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Post by newey on Mar 17, 2024 19:43:38 GMT -5
Did you look at the tutorial I linked to?
OK, so a percussive stomp box. That is something I have built, and have some experience. Although I didn't try any mag pickups.
But I did experiment with 2 piezo elements, located at different points on the inside of the cigar box I was using. Using 2 piezos didn't make any difference, and I did try it with a blend control, briefly, before just simplfying things down -one piezo with a volume control. I got the most realistic kind of bass-drum sounding "thump" by dampening out the cigar box with some poly upholstery batting, loosely packed inside. Ran it through a bass amp with the EQ stack turned all the way down to "0".
But don't let me stop you from experimenting. I'll see if I can find the thread from when I was building this, it was about a dozen years ago or so.
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Post by newey on Mar 17, 2024 16:38:03 GMT -5
choppy- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!You are having trouble posting an image becasue you can't directly link to an image, it has to be hosted elsewhere. Here's a tutorial on using the "post image" button to do this. There is also a button for using Cloudinary to upload images, which most of us use, it is free but does require setting =up an account. The "Post Image" button does not require setting up an account. Your wish list is a long one, and you may, in the end, want to cull it somewhat. For starters, a piezo pickup doesn't sense the strings in the same way that a magnetic pickup does. I doubt there is any real utility in pairing two of them together, it probably won't sound much different than a single piezo alone. Also, a piezo pickup typically needs a preamp, which makes mixing it with a passive magnetic pickup signal a somewhat fraught enterprise, unless the mag signal is likewise preamp'd/buffered. JohnH's thread on "Adding a Piezo Pickup" tackles these issues, and should be required reading before we go much further along, as some of your ideas may change. You may find it a whole lot easier to buy a commercial piezo system like the Ghost Saddles and just install it as specified, then you only have to work out the mag pickup wiring. Another option would be to run 2 output jacks, one for the mag, one for the piezo output, and the 2 then get combined in a buffered footpedal with A-B switching.
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Post by newey on Mar 17, 2024 15:40:40 GMT -5
pasqualino63- Great to hear back from you. But sorry to hear the reasons for your absence, sounds like some tough times. Anyway, keep us posted on the projects. Those Epiphone LP copies make good platforms for mods, my Epiphone LP Junior has been extensively modded. The roller bridge was key for intonation. I also replaced the heads with better ones. as well as swapping out the pickup and rewiring it. It plays well.
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Post by newey on Mar 17, 2024 8:14:12 GMT -5
theothersimon- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2! That link you found to Japanese schematics is great. Thanks for posting that! As for your guitar, several points: First, the original slide switches were "single pole" switches. Your new switches have 2 poles. To wire the guitar with the original wiring, you would simply use just one side of each switch and ignore the second pole. But (hold this thought), you asked for options, and the double-pole switches do give you some other possibilities. Second, similar to many Japanese guitars from the 1960's-'70's, the switching is set up such that, when both pickups are on, they are wired together in series, not in parallel as would be the case with the vast majority of two-pickup guitars. The red and black wires of the pickups are the signal wires, the green wire is shown as being grounded permanently which leads me to believe that it is simply a separate ground wire for the cover/frame of the pickups. This is to minimize noise, it's a shield wire, not a signal wire. The extra shield wire is needed because the pickups are wired in series. Mustang pickups aren't wired in series, typically, and have plastic covers/frames, and so don't really need a separate ground. As for pot values, bear in mind that it's the total resistance of both pots (which are in parallel with each other) that matters. So, one 500K pot and a 100K combined equates to 83.33KΩ Single-coil pickups are usually used with 2 250K pots, which have a combined parallel resistance of 125KΩ. This difference, if audible at all, will probably be minimal. But pots have moving parts and wear out over time- they get scratchy sounding. So it probably wouldn't hurt to replace them if you're rewiring the guitar anyway. 2 250KΩ pots might brighten things up a bit, probably won't be a big difference. Bear in mind that most pots used in guitars are built to a 20% tolerance, meaning 2 250K pots might actually measure out as low as 225K each, 112KΩ in parallel, while the original pots might be as high as 120K and 600K, and so could be as high as 100K in parallel. If that was the case, I'd wager no appreciable difference could be heard. So maybe only a slight difference if all were right on spec. As for options, as mentioned you have only a series combination of the two pickups, If you replaced both slide switches with DPDT slide switches, you could then have both series and parallel options by using what we call Binary Tree Switching. These are more properly referred to as being "DPDT On-On-On" switches or "DPDT Center-On" switches. Technically, the center position is not a separate "throw". Using one or more of these gives any number of added possibilities. But definitely check yours with your meter as there are 2 different types, depending on which way 'round the cener connections are made. I usually mark these switches with a Sharpie so when I go to wire it I make sure to wire it the correct way for the center position.
