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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 19, 2013 13:30:22 GMT -5
Yeah, that was too noisy. Not really a whole lot worse than having three loud amps on stage, but it got annoying, and it was all because I was stepping down the signal, adding noise in the cable, preamp, and converter, and then adding an absurd amount of gain in the box. That ITB gain is supposed to be silent, but I'm not completely sure that Reaper and/or PodFarm aren't adding "denormal noise".
But...
All of the guitar signals are buffered in their pedal chains before heading to the recorder. I happen to have two cables (the main outputs from the old rack mixer) which are "pseudo-balanced" TS>XLR. Need to make a third one yet, or maybe rewire the DI box to eliminate the need for special cables. Anyway, I just run these from the end of the pedal chain straight to the mic pre. I haven't run a lot of tests on this, but it does give me a good healthy signal. I suspect that the mic pres run unity with the gain knob all the way down. No, there's no noticeable change in the guitar tone! The pedals' outputs have plenty of current available to drive the relatively high impedance of most modern preamps. The noise floor dropped by about the 40 whatever db of gain that I don't have to add anymore.
I ran a half-assed test today with my PodStudio UX1 by just plugging my guitar into first the instrument and then the mic (via pseudo-balanced cable) inputs and playing. I was able to get them to sound pretty close to identical by rolling down the T knobs on the guitar when plugged into the mic in. I wasn't able to be perfectly consistent performance wise, but with the mic in gain all the way down, the difference in level is negligible.
Let that be a lesson to you! Even though the DI is the "right way" to do it, it's actually very wrong in most cases where it ends up getting used.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 17, 2013 19:57:56 GMT -5
Well, the Bad Monkey is a slightly modified TubeScreamer. Not exactly known for transparency. The OD-3 looks like an interesting circuit. Sorta looks like one of those tube amp emulation things. Glad you're enjoying it.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 15, 2013 13:57:02 GMT -5
Well, people have actually been complaining about the heat around here the last couple days! After spending so much of my adult life in Florida and New Orleans, it feels like spring to me.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 15, 2013 13:54:41 GMT -5
My father, Armond Blackwater, and I sketching out "Down So Long" for an upcoming album. I'm playing my Les Paul through his Fender Deluxe. He's playing the Wurlitzer and singing. The click track is a preset beat from a cheap Zoom drum machine. My guitar is a little out of tune, and it sort of meanders at times, but I think it gives a solid foundation to start from, and would be a decent "open mic" performance in general.
And no, it's not actually supposed to sound like the original. We make it ours, in much the same way that the Doors themselves borrowed from blues men before them.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 15, 2013 10:04:39 GMT -5
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 14, 2013 20:16:06 GMT -5
I probably should have put a smiley or winky or something in my last post. Wasnt really referring to anybody specific as "whackos " nor deliberately excluding myself. I don't really like fiddling with switches while playing. I get most of my tonal and dynamic variation from the way I play the guitar, and both of my hands are generally pretty busy doing that. If I need a little extra boost for single note work, or to get deeper into overdrive on chords, I'd much prefer to step on a pedal than try to reach for a switch on the guitar. That said, I was playing open mics and things like that for a while which led me to explore more minimalist setups. I started running N+B (both in SC mode) for my normal sound, and then flipping the S/P switch for the boost. I actually feel like it's almost natural that the pickup sound darkens up a bit, because the extra distortion means more higher harmonics and that could get a bit harsh or fizzy. I actually built my booster to sort of emulate this, rolling off more highs with more gain. I think the answer to your questions "Can it be done?" and "How?" have been answered pretty well. Far be it from me to tell you not to do whatever you feel necessary to make the guitar work for you. I'm just not completely sure it's necessary, and neither will you be til you've got the parts in hand.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 14, 2013 10:41:03 GMT -5
My main guitar has series/parallel/SC in all three positions and no pots or other loads whatsoever, and I don't have this problem. I know which combinations give which sounds and I use them where appropriate.l
So, there's this issue where the frequency response of the pickup/pots/cable filter is separate from the actual harmonic series captured from the strings.
The neck pickup is always skewed quite significantly toward the fundamental and lower harmonics. The bridge pickup is always closer to flat, which makes it sound to our ears as though it were skewed toward the higher harmonics. This is what the pickups are getting off the strings. The complex RLC filter that we call guitar electronics is applied to that signal, but doesn't really do much to modify that harmonic series. A "light" neck HB will often be about the same in terms of DC resistance and inductance to that of a single coil of a "moderate-to-hot" HB. The bridge pickup in SC mode will probably have about the same frequency response as the neck in series mode.
Sure, okay, obtuse semi-scientific mumbojumbo, right?
