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Post by ashcatlt on Jan 1, 2013 0:26:10 GMT -5
Bud Select 55. It tastes like crap but I can't argue with 55 Calories. Yes. Yes you can! And thanks John! It's -20C here.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 31, 2012 23:08:12 GMT -5
What's that in the coozy there?
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 31, 2012 19:59:57 GMT -5
My thoughts on the "new year" are the same as for the "end of the world":
A new world begins every time you open your eyes, every time you turn around, every time you blink, every time you breathe, every time you stop to realize that Eternity is Now.
Celebrate Everything.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 30, 2012 19:01:47 GMT -5
Thank you all very much for the quick responses. I will have to decided which final direction I want to go (if I want to use two switches, or one switch and try to do something with all the shields without getting noise). I might also just make two separate switch boxes with a single switch each (basically split my second diagram in two). Then I could use the boxes individually if I ever needed to. Either way, I plan to post pictures of the finished project for anyone interested. Thanks again. Great! Definitely let us know how it works out. And now, this thread doesn't actually belong in Guitar Wiring. EDIT: Right you are, ash.... moved to Effects Pedals it is. - sumgai
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 30, 2012 18:24:45 GMT -5
Yep you got it! Your most recent post with the two switches is not a bad idea either.
What to do with the shields is where things might get hairy. You can just tie all of the sleeve terminals of all the jacks together (and to the metal enclosure while you're at it), but this could cause a ground loop and noise which wouldn't otherwise be there. You might be able to fix that by plugging both amps into a single power strip, or else you might need to isolate one of the output jacks. This will be true pretty much whatever switching you finally decide to use.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 30, 2012 17:35:28 GMT -5
Can you please re-read my post and ask specific questions about the parts you don't understand? My reply to your most recent will be pretty much exactly the same. How can I use one DPDT switch to "swap" which amp each guitar goes to? Your diagram above uses half of a DPDT switch (or an SPDT) for each input. Flip one of them over and stick them on the same switch and you're done. I would use a basic on-on, though. On-off-on will work fine, but in the center position you'll have neither guitar connected to either amp in the middle, and open cables acting like antennas feeding the amps instead.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 30, 2012 15:25:54 GMT -5
Can you please re-read my post and ask specific questions about the parts you don't understand? My reply to your most recent will be pretty much exactly the same.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 30, 2012 14:07:53 GMT -5
It's not going to damage anything, but it probably won't sound great. The electric guitar will lose a whole lot of treble connected to the low-Z output from the acoustic which I assume has a preamp in it. That preamp will probably drive the electric in parallel with the amp without tone suck, but there may be some overall attenuation. Basically, just not ideal.
With just one DPDT switch you could make sure that you never "cross the streams". One guitar would go one way while the other goes the other. Flip the switch and the swap. Course then you'd have one guitar not being played but still "live" to contribute noise and/or feedback. The guitar's volume might solve that issue.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 29, 2012 19:04:23 GMT -5
Well Hell right back atcha!
Can't imagine how the jack could cause the problem. All 1/4" jacks are "phone" jacks. They were originally used in patchbays run by those nasal operator ladies who had to plug from one hole to another for every call that anybody ever wanted to make.
Did you verify that the amp works with that speaker when wired directly to it? Is it possible that you're using a shielded cable and capacitance is causing oscillation?
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 29, 2012 15:03:33 GMT -5
The rotary looks fine.
You should wire the N V and T across the pickup itself - between the N's green and black rather than the green and common ground. Then it should continue to work even when out of phase. It should also allow you to get broadbucker tones.
That many pots in general can cause some loading issues and kill some treble in series mode, but there's kind of no way around it.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 28, 2012 20:46:09 GMT -5
JohnH, I don't know when was the last time you were in the states. I'm afraid that waitress died from a bad batch of bathtub meth about a decade ago. newey kinda beat me to it, but I think you're 6 months early for the trip you've got planned. Now is not the best time to visit MN. I'm sure we can find some way to keep warm, but then you've got the Dakotas to look forward to... I would start in FL and cross I10 to San Diego or (at most) I20 to LA. Course, you'd have to go through TX (a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone), and you wouldn't understand a word anybody said till you got AZ or so, but at least you won't freeze your bangers and mash off!
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 27, 2012 16:27:13 GMT -5
I'm about a day's drive from Chicago and sort of on the way to Seattle, and would be glad to hang out. I can probably hook you up a place to stay. My work is scheduled 6 wks out and all over the place, so I might need some notice.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 26, 2012 11:21:59 GMT -5
I guess the thing is you've come to GuitarNuts2 and really asked a couple questions:
1) What do we members think about this and B) What do we think most people will think.
1) I don't honestly think that too many of our members will realistically be taking whatever you build and sticking it in their own guitars. We may cherry pick some ideas or use it as a starting reference, but everybody pretty much will end up doing their own thing. Now, if you came up with some real switching innovation - some way to use existing parts to do things previously "impossible"...
B) I think most people probably don't care enough. 5-way switching is more than enough for most people.
