wolftone gives a very bright upper harmonic that creates dissonance on overdriven channels. It sounds like a 'splinky' kinda screech added to the tone just on picking and dies away after less that a quarter of a second. happens on all strings especially when fretted up around fret 12 and higher .It is is an unpleasant sound, like fingers on a blacboard. horrible. Clean channel is fine. I play through blackstar ht5-r and short cable with Klotz cable and neutrik connectors. No effects.

Plugging in an Aria ES-335 clone with humbuckers sounds fantastic on same settings. Why does a $200 guitar outshine a $900 one?

I have no idea what your talking about

I think I know what the author is talking about. Are you talking about wierd harmonics that sound like the guitar is poorly intonated or out tune when you bend the strings neat the 12th fret?

Here is a good example of wolf tones on a violin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi_6r0kk2nE

Some info here:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/tips- ... olf-tones/

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/sho ... nd-comment

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Bill

+ 1, I agree.

It can't be any other reason that your guitar need a good tune up.

Ive never heard that on a guitar. My be pickup height.

Your pickups or valves (if you have a valve amp) might have gone microphonic. If you have a new set of valves to swap out of the amp give that a try, if it's the pickups that are microphonic you could have them dipped.

That could be it, too.

I don't why if they are very far from string

ddootson write ;

"Wolf tones still present even if pickups are screwed right down so that the pickup plastic cover is actually lower than the underside of the pickguard. "

some thoughts:

Check that truss rod is adjusted well, so that it has some pressure bearing on it. My strat the neck was holding most of the pressure and I had to tighten the truss rod jsut to get it involved.

Try some different strings.

Try a longer cable to the amp. The increased capacitance might attenuate those unpleasant high frequencies a little bit, and it's possible you could change impedance enough to affect how the pickups are responding.

Check the supports for the pickups under the screws, maybe try those little pieces of tubing instead of the springs in there (not sure what you have now, could try whatever you don't have).

Hi ddootson: we don't know you're experience level, so don't be put out if some suggestions are telling you what you already well know. But when I read that you'd tried dropping the pickups and that didn't solve it my next thought was along the lines GarethJB84 mentioned: could you have an amp valve going microphonic? The obvious way to check that is to run another guitar into it to see if the same thing happens. Which you did:

Well, one possibility is that the valve is just starting to go, and the brighter output of the Strat's single coils is producing the nasty overtones where the 335's humbuckers aren't quite getting there yet. You'd want to try another Strat into your HT5 to be sure.

But I must admit, it is sounding like it might not be the valves after all. So...

Wayne2 also makes some useful suggestions, to which I'd add that all sorts of other hard to track down loose parts can also cause unpleasant harmonics in certain frequencies. A slightly loose nut or a string saddle that isn't quite seated properly are sometimes culprits. Try playing and simultaneously pressing a finger on the nut and then on each saddle by turns to damp unwanted vibrations and see if that turns anything up. I've also on occasion found annoying buzzes coming from spots on the pickguard, either where it is vibrating against a screw or against the body of the guitar itself in a certain place; and these difficulties can be frustratingly hard to pin down. In my own experience a spot on the top edge of an eleven screw pickguard has more than once turned out to be to blame, and a little piece of masking tape on the back in that position to cushion it the solution (that one on a 2005 Am Series like yours, as it happens).

Normally we'd call these kinds of issues "sympathetic vibrations" rather than wolf notes, and a characteristic is that they tend to come only when the guitar is played at certain registers, because they arise in response to a particular pitch of note. Sometimes it's just a matter of going around and around the instrument searching for the source of the unwanted resonance, tightening screws, adjusting rods and pickups and springs, and so on and so on. It can all be very tiresome!

Anyway. Carry on searching - and keep asking and we'll keep throwing out ideas...

Good luck - C

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Those low cost pickups can't reproduce many frequency that make a better tone and sustain . Can you try your guitar with another amp ?