software

hey,
i've got a quarter pounder in the bridge position of my strat and get a lot of feedback (the screechey hurt-your-ears kind i associate with microphones into p.a. systems, not the good guitar kind) when playing loud. i'm using the lead side of boogie studio preamp into a tube power amp into a 4x10. i am playing very loudly and am not standing all that far from my amp but i have the gain turned down enough that it only sounds dirty when i dig into the strings.
i put the pickup in a couple years ago. i never had trouble per se with the stock pickup, just wanted a bigger sound. to be fair, i never ran the stock pickup into a very loud amplifier.
anyone have any idea what's going on? i seem to remember reading something about wax-potting the pickup on a harmony-central review a long time ago but can't find it any more. is this a procedure i can do? will it fix my feedback? will it otherwise change the tone? i don't rate too badly on the do-it-yourself scale.
thanks a lot for any input!
george

Hey George; Welcome to the forum. I'm surprised that no one has responded to this yet. Consider this a little quot;bumpquot;.

All I can add to your problem, is that the QP is probably one of Duncans hottest, non-noise-cancelling pickups. If you're playing loud, and standing close to the amp, what you're experiencing may be normal and unavoidable.

Hopefully, others will pop in.

I hope it works out. The QP is one of my favorites.

Artie

I run into this problem with both Teles and Strats, not quite so much with humbucking guitars, but depending on the amount of gain, well... Anyway, I've had the same problem with my own single coil guitars, not necessarily just the QP pickups. It IS annoying, but since I didn't want to drop the amount of gain I was using, I decided to just incorporate the squeal into my lead tone. I only kick it on when I have to, then as soon as I start playing it pretty much goes away once the signal floor is high enough.

George this may sound strange but make sure the PUP is mounted securely, the QP has bucket loads of sensitivity ie. you can play entire passages like Jimi with just your fretting hand. If the PUP is able to wiggled with light finger pressure it is way too loose and you get the microphonic feedback. Normally this happens when a cheap PUP wiring is shaken due to volume, not being wax potted.
What you could be getting is possibly is the whole PUP shaking, I had this happen back in high school when I plugged Sunni, my Parts-o-caster, into a 300W PA used all three PUP's, Big Muff to test a Physic's teacher's dB meter and CRO set up. Result 125 dB and complaints from every house within 1/4 mile radius. The music teacher yelled at me but I couldn't hear him! Went deaf for two hours.

Lewguitar will hopefully back me up on this quick cure.
Once your got your PUP height set get hold of some rubber tube and cut slightly longer than the spring length and use these instead of or as an addition to the normal PUP springs. This should mount the QP PUP nice and tight.
P.S. When the next suburb complains about the volume it's about right.