There may be a narrow window in between where you could sell something. Member santellan has stuff in Musician's Friend. He's done all of the market research that you are attempting, but I'm not sure he'd be willing to share.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 25, 2012 15:40:44 GMT -5
Verbosity, eh? And here I thought, after we've been told how many times that he's freshly single, 4 was holding those fingers in a circular shape with his thumb...... Holy crap, sg! Well, ok then... It took him a long time to type that with one hand. He started typing at 0400 and didn't post until almost 1300! I have two hands. A different date every night! Anywho... 4real actually spilled some real seeds of knowledge there. I don't think I've ever heard "guitar tone" described in that way before, nor have I really ever thought of it in that way myself. And I should have. It's the most basic tenet of synthesis. The timbre of any tone is defined by the relative amplitude envelope of its harmonics. Simple, elegant, and really the key to every aspect of "mojo" in the audio world.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 25, 2012 15:30:21 GMT -5
It's that nasty zingy high frequency edge to the attack that kills me. I won't use a condenser on an acoustic for the same reason. For my tastes even a lot of dynamics seem to emphasize that thing too much. I don't ever really hear that sound when I'm in a real space with a real acoustic guitar, whether I'm playing or somebody else. I don't know for sure what it is, but I suspect that we just hear more of the body and acoustic resonance of the chamber than the direct sound of the strings. When I pick up one of these things (usually at an open mic somewhere), the first thing I do is crank the treble knob way down. Then it sounds like a guitar to me.
This type of sound is good for only one thing in my mind: That backing rhythm, throw an acoustic on it, might as well be a tambourine thing that's so common in last few decades.
Okay, actually two: It is, in fact, a pretty accurate reprentation of what the string itself is doing. Under the saddle you get a fairly "flat" profile of the harmonic content, from which it is possible to extract any subset that you would like. That's sort of what I'm shooting for here.
And a lot of people disagree with my tastes on this. That's fine. Its going to be a challenge in this testing to provide impartial output. I'm thinking I'll throw a low-pass on there so I can stand to listen to it and then bypass it for the final renders so that normal folks can get a more objective perspective.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 25, 2012 15:05:44 GMT -5
I guess I come out somewhere in the middle. For live use I really only need, want, and use one good sound. As long as I can have either a middle pickup or a N and B combination I'm good. I'd very much prefer that there not be any way to accidentally leave that sound in the heat of the moment - no gibson-style toggles anywhere, and all other switches out of the way of my flailing picking hand. I use a combination of right hand technique and pedals to change tone and volume. For the studio I like to have as many options as possible. Part of the reason I have so many darn guitars! But I also want all of the options from each of the guitars. The way I layer things means that I'm looking for very subtle differences sometimes. Yes, I can (and do) use effects, but there's still something strangely satisfying about getting the sound from the guitar. It almost goes against my entire philosophy, but it's there. As for aesthetics, again I'm middle of the road. I don't mind at all a few subtle changes to the stock appearance. My LP has a rotary in place of the toggle, as does my Rick. My hybrid offset tele thing has a few mini goggles in between the lever switch and the knobs. But that guitar posted above is way too cluttered and messy looking for me. On semantics - with my guitars it's almost impossible to make any real drastic sound changes in any kind of hurry. You have to turn this rotary and then that one and maybe flip a toggle or two... But as I said, I don't do that live anyway. I do put some effort into designing to some form of logic, though, so that all that switching is as intuitive as possible. Of course, it's difficult to relay to others. I find that most guitarists really don't have a clue what the switches on their guitars actually do. They just twiddle til they find something that sounds good and go with it. I asked a dude the other day if his three pickup tele was just standard 5-way switching and his response was to flip the lever and count. Didn't use his fingers, but I did see his lips moving.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 25, 2012 1:55:46 GMT -5
Got the clip. Thanks JohnH! I listened real quick. Smurf me, I hate the sound of undersaddle piezo! You're playing is fine. Better than anything I'd have come up with for what I'm trying to do. Might cut it up a little just to make it fit between the commercials. But I'm gonna have kids waiting for me to unwrap boxes containing things that they want in just a few hours. Should probably sleep at least a little before then.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 24, 2012 22:35:55 GMT -5
Well that was quick! I posted the same request on facebook last week. Got a couple of "wish I could, but..." responses. I need new friends!
I'll try to download it when I get home and let you know. May not get around to messing with it for a couple days...
I just want to play around with the idea of a set of all-pass filters for a sort of analog "modeling" solution. Something I've mentioned aboard before, but never really got the chance to try. Wanted piezo acoustic because that was the initial context I had in mind, though I think it could do interesting things to electrics as well.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 24, 2012 16:31:24 GMT -5
No rush! It's an idea that's been percolating for a couple years...
Here in MN we don't usually do Christmas BBQ. It was 12F on my way to work this afternoon. That's quite a bit less than 0C.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 24, 2012 15:32:49 GMT -5
I guess I'd prefer wav - at least 16 bit, 44.1K is plenty.
It doesn't have to be super awesome shredder action. Just a little exhibition. It will be looped a few times on my end.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 24, 2012 14:32:44 GMT -5
Hey guys.
I've got a couple things I want to mess around with. Couple of tests for effects and processes that I have in mind. It's all quite scientific and kinda strange and I'll bring my findings to the forum.
