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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 11, 2012 6:37:22 GMT -5
Yep, it's a problem.
The way you're cutting the coils the bridge pickup will be shorted along with the bottom of the neck when you flip to series. Need to take ground off the neck side of the coil cut switch and put the neck black wire there instead. Yes, that'll leave a shunted coil hanging in the middle of the series stack, but you need more poles (on both switches, I think) to get around that.
BTW - Welcome back!
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 10, 2012 23:19:07 GMT -5
My mini strat is SHS with a GFS Lil Killer in the middle. It has the ability to put the middle OoP with itself. There's way more noise than string in that position, but since each coil is RWRP with either B or N (which are RWRP to each other) I can use it to get B-N and B*(-N) with humcancelling.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 10, 2012 8:19:27 GMT -5
I