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I have the original reflex pickups in my limited 91. They are so dark. Is there a way to brighten the sound of the pickups to where it's not so mushy sounding? Not necessarily mushy sounding but there is almost no brightness to the sound of this guitar. I'm using 9"s. The action is nice the bridge is good as well. Maybe adding another 9 volt it helped my AT pro. The only bad to it was that you would hit a harmonic with out trying! Anyone got any suggestions to brighten the guitar up with replacing the pickups
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I have very limited experience with the Reflex pickups, but....
Isn't there a "Blue Box" (usually in the electronics cavity) that has a bunch of EQ type adjustments. I believe there were many ways to wire them. This might be what you are looking for. I replaced a set of EMG's for a customer. The Reflex pickups sounded much better. Of course the customer was a Uli Roth fan and that was what was on one of his 6 string Sky guitars.
I just check my records and could not find any info on the wiring of the Reflex pickups. You might want to search the net for wiring the pickups. Also, do you have the red, silver or blue pickups? -
silver series i believeComment
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Here's a link to a Reflex's wiring and instructions:
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It looks like you have different options for wiring up that preamp, so maybe if yours is wired for a passive tone control, you could switch it to give you high eq control to add some treble. Page one of that guide talks about it some more:
http://audiozone.dk/guitargallery/?c...ructions01.jpgComment
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That is a cool feature but it doesn't tell you how to wire the high eq settingComment
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It looks like the bottom schematic on the page uli linked to shows the mid and high eq wired in.Comment
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The issue is the schematics are for 3 pots whereas the guitar has only 2 available.
This drove me bat shit crazy when attempting to restore mine.
Mine had electronics replaced, but included originals in the purchase.
Somehow, after inquiries, research and cavity pics from others who I assume had unmolested systems, I still wasn't sure.
I didn't want to try one, then rewire to try another, and again to try the third option
Vol/Tone - Vol/MidEQ - Vol/HighEQ
In the end I wound up with an SPDT? toggle integrated and stuffed into the cavity so i could choose between two.
Now looking at the original schem again and trying to visualize just WTF did I do, It still makes no sense and reminds me of bat shit craziness LOL.
Somewhere I have a piece of paper with my chicken scratch schematic that I'll try to find. It'd at least help you with a 2 pot system, where you can choose one or the other, or like myself, be undecided and add a hidden toggle for both.Comment
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OK, I have no idea how I came up with this.
I would think I reverse engineered it from cavity pics and blended it with the schem posted. It's been years...
Let me guess, if yours is original, there should be a pink lead from the blue box that's unused and yellow is going to the 2nd pot. If so that leads me to believe the hi EQ is already wired, and mid's as well as passive tone are not in use.
All the illegible text from this page on what each wire is for. (Thanks to MountainDog many years ago)
Blue wire is the output from the system. It should be connected to the hot of your volume control or directly to the output jack tip. This output is very special as it senses the load it is driving and automatically matches to that load.
White wire is always input to the active system. Connect here all pickups after selector switch. The wiper of selector goes here. If you want passive tone control, then connect capacitor of 0.47uF in series with 10kilohm pot to ground.
Red wire is for +9 volt battery connection and always connects direct to battery snap.
Black wire from battery snap alwasys connects to jack socket. It is the battery 0 volt wire and should go to contact the ring connection on a three pole (ring-tip-sleeve) jack socket. ......so on removing your jack cordc, you automatically turn of power to your system.
Green wire is the ground connection and this ensures low noise operation in your guitar. All metal parts of pots, switches and screening foils or paints should be joined to this wire. It is important that you connect the sleeve of your jack socket to this point.
Pink and Yellow wires are the active EQ command lines. Pink controls mid-band harmonics. Yellow controls upper high harmonics. (the illustration under the pink/yellow description shows a Center-detented linear taper pot with one leg grounded to case and green wire at that point, pink or yellow to the center leg, and blue output wire to final leg.
I think this is where I put my toggle (pink or yellow)Comment
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I suffered with Reflex pickups in my neon soloist for about 10 years. what a dumbass I am. I finally replaced them and I am uber happy. the reflex pups sounded like pure concentrated ass. my advice is to remove them from your guitar, replace them with pickups you like. then take the reflex pickups, and bring them to NASA so they can haul them into space and jettison them with space garbage just like the empire did with the millenium falcon."clean sounds are for pussies" - AxewielderComment
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LMAO, I totally agree...Originally posted by tonemonster View Post
I always used EMGs, and these did sound like ass by comparison.
I only put mine in to restore it original state and storage/eventual resale.Comment
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audiophile, if you want to combine your pics of '91's with mine (http://audiozone.dk/guitargallery/?c..._Limited_91%2F) then let me know and I'll put them up. Or you can just grab mine from the link if you haven't already.Comment
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I had a lim91 site many years ago on a now defunct free website host and had plans to someday get it back together with what I've collected since then but have little motivation.
I still have plans on a USA Archtop site, but as big as it will be (1200+ pics) I've had difficulty managing how to set up the database and page code to my liking. Keep procrastinating, to the point where I have to relearn the php/css/sql I did as I'm no coder, just wingin it. Since that is my new primary fish to fry, I may as well donate my lim91 data which includes at least 10 other serialed ones you dont have plus some more book/mag scans and misc.
I'll dig up and consolidate my archive in a few days and send you a PM with a link to d/l a zip package.Comment
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That is very generous of you. I'm sure a lot will be interested as I am.
I can only encourage you to get rolling with the Archtop site or even an LTD '91 site/page. That would be awesome.
Procrastinating, you say. It sounds familiar. Allow me to give you a humble advice of mine. If you set your targets too high, you will never succeed. Lower the targets and start publishing. Build and improve as you go along. Don't be weary to make a choice for a certain web layout or database structure etc..
I used to want to think everything through from A-Z before starting a project of any kind (web sites, guitar mods, house rebuild, anything). I guess it was the fear of failure that made me do so. Too high expectations and standards set by myself. I realized that it was killing my productivity and even realization of projects. I decided to skip that mindset and force myself to just jump into it and accept errors and bad decisions. Bad decisions can be corrected - you just have to accept it usually takes time to correct them, like re-designing a web site or re-entering guitars in a database (for example). But if you had not made those (bad) decisions, you probably would have never made it this far.
That was a bit long and philosophical, but you made me think of myself and the work involved in audiozone.dk, where all of the above have been part of it.
EDIT: btw. I am past 10,000 pics on audiozone.dk, so...
Last edited by jackson1; 02-15-2011, 10:47 AM.Comment
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/* Thread Hijack
Henrik, I agree, everything you said is spot on.
No doubt I've watched your site evolve and become a serious resource with significant content. From initial concept to current state is too big for a single leap. Start small and build up.
Anyhow, poking through my data has got me somewhat motivated to revisit my research and site development. We'll see.
PM in a sec.
Thread Hijack */
Found my cavity wiring research pics. Came from a Rhoads which has 3 pots. Argh.
That didn't help my 2 pot config, but had cleared up schematic config.
Looking at my homemade schem, something is amiss. The input jack should be 3 contacts (due to battery)
Rhoads cavity pics show vol to input tip, ring to battery neg, and sleeve to ground
Confusing ass shite.Comment
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