Big Muff fuzz + Casino (hollowbody electric) = squeals

gain and hollowbody guitars don't mix well. and any distortion or OD pedal is adding gain and exacerbating the problem. the first thing to try is covering the Casino's F-holes. commercial products, such as "Doug's Plugs" are available, or you can make your own plugs with foam and cardboard. paint 'em for aesthetics. a more guerrilla tactic is stuffing your Casino with foam or cloth -- socks are popular among jazzers who fix this. black are recommended for appearance.

Does anyone have any advice on how to avoid the squeals that result from using my EHX Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal with my Epiphone Casino hollowbody electric guitar?

I play it through my Vox AC30 amp and while I'm actually playing notes it's not a problem, but there's an intermittent squeal that occurs when I'm finishing a note or if I'm in between two notes.

I had been using my Epiphone Les Paul and didn't have this problem because it's a solid body, but my Casino is an old friend and I've been playing with it a lot more these days. Is there a solution? Noise gates, suppressors, anything?

Thanks!
Isaac Priestley

Three things to try . . . you might need to use some or all of these in combination with each other.

Turn the volume down on the amp
Step away from the amp (same effect as turning the volume down)
Turn down the gain on the Muff (same effect as turning the volume down)

What you're experiencing is the wonderful world of harmonic feedback. Rather than try to conquer it, learn how to use it. When it starts, walk around the room you're in and learn how to coax different pitches from it. Ted Nugent was a master at this, and it can be a brutally effective device to add texture and tension to leads

Check out how Ted uses feedback in this live video from 1976 . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBIhOn_9CM&feature=related

What the video doesn't show is how he'd walk around at soundcheck at mark what notes would feed back at what spot on the stage.

Edit: forgot to point out that the Byrdland he uses is fully hollow like the Casino

Moonrider makes a number of interesting points. gain attenuation of any sort works to kill feedback. even what I suggest is essentially gain attenuation, as it reduces the microphonic (transducer) gain of you guitar. and +1 on his other point: it can be a tool. if you use F-hole plugs as I mentioned above, it won't eliminate the ability to oscillate (feed back), just tame it a bit. and plugs are an easily reversible measure. if you embrace feedback, I recommend you invest in a good volume pedal. it will help you control gain and navigate "the edge" -- if that's your goal.

I own a Casino, and while it's a great guitar, it simply doesn't handle distortion well. The Casino is really designed to get it's own natural distortion being a semi-hollow body with P90 pickups. It will naturally overdrive if you simply crank your amp up to volume, something you can't always do at home.

If you do use any overdrive or distortion pedals, keep the gain down very low. You cannot get Metal type tones with the Casino, but you can get some good overdriven tones as John Lennon used to do.

That's something else I'm going to experiment with more, Wes--keeping the gain lower and using lower-gain distortion options. The top boost channel on my AC30 has a beautiful overdrive that I like, and I may use that in general, and kick in my OD808 overdrive when I want a fuzzy/distorted tone, rather than the Big Muff.

I just bought a "Big Muff" yesterday....lololllol:P

I coincidentally played my cheapo reso today earlier & had the same result.

I know I could get rid of it with my Fishman EQ/DI preamp, but I'm too lazy to try right now.

I've played excessively loud with my Guild D55 thru my lil Marshall 50 amp & a Sunrise PU.

Seems like it should easily work on a hollowbody.......if one had to do it.