First, I need a file to mess with. Anybody got an acoustic-electric guitar, a means to record it to computer, and a couple minutes in the not too distant future to do me a favor?
What I need is a sample of an under-saddle piezo system with all the EQ set flat in the middle, and volume set to whatever is appropriate for recording to your machine. Maybe four or eight measures of something that covers a wide range of the neck. Chords and single notes in open position, somewhere in the middle (5-7 position) and then up above the 12th. Any style will probably work, but we are trying to show the "whole instrument" so that we can get an idea of how things translate in various situations.
So, who wants to help?
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 20, 2012 20:17:56 GMT -5
Interesting! What I want then, are two simple clips, one from a standard Strat, the other from an Lp. Each to be recorded as a DI signal with no amp and 'de- EQ'ed' with the inverse of the frequency response calculated by Spice for those ghitars. Then we would have reference signals that can be fed back in as wav files into ltspice, modelling whatever new circuit we want to try, and hear a close approximation of how it will sound. The proviso would be that it would only be true for the same pickup arrangements as the reference recordings. Ie if you want to try a new tone control with N+B, youd need N+B in tbe recording J Of course for that one would need exact values of all the Ls and Cs and Rs in the circuit. Then I have absolutely no clue how to design the upside down and backwards circuit to "de-EQ" the thing. Might be easier to use a paragraphic EQ to create an upside down version of the response chart.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 20, 2012 14:16:44 GMT -5
megi: It looks like ashcatlt is telling us there's already functionality for that in LTSpice. Yes I am. I've not yet tried using a .wav as an input, but I have made it spit out the .wav output from a circuit fed by its own "virtual" sine wave generator. Can't tell you exactly how close that was to what the circuit would actually sound like, but it was pretty convincing and very cool! Rendering is pretty slow.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 17, 2012 20:46:30 GMT -5
0.047 and 0.0068 for the series tamer with an on off on, the first surely cuts no bass (?), the second will reduce the bass a little, the cap value in between is 0.028, close to the regular (cf jag) strangle cap value. Nope. 0.028 > 0.0068. Cant happen. I think your decimal slipped! Is it possible that you're just getting too fancy here? Will parallel caps, or just discrete caps get you what you want more easily? Suppose it might need different switches...
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 17, 2012 20:22:11 GMT -5
I think you broke it dude. Even if the wire going out to the world was connected as far as possible from where the pickup wire connects to the base, it can't possibly introduce 1.6KΩ. 1.6Ω maybe... This and the change in tone leads me to believe that you have somehow managed to short a chunk of the coil, or otherwise messed up the pickup.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 16, 2012 13:07:10 GMT -5
I don't have enough information to comment on the diagram itself. What is tha green wire? And where are the other ends of the pickups?
For the cap switching thing I'm afraid you're just not going to accomplish what you're looking for with any degree of satisfaction. To the extent that the "non-cap" is large enough to have no effect it will also be too big to affect the total parallel value to any appreciable degree. Just look at the numbers you've posted. .0008 is within tolerance of a 20% .001 cap. .0038 might be almost noticeably different from .0047, but I don't think it's enough to justify the switch itself.
Anyway, you can grab JohnH's GuitarFreak calculator thing from the Reference section. I don't think he's got a strangle cap in there. I think, though, that if you turn the T to 0 the frequencies which remain are pretty close to those which would be attenuated by a series cap - the graph will show the opposite of the bass-cut action, or close enough.
Or, go look at the input caps on some stompboxes maybe? Or, you know, grab some alligator clips and a handful of caps!
Don't have any idea what you mean about swapping resistors for capacitors, though it leads me to believe that you're thinking of an on-on-on switch with the caps in parallel. You're aware that the caps need to be in series to "add" the way you're thinking? You'll need center off switches for that.
*.01 and .047 cannot possibly be less than .005! In fact, this part of the problem to which I'm alluding. The total can never be greater than the smaller of the two, nor less than half of the smaller. The further apart the two values, the more the smaller value dominates.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 15, 2012 18:44:46 GMT -5
I have recently switched to LTSpice. It is not quite as User friendly, but much more powerful. It will take a .wav file as input and/or generate a .wav output so that yes, you can hear some approximation of what the circuit will do.
Problem with John's little deal there is that the polarity reversal is flat across the frequency spectrum - as he says it's like the two coils take up exactly the same physical space. Even in an SC sized HB this will not be the case. Higher frequencies will have a greater chance of being different phase between the two coils, and therefore less likely to show the total cancellation which that graph shows.
I don't know for sure how to model that action. Perhaps an all-pass filter on one of the coils? That wouldn't be exactly the same either, but might be closer?
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 13, 2012 3:27:06 GMT -5
Was going to post this a while ago. Guess now is as good a time as any.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 13, 2012 3:08:41 GMT -5
Isn't it the dude from Phish?
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 13, 2012 0:12:36 GMT -5
Oh I completely understand the inside out thing. Just the way you've got it drawn it almost looks like the whole thing is then inverted in phase. Follow the wires and you find that it's not. It's a minor thing that just seems to make it more complicated than it really is.
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