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Post by newey on Mar 12, 2024 21:21:57 GMT -5
tempted to ask what alternatives I could consider {insert evil chortle here} We have found another innocent victim poised to fall into the black hole of guitar modifications!{/chortle}
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Post by newey on Mar 12, 2024 21:15:21 GMT -5
rominronin- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!You'll find lots of love around here for Squier guitars. And for myself, love a short-scale Fender. I have a Duo-Sonic reissue that's my main electric these days.
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Post by newey on Mar 11, 2024 17:05:26 GMT -5
Perhaps I’m reading this wrong You are. No series between 2 pickups. No parallel coils in a HB.
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Post by newey on Mar 7, 2024 6:11:12 GMT -5
jerryj- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!We're going to need some more information. Can you post the diagram you used to wire it? Not only will this alleviate any assumptions as to the wiring, it will also allow someone to review it in this thread, without having to open it elsewhere and toggle back and forth.
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Post by newey on Mar 1, 2024 21:07:28 GMT -5
Newey solved it first try! Not hardly, I didn't do a darned thing. Yogi B and reTrEaD did the work on this one.
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Post by newey on Feb 29, 2024 16:42:41 GMT -5
Stew Mac doesn't make anything, they're just a retailer. Anything with their brand on it was made by someone else and rebranded. Your switch is an EYB Megaswitch which, AFAIK, are identical to the Schaller ones, Schaller just rebrands them. Not 100% sure but pretty sure. Someone else will probably supply that extra reassurance. Anyway, here's a link: www.eyb-guitars.de/Eyb-English/products/megaswitch.html
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Post by newey on Feb 29, 2024 5:54:40 GMT -5
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 22:17:03 GMT -5
Well, there are various flavors of Megaswitch™, and they are most certainly not created equal. We'll need to get the complete pinout for it, not just position 3. You'll need to go position by position, checking for continuity between the various pads. But before we go down that road, let's see if maybe we can find the info elsewhere.
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 22:08:07 GMT -5
I'm not doubting that you can hear a difference, I question whether it's enough to merit changing a pot. But, hey, pots are fairly cheap, you can certainly go up to a 1 Meg and see if you like it. If it's too bright, I think dialing a 1 Meg pot down to about 7 puts you about 500K anyway. I have a single-pickup Strat-ish guitar with a GFS Dual Lipstick tube humbucker at the bridge. The lipstick tubes are bright as single coils, and bright as a humbucker as well, and I was going for maximum brightness. I used a 1 M volume pot with a 500K tone pot, so 333K combined, as opposed to 250K with two 500K pots. I got all kinds of bright, some might say "icepick" . I usually play it with the tone rolled off a bit to tamp it down, it is a bit over the top even by my weird standards.
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 21:51:27 GMT -5
An Avatar is just an image tied to your username. Mine is to the left, a picture of me standing in the snow playing my guitar. You can upload a photo as your avatar by using the "modify profile" feature when looking at your account page. If you don't want to be bothered with uploading a photo, or don't want to look like a damned idiot like me, there are some generic avatars available as options. There are size limits for the avatar image so you may have to resize your chosen image. BBCode is "Bulletin Board" Code, which is the type of coding used for forums like ours. Forums used to be called "Bulletin Boards" in the early days of the internet. (Well, they are still called that, too- after all this is a ProBoards forum.) Using the square brackets and the backslash on either end of a sentence, to quote it, change the font, resize it- all those are accomplished by that tagging, as reTrEaD describes it throughout this thread and its links. Those are all examples of BB Coding. There is also extensive BB coding for inserting scientific and math symbols, currency symbols, geometric shapes, all sorts of things.