The point is that a " bright" neck pickup will still be pretty boomy. There will be some snap to the attack, and a bit of "air" at the top end, but it's still going to be dominated by fundamentals. When playing near open position, these are the frequencies affected by most controls labeled "bass".
The same pickup (or something similar) in the bridge pickup will pass exactly the same frequencies, but will be starting out with significantly less boom. It will start to sound somewhat nasal, and maybe a little harsh, but it's not actually putting out any frequencies higher than in the neck.
So, are you trying to EQ your amp to get rid of the boom of the fundamentals on the neck setting and then wondering why the bridge is thin and nasty? Is there some reason you're not using the bridge pickup which doesn't have those fundamentals to begin with? Or maybe the middle position, which I find to be a pretty darn good middle ground?
And more importantly, have you actually tried wiring the bridge pickup in parallel, with the "too big pot", plugged it into your amp and played? Or is this all based on "conventional wisdom" and the advice of some whackos on the internet?
I'm going to ask again why are you adding these options if you're afraid to use them?
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 11, 2013 18:31:09 GMT -5
I find myself wondering why exactly one would bother with all the switching to get tonal options if we don't want the tone to actually change very much.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jul 9, 2013 10:19:09 GMT -5
I'm a little disappointed that this is not a build report. Boss OD3 schematic. Oh well, hope you enjoy it!
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 28, 2013 17:58:46 GMT -5
Yes, I had intimate knowledge of a few Series10 paddles in the early days of my "career". In the late 80s/early 90s there was at least one or two on the "used wall" at any music store or pawn shop you bothered to stop into. My first guitar was a Synsonic brand headless thing with a softball bat for a neck and horrible action. My second guitar was a hideous black-with-yellow-crackle Series10 HSS strat type thing with a baseball bat for a neck and horrible action. Then I met this chick who was playing a classier Series10 strat in white-with-black crackle, binding on the body, Floyd Rose vibrato with locking nut, HSS with individual toggles for each pickup and (IIRC) a coil cut for the HB. That one actually had a decent neck and decent action. It was clearly geared toward the shredder set, and though I don't think it would have satisfied most of the dudes who I knew that were playing that kinda thing, it was a pretty nice guitar. We eventually traded that in for a Series10 "stock" tele which was black with airbrushed flowers (not paisleys!). That was also a very decent guitar with a quite reasonable neck, decent action. Then she left me, and gave that guitar to her cousin (who has since lost it to one of his ex-gfs...) God I miss her (Not the chick)! Then my next (at that time future) ex came along and wanted to learn to play bass. Looking around for an instrument for her, we came across a Series10 clone of that Ampeg bass with the f-holes to nowhere. That was a really nice bass. Felt good, sounded good, looked good on a tiny little 18-year-old redhead... Miss her too...
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 25, 2013 22:35:48 GMT -5
This is kind of a slow section of the forum. Don't despair too much. If nothing else, I'm sure 4real will be by in a while to drop a book or two on you.
I can't help much. I generally just play the notes that sound/feel right. Try to keep it in key if there is one. When in doubt, listen to the voice leading things happening in the chords. If you hit a wrong note hit it at least two more times.
It does kind of beg the question why you don't ask this instructor what he means. Isn't that why he gets paid the big bucks?
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 23, 2013 11:33:23 GMT -5
Anything that does work like that can be used as a power soak. It is at least conceivable that he actually had thousands of watts worth of amps plugged into those rotisseries...
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 23, 2013 9:54:28 GMT -5
Your first diagram is kinda close. I notice that the middle pickup never actually gets connected to the jack, so it's always off. That's not hard to fix.
The pot switching is more difficult, though. Right now both sets of pots are connected across the output at all times. Yes, you're switching the pickup signal from one V wiper to another. You're leaving the other lugs connected, though, leaving that V pot as a passive resistor parallel to the one you actually want to use. No matter which you switch to, it will always sound like less than the smaller. Not what you wanted. Worse yet, the T pots will interact no matter which of them you've chosen on the switch, depending some on the V pot position. Anyway, it needs fixed.
Maybe wait on somebody else's opinion on this, but I think that you can take the "hot output" from the 3-way (or the lug on the 4P switch where it's going to meet the middle) directly to both V pots - basically take the three wires on the far right of the 4P off the switch and solder them together - then you can use that pole to switch the "ground" ends of the V/T pairs and it should be a lot closer to what you intend.
EDIT - no, sorry, that just causes other issues. You need another pole on that toggle!
Then you'll realize that there's no way to get silence from the strings (between songs/sets, etc) without buzzing...
The second scheme appears to do what it does without any trouble. Yes, you could turn the middle all the way down to get "Tele" tones, though that pickup will probably stop contributing anything meaningful to the sound well before its V gets to 0. No, you can't turn down the others to get M alone because turning down either of those Vs to 0 shorts the jack and silences the guitar, which would let you go get a beer or a smoke without leaving the bar to listen to your bzzzzzzz.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 17, 2013 22:56:36 GMT -5
Hope this doesn't come off as ungrateful...
