Black Friday

skullfunkerry

Resurrecting this thread; I used my SL3X at a proper volume last night, sitting three feet in front of my amp and the pickups behaved perfectly, no microphonic feedback at all. Not only that, they sounded ****ing fantastic, too!

I think I read in another thread that @jhalliday89 had returned his SL4X; how are you getting on with yours, @Modellista?

Modellista

@skullfunkerry - I returned mine, eventually after some faffing around with Andertons.  Not impressed with them really.

Here was their reply to my suggestion that they give me a bit of money back because the pickups were microphonic:

Hi Martin,

Sorry to see that you're not getting on with your new guitar!

I have watched you video, and the feedback that you're getting from the amp is due to the pickups it has - hot-rails are more susceptible to feedback compared to humbuckers (which are in your other guitar) and in the video you are quite close to your amp, and this being on the highest gain channel will cause single-coil pickups to feed back! 

These pickups are also high-output, which when on the highest gain channel, explains why you can hear it throughout the body and when you speak into it!

In regards to the 'oil' you're getting on your fingers when you play, this is due to the oxidisation of the strings and does happen with some new guitars - in any case I'd be happy to send you some new strings at no extra cost!

Hope this helps - but please do let me know if you have any other questions!

Kind regards,

[name redacted]

Mail Order Dept.

Which is obviously total nonsense.  I would have kept it if they'd chucked me either a new set of pickups or £80 to buy a set of Iron Gear hot rails equivalents but they didn't seem to understand that concept, preferring a strategy of denial, at least initially.  Someone did eventually ring me to admit that there was something wrong but by that point I just wanted rid of it.

A shame - the concept of the guitar was great, it looked awesome, and I should have been able to get the black gunk problem sorted with a clean and a fresh set of strings - but it wasn't just oxidation of the strings as he says above, it was the frets as well, which mean they are probably made of some alloy which oxidises easily and will need frequent fret clean.  But the pickups were totally useless so if they weren't acknowledging that aspect it had to go back, unfortunately.

They got discounted even further to £300, at which point I was tempted to order another one because I could accept the pickup problem and solve it for the £50 saved, but a MIJ Ibanez RG450AH popped up locally for less and I'm a sucker for Japanese guitars, so that scratched the Superstrat itch.

Glad you're getting on with your SL4X and the Duncan Designed pickups are behaving themselves!

skullfunkerry

That's a shame, and yes - total bullshit answer from Andertons! The middle and neck pickups in my guitar are the same as in the SL4X so if it was a problem with that type of pickup then I'd have had the same problem.

Congrats on the Ibby though: I had an RG450 years ago, it was a really nice guitar