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 21:19:00 GMT -5
maxm- Not sure that the Megaswitch S is the one you want. The "M" model is the one that is equivalent to a Superswitch, no questiuon you could get your "wish list" with that switch. But don't lose hope, what you want may be possible with what you have. The "S" version, as the instructions you posted show, is primarily meant to be used to implement the standard Strat wiring scheme. But there are unused terminals, and other possibilities may exist. What you want is the standard Strat wiring for 4 of the 5 positions, only the middle position changes, from middle only to N + B. We know the S switch can do the other 4 positions, so if we can figure out how to get what you want at the middle position, you're good to go. To find out, we will need to dig into the switch logic of the Megaswitch S. And, while I know we have, somewhere buried in the Forum here, the switch logic for the M model, and probably for the P model (a PRS clone), I don't recall anyone posting the switch logic for the S. I may have to go root around in the basement, which I can't do at the moment. Other options would include, since it uses a transparent circuit board, visually tracing out the connections. But that can't realistically be done over the web, only you have it in hand. The better option would be for you to use a multimeter to check the switch logic. If you don't have a multimeter, well, as I said, I'll root around a bit. I'm about to go on a bit of a rant here, and this is not in any way directed at you, maxm. For all I know, you have a multimeter and use it daily. But I am continually amazed ("'round these parts", as they say) that we hear from guitarists who are perfectly willing to dismember an instrument (often costing upwards of a grand or so) to modify it, but can't be bothered to spend a lousy $15 or so to get the basic tools needed to do the job properly. Rewiring one's guitar without a multimeter is, to my mind, like trying to land a Cessna blindfolded. Good luck. OK, rant over.
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 20:29:07 GMT -5
You won't even get that if you don't ground the cover.
As for pot values, I wouldn't think that adding a cover would make enough of a difference to warrant changing the pot.
Keep in mind that only certain resistance values are readily available, and in sizes suitable for guitars. From 500K, next step up would be 1M, I think some 750K ones may be available but if so, they're not common. In the other direction, 300K or 250K are basically the choices. Just off the top of my brain, I'd think the gaps between those standard values would be too large for the change with the cover added. I'd stick with the 500K.
Also consider that there are many dozens of similar HH guitars being made by a slew of manufacturers. Some use covered HBs, some uncovered. But regardless, they virtually all use 500K pots with their HBs. HH guitars have been made since the 1950's, and if there was a better value to use, we'd likely have seen one or more manufacturers using it. They've been at this for a while.
But, I've never done an "ear-to-ear" comparison, so grain of salt and all that . . .
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Post by newey on Feb 28, 2024 6:37:28 GMT -5
Doesn’t that mean the middle single coil pickup will be out of phase with either the bridge pickup or the neck pickup, causing a volume drop and thin tone from one or the other? No. The middle pickup will be hum-cancelling when combined with one coil from each HB, and not hum-cancelling with the other coil. When the middle pickup is combined with both coils of a HB, it may be partially hum-cancelling, more or less, depending on the variations in pickup windings and other factors. All three pickups will be in phase with each other in all settings (assuming it's wired correctly). If a pickup were reverse polarity (i.e., magnetic poles swapped) only, and not reverse wound, it would be out of phase with a "normal" polarity pickup. If a pickup were reverse wound (i.e., positive and negative wires swapped) only, and not reverse polarity, it too would be out of phase with a "normal" wound pickup. But if we do both things, we swap the magnet to reverse the polarity and wind it in the opposite direction (or swap the wires around, which amounts to the same thing), we have a RWRP pickup which will be in phase with a "normally-wound, normal polarity pickup". Note that I have put "normal" in quotes because a pickup is only RWRP with respect to another pickup, the labels are all relative. We could just as accurately describe the RWRP pickup as the "normal" one, IOW. Hope that helps
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Post by newey on Feb 27, 2024 22:42:05 GMT -5
could i wire it split with one coil to be in phase with the neck pickup, and the other coil to be in phase with the bridge pickup? the polarity of the 2 opposing coils would be flipped, correct? Not sure I follow what you mean here. Your triple shot rings give you the option to select either coil from each HB by itself. So you can always slelect the appropriate coil for hum-cancellation with the middle pickup.