I'd be willing to pitch in some dollars for a renovation, or in the case of an emergency to save our house. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea of an ongoing contribution, though. I definitely won't pay any sort of membership fee, and frankly just don't want to take on any formal responsibility for the financial viability of this forum.
I think trying to pay for anything off of merchandising is probably not a great way to go either. I haven't been able to find a print-on-demand service where the base prices are low enough to allow for selling the goods at decent prices and still make any meaningful profit, and the idea of paying up front for some pile of merchandise to sit in somebody's basement or garage or something...
I haven't really kept up with all the discussion re: the new software and stuff. Nor do I really end up doing any "behind the scenes" work around here. So I may be missing something, but it seems to be working about as well as it ever has and about as well as most of the other forums I frequent. If it's a choice between a maybe not perfect, but relatively stable proboards forum and whole lot of money, time, and effort to move to a new place with a questionable future, I'd vote for staying put.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 13, 2013 18:36:55 GMT -5
Many thanks for the advice John - I shall try that this weekend Just so I understand, am I correct that this is kind of the reverse of a treble bleed type thing? (i.e. treble bleed feeds treble back into circuit, whereas this dumps treble to ground) Ground is not a destination, but a reference. Get out of that kind of thinking early, and you'll be better off. Much better to think of this as short-circuiting the high-frequencies. Certain frequencies will find it easier to get back around to the pickup via the capacitor than through whatever you plug it into. What is actually correct is to think of it as a frequency-dependent voltage divider. The "top resistor" is the series combination of the resistance and inductance of the coil, while the "bottom resistor" is the parallel combination of this capacitor, the cable capacitance, the control pots, and the input of whatever it's plugged into.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 7, 2013 11:23:47 GMT -5
Where you gonna find a baritone or shortscale bass neck with ebony for $50?!?
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 7, 2013 11:05:26 GMT -5
Just a note that the 4P3T rotaries made by Alpha are quite reasonably priced. newey, I think that you're thinking this would be a "double decker " because of 4 poles, but since 4 x 3 = 12 it actually fits on one deck. They are deeper than a standard pot, but I've got the 2P5T version (the exact same dimensions) in my mini strat, which is obviously smaller in every dimension than a standard. Unless this is some ultra-slim body, it should be fine depthwise. On my "baritone" - a squier strat with a GFS pickguard that doesn't actually fit - I had trouble fitting this switch into that little corner toward the jack cavity where the second T pot should be. Had to relocate the hole a smidge. I've put them in that spot on different strats with different pickguards with no problem.
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Post by ashcatlt on Jun 6, 2013 0:25:40 GMT -5
What you should probably do is stick the pickup in, extend all four wires out where the jack is, grab a handful of caps, and try various combinations through your rig. Might need some alligator clips... Take notes - even if just mental - and choose 6 that you think you can use.
Be warned, though - anything with more than 2 or 3 throws starts to get real fiddly real fast. I try to lay mine out so that their effect has some correlation to the normal operation of a Volume or Tone pot, but sometimes you have to squint. Also, I seem to be rotationally dyslexic.
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Post by ashcatlt on May 18, 2013 9:58:59 GMT -5
Just finally remembered to listen to this when I was someplace where it was possible. Rock! Listen to the Mojo.
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Post by ashcatlt on May 9, 2013 10:52:49 GMT -5
Don't ever count on me when it comes to pot orientation! I'm even worse at it than newey.
Looking back at the diagram in question it is evident that if you turn both Volumes and tones all the way in the same direction you will have either max volume and min tone, or min volume and max tone. The Vs are wired opposite of the Ts, so one of them probably should be changed.
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Post by ashcatlt on May 3, 2013 12:13:20 GMT -5
I don't see any errors in that new diagram.
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Post by ashcatlt on May 3, 2013 11:46:54 GMT -5
Considering that each hit is equivalent to a manslaughter charge, I think the $500 fine was pretty friendly indeed!
