Exceedingly hot B string?

[aboss]

Hey all, have a question... I play an LV-03E and as such it has the larrivee factory B-Band pickup. My guitar sounds beautiful on its own, but i am losing a lot of its character when plugged in. The biggest specific problem i'm having is a really really hot b string. My b rings out so loud above the others, that i'm forced to compensate with the equalizer... which makes my guitar sound super-dead. I know this isn't an uncommon problem , but does anyonre know of anything i can do to fix it? I'm playing at a graduation ceremony (for my little sister, awww. lol.) this coming tuesday, and I want my baby to sound like she truly should... and currently the pickup just isn't doing her justice.

aboss

[dberch]

A quick fix is to pull the saddle, and the pickup, and make sure everything is perfectly flat and completely free of dust/debris.  Any little imperfection can cause that.  Take some 150 grit sandpaper to the bottom of the saddle, and clean the pickup and slot.  If that doesn't do it there's a thread somewhere about adding a clay shim that's supposed to work wonders.  I'll see if I can find it.

Update: the link to the clay shim trick is no longer working.  Contact forum member Little Brother for details, it's his technique.

Hope this helps, and good luck at the greaduation gig!
David

[djsonovox]

If your B-Band is an undersaddle pickup, you can take a rat-tail file and hollow the area over the b string. I had the same problem with a 12-string undersaddle, and that fixes it. A Taylor 214 I put un undersaddle in had a way loud A string! I fixed it by beveling it away from that area. It's a bit of work, but the results are worth it.

Doug J

[aboss]

Thanks for the replies! It IS an undersaddle pickup, however how my lack of guitar-repair knowledge is going to make itself apparent.  :huh: I can handle removing and sanding the saddle (i've done that before to adjust the action) ...but whats the best/safest/easiest way to remove the pickup to clean/inspect it? i definetly don't want to hurt anything. I am planning on replacing my strings tonight or tommorrow anyway, so i'm figuring that would be a good time to check things out.

[bing4sons]

I doubt there is anything wrong with the pickup.  The B-Band UST is super thin.  As such it's more sensitive to imperfections in the bottom of the saddle.  I've had this issue.  With most of the guitars I've had, it was fixed with sanding the bottom of the saddle, making sure it's completely flat, like dberch said.  I tape the sand paper to a board and run the saddle back and forth across it.  It doesn't take much to make a difference.

With my L-09fm, I had to put a small strip of post it note, below the saddle, below where the b-string makes contact.  Someone had suggested that on the B-Band site, when they used to have one, and it worked.

[ronmac]

Another thing to look at is your signal chain. If you are using a passive DI with inferior transformers you could be geting serious loading or ringing, causing huge phase shifts and attenuations.