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Post by newey on Feb 27, 2024 6:45:41 GMT -5
dont know why i had to 'Quote' your whole passage just to ask that. You don't have to quote the whole thing. Just drag and highlight the part you want to quote, copy it, paste it into your reply and hit the "quote" button (next to the smilie button) in the reply box. Or, you can simply use the BBC quote tagging- copy and paste what you want to quote, and put "quote" in brackets at the beginning and the same at the end but with a backslash before "quote". You can use the "preview" function in the reply box to see what you've got before you hit "create post".
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Post by newey on Feb 26, 2024 22:23:08 GMT -5
I want to be sure I understand you correctly, because the JohnH Hastings Strat diagram you posted above does give you the N and B in the third switch position- but the two are in series, not parallel. The diagram uses the "*" symbol for series, and when you said "N + B", I assumed (and JohnH did as well) that you meant you wanted the parallel combination of N and B.
If it's series you want, the diagram does so. Although I haven't checked your translation of the diagram to your 5-way switch yet. I can do so if you decide that's how your going to go.
I don't think that's quite it. The diagram is a very clever use of the peculiarities of the standard 5-way switch, namely the fact that we have two "shorting positions" at positions 2 and 4. The diagram makes clever use of this on both poles of the switch. On one pole, the middle pickup alone is controlled. Ordinarily, we use the "common", or "pole" lug of a switch pole to do the switching we want, but here, the middle pickup is connected to the output at positions 2 and 4 only (and not at 3, since that is to be our N * B combo). Since position 2 shorts together whatever is connected at position 1 and position 3 (and 4 does the same with 3 and 5), the middle pickup is connected to output via a jumper at the middle lug. So the common lug is not used at all on the middle pickup's side of the switch. The middle pickup connects to the 1st and 3rd lugs, and then gets connected via the short to the middle lug when at either position 2 or 4.
On the opposite side of the switch, the neck pickup's "negative" wire is connected to the commons of the switch, and the bridge "hot" commects there as well. Neck "hot" is permanently connected to output, and the bridge "negative" is permanenetly grounded. Note that the center lug on that side of the switch is left unconnected to anything. So, when the switch is in the 3rd position, we get a "series chain" with the bridge pickup's "ground" at one end and the neck's "hot" at the other. For the other switch positions, either the neck or the bridge pickup is shorted to itself as needed, leaving the other pickup either by itself or connected with the middle pickup.
Hope that helps. It is a clever and very non-obvious way to use that particular switch.
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Post by newey on Feb 26, 2024 21:50:45 GMT -5
It'll be a beauty however you finish it, gerinski! Your luthier is clearly invested in this project, so if you have question marks about the finish, maybe he would glue up a couple of scrap pieces of the same wood used for the body so you could test-spray a couple of different finishes, see what you liked. I myself might not be so quick to rule out your first idea of a translucent grey, I've not seen that done and it sounds pretty cool, I get your concern about the color of the underlying wood but I'm not sure that's going to be so bad. I've seen trans green finishes over woods similar to your that looked fantastic. Occasionally you'll see a tranlucent black finish, those can look nice as well. So grey doesn't seem so "out there" to me, maybe.
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Post by newey on Feb 26, 2024 21:39:32 GMT -5
mitch88- Sorry, didn't intend for you to spend an hour scratching your head. We use the "OOP" abbreviation for "out-of-phase quite a lot around here, and I forget that not everyone gets the nomenclature. To complete the thought, you may also see "POOP" for "parallel out-of-phase" or "SOOP", "series out-of-phase". We also use "HOOP" for "half out-of-phase" which is perhaps descriptive more than technically correct- one coil of the combination is partially bypassed by a capacitor.
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Post by newey on Feb 20, 2024 12:15:24 GMT -5
Just curious, no real hurry or anything.
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Post by newey on Feb 19, 2024 22:50:51 GMT -5
frets- Looks like a cool idea. Can you post some sound samples?