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Post by ashcatlt on May 2, 2013 14:02:22 GMT -5
I think I've mostly always thought about modes the way sumgai explains them. It's just a major scale starting on a different note. There's no need to learn new "boxes", really. I dig what 4real is saying here too, though. All the notes might be in the same box, but you can't use the same "licks" that you've learned because they don't resolve to the chords correctly. Or something like that. Voices lead differently and things like that. I am kind of a wacko for diminished chords. I like the dissonance, the unsettling irresolution and relative ambiguity of the thing. And that's led me to play quite a lot in the Locrian mode, and then that leads to a question that I had meant to put in a new thread, but I guess we'll just stick it here: In one new song I've written, one guitar and bass essentially work through the notes of the Edim chord - E, G, Bb. Lead stuff is in E Locrian (F Major). Over top of that, I've taken to playing some three-note chords on the 3rd, 4th, and 5th strings, but I don't know how to name them. Over the E in the verse, I play a Cmaj inversion: 7-5-5 (E, G, C) I guess that's Em6, except that this implies that there would be B natural involved, which would be a wrong note in context. In the chorus I play 7-5-7 over the E. I've mentioned this chord before, but I don't remember what we settled on. If the B was allowed, we'd call it Em7. It can't be Edim7, because that wants the bb7: 7-5-6, but that D#/Eb is a wrong note. But I play that same fingering over the G note: 10-8-9 (G, Bb, C). That can't be called Gdim7, because the implied Db is wrong. It's not Gm6... Then, just for completeness, over the Bb in verse I play a Gm inversion: 5-5-3 (D, G, Bb), and not sure what to call that... Bb6 works I guess? No wrong notes in there. The chorus has a straightforward Bb inversion (same as the "C": 5-3-3). It doesn't much matter since I don't really have to communicate these things to anybody but myself, but I like to be able to "justify" things. Intellectual exercise or whatever. Any help in finding names for these is appreciated.
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 29, 2013 14:51:00 GMT -5
A pickup is usually modeled as a voltage source in series through a resistance and an inductance, with a capacitor in parallel. To model two pickups in series, just use the series total of each of these parameters.
If the two pickups are exactly the same, just use double the R and L of one of them, and half the C. Still just the one voltage source.
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 24, 2013 15:35:15 GMT -5
I'm perfectly happy with my Xavier guitars. No problems with the necks at all, as far as I can tell. They tend to come standard with most of the "upgrade" parts - tuners, bridges, and GFS pickups.
I wonder if you couldn't get about the same thing that you're looking at for a little cheaper if you just grab an XV-870, the pickups, and wiring harness. I guess they don't have it in "rockabilly orange", but their capri orange is at least as ugly!
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 21, 2013 10:23:04 GMT -5
That's a pretty nice present! In the early days of my career I bought a '61 MusicMaster from my cousin for $15. Sold it a couple years later to a girl for $50. I thought I'd made a pretty tidy profit. Couple years ago I went and looked it up on ebay...
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 21, 2013 9:44:31 GMT -5
Switching looks much better there.
The pulldown resistors need to be from the preamp's input to ground, and from its output to ground, and they need to stay there no matter what the switch is doing. They are there to give the coupling caps a way to discharge to ground when its not connected to anything else. Right now I see one R, from the jack tip to ground. That won't help.
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 19, 2013 16:05:37 GMT -5
newey, you better look again! Both the preamp output and the V pot wiper are permanently connected to the tip of the jack. I was going to post the same thing as sg on that one.
And yes, the caps at input and output of the preamp module will want to charge up to about half the battery voltage when disconnected via the switch (well, the output is currently not switched, but you're fixing that). When you pull the switch, these will discharge rapidly and sound like a pop, or click, or thump, or basically a sudden transient noise that you might not want to hear. It will almost certainly want pulldown resistors on both input and output.
This is pretty standard "best practice" for this type of circuit, and I would call it poor design if they left it out thinking that nobody would ever be switching the thing in or out. But then I guess the bean-counters often end up over-ruling the folks who actually know what they're doing
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 18, 2013 17:42:19 GMT -5
. gd, SG interesting, i gotta look into this, btw, isn't minor a "mode" a major, played 2 notes before the root note? Well, now we're into semantics and definitions. Essentially, you're correct in most people's eyes, mine included. The so-called Relative Minor of any major scale contains the same notes, but not in the same order of intervals, so technically it's not a mode as Modes are understood by the cognoscenti. But we all know what you mean, and I'd be a butthole if I were to argue with you over such a small point. Uh.... Aeolian mode is the same as the major scale starting from the sixth note. Natural minor is the same as the major scale starting on the sixth note. The sequence of intervals is exactly the same. The terms are interchangeable. Edit to add something veering back toward the topic - One of my favorite originals (though not really a hit with the fans) is "Dream Girls". At its heart is the Cure' s "Lovesong" forced into a Whole Tone Scale:
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Post by ashcatlt on Apr 11, 2013 17:41:21 GMT -5
One topic we haven't discussed (and a topic on which I'll need JohnH, ashcatlt, or "sum" body to help out) is whether switching the active preamp "on" may cause an audible "pop", and whether that could be minimized with an appropriate capacitor across that switch. There may be popping, but a capacitor big enough to eliminate it will take most of the signal with it. Largish resistors (1M-10M is common) at the input and output of the active circuit will likely be your best bet. There may already be some of these "pulldown" resistors in the circuit.
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