Project #1 Sound Samples

[cynical1]

These are the sample sounds for Project #1, posted here.

The pickups are a DiMarzio YJM in the neck; a Kent Armstrong closed Cool Rails in the middle and a Rockfield Zebra PAF in the bridge.

The samples were recorded through Audacity, mic’d through a Crate BX-220H amp, into a 2x10 cabinet w/horn, into an AKG D190 ES mic. No normalization or tweaking was done to the original file. Only the voice over was dubbed in after the fact.

Please keep in mind that I haven’t played a guitar in over 30 years, so if this puts you to sleep somewhere within the 10:30 that I runs, I apologize in advance…

The tones go like this:

Neck* (It’s always in series…because I didn’t have room for another switch…)
Neck* & Middle *
Neck* & Middle +
Middle *
Middle +
Middle* & Bridge *
Middle+ & Bridge *
Middle* & Bridge +
Middle+ & Bridge +
Bridge*
Bridge+
Neck* & Bridge*
Neck* & Bridge+
Neck* & Middle* & Bridge*
Neck* & Middle+ & Bridge*
Neck* & Middle* & Bridge+
Neck* & Middle+ & Bridge+

That said, here’s Project #1’s Sample Sound File.

Enjoy.

Happy Trails -

Cynical One

[JFrankParnell]

i dont get how the neck is in series...with no other pup. Isnt it a single coil?

And the other M* and M+ and B* and B+ are intra-pup ser/par?
So are all the combos inter-pup paralell?

The n and m tones are so damn smooooth! I'm guessing those flatwounds have a lot to do with that?

[cynical1]

All the pickups are humbuckers. The YJM is a stacked humbucker and the Kent Armstrong is a dual rail in a single coil housing. The Rockfield is just a standard PAF clone.

They are all 4 wire pickups. I just twisted off the pair on the YJM and wired it right to the 5-way...no more room in the cavity to do anything else...

And the flatwounds are great. I've been playing them on the bass for ever, so I figured I'd drop them into the guitar. And I genuinely hate fret noise, so the flatwounds virtually eliminate that.

And my picking skills probably have more to do with the lack of variance in the tones. If you get on it you can hear the difference between the series and parallel options. I just got tired of clipping out the track.

You should hear the flatwounds in neck and middle with a little delay, chorus and reverb on them...man, if I could actually play this guitar would sound much better...

HTC1

[asmith]

That's a top job. I was surprised at how noticeable the difference in sound is between some of the physically-similar combinations. Wonderfully versatile. And your build-quality sings.

[roadtonever]

Very nice demo. I always liked a strat type pickup in the neck position. 'Neck* & Middle +' while not quacky seemd to be a great rhythm guitar setting. 'Middle* & Bridge +' striked me as a nice bright tone somehow Tele-ish. The two last setting were really sweet. I'm surprised how well the pickups combine. Congratulations on a fine wiring job!

EDIT:typos

[cynical1]

RTN -

Thanks. The only pickup I had my heart set on was the YJM.

The other two were just on a list of potential candidates I had put together based on hours of reading and listening to different pickups on the Internet.

So, really it came down to a list of about 12 candidates and some luck...along with a lot of patience...on eBay.

The three pickups, all totaled, only ran up to about 80.00-85.00 USD (56.00-60.00 EUR) including shipping. Granted, I lost a lot of auctions waiting those prices, but patience, and being a cheap bastard, paid off in the end.

The Rockfield, bridge pickup, was the most pleasant surprise. Everything for the demo was Vol=10, Tone=10, but if you turn down the tone and throw it into parallel with the middle and it has an almost acoustic tone to it. Very clean and defined.

Thanks again for the kind words.

Happy Trails

Cynical One