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Post by newey on Feb 19, 2024 22:40:04 GMT -5
jlaff- Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!I would consider closely how much you really want/need that master volume pot. When either the neck or bridge pickup is selected by itself, you'll have three pot elements (V, T and Master) loading the circuit which can dull your tone, but maybe not something you'd notice. Flip to the center position on your three-way, though, and with both pickups active, you'll have 5 pots in the circuit. That's quite a lot. I'm guessing that will knock your high end off noticeably. You might want to look at JohnH's GuitarFreq. You could at least get a graphical look at the changes that would be entailed with the pot set-up you have outlined. Not the same as hearing it, naturally, but just to give an idea. Treble bleeds are fine, but they won't solve the issue I'm thinking here. If you really want a master volume, just wire the guitar like a regular ol' Les Paul with individual V and T pots. Then get an active volume pedal with a buffer- no tone loss, and will operate truly independently of the guitar's onboard controls. But that's just my 2¢ worth . . .
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Post by newey on Feb 19, 2024 6:24:05 GMT -5
Yes, kittentaser, you have done well, looks good to me. A couple of points. First, your push/pull switch will select both outer coils at position 3, which will be both the screw coils if the pickups are oriented as per your diagram. This will not be hum-cancelling. No way around this with the coil splits that you want. However, also be aware that positions 2 and 4, BN + NS and BS + NN may not sound appreciably different, assuming the pickups coils are identically wound. mikecg's link to the tone controls I question. The guy seems to minimize the issue- interaction of the V and T controls- with the '50's wiring and lauds the positives. That control interaction is a deal-killer for '50's wiring in my book. And the idea that, somehow, the so-called '60's wiring will be noisier than the modern version I'm not buying it. I'd need some objective testing before I'm buying that which lug on the tone pot gets used makes any difference in the noise floor. Dirk Wacker is the guy who writes this stuff for Premier Guitar and I have often found some of his stuff to be questionable if not outright wrong. Use his name as a search term here and I'm sure a few examples will pop up.
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Post by newey on Feb 17, 2024 7:12:16 GMT -5
Your diagram looks OK except that, in the text of your post, you said you wanted position 3 to be the outer coils in series. You have the outer coils at 3, but they're in parallel, not series. This can be fairly easily fixed if you do want the outer coils in series. Disconnect the green jumper wire that goes between the 2 lower poles of the switch at position 3. The blue (S End) wire from the bridge HB needs to be wired to lug 3 on the upper right pole, so it connects to the N End (purple wire). The wire currently grounding the N purple wire at 3 is then removed. Thus, Bridge S Start will remain permanently grounded, Bridge S End coonect to Neck N end, neck S is permanently connected to output.
(BTW, the "End" of a coil wire is typically called the "Finish", not the "End". Doesn't really matter except if you abbreviate the wires as "NS, NF, SF, SS" everyone will understand what you mean without typing out "End".)
While your diagram will work as drawn, it could be simplified. Because you have both HB's "N Start" coils permanently wired to the output, this forces you into a lot of shorting of coils to themselves, rather than simply disconnecting the coil. And more solder joints means more potential points of failure. Since you are just learning, try redrawing the diagram, but connect the bridge "hot" to one pole of the switch and use that pole to switch the bridge "hot" in/out of the circuit. The bridge HB's middle wires would then both be controlled by one pole. See if you can work out the same wiring that way. The Neck wiring, since you want series/parallel coils for the neck, will stay largely the same (except where it connects to the bridge HB).
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Post by newey on Feb 15, 2024 12:09:58 GMT -5
I live in Tarpon Springs so your tarpon term is extra fun. As I intended. I saw that you IP address came back from Tarpon Springs. The staff checks all new members to keep an eye on likely spammers.
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Post by newey on Feb 13, 2024 20:15:35 GMT -5
Yours is the more thorough disquisition, I did it short-hand and clarity clearly suffered.
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Post by newey on Feb 12, 2024 21:15:57 GMT -5
Forget Charlie and just focus on the Liar, who has to be one of the three. If the Liar were to state "I am not the truthteller", that would be a true statement, but the Liar always lies. So, the Liar cannot have stated he was a truthteller.
If the Liar says "I am not the spy", that is also a true statement becuase the Liar always lies while the spy is sometimes truthful, so the Liar also cannot make that statement.
If the Liar says "I am not the Liar", that is a lie, and so is the only consistent statement the Liar could make.
Therefore, whoever says they are not the liar is, in fact, the Liar. And we are told that Charlie was the one who said that. Ergo, Charlie is the Liar.
The other two then follow via process of elimination, as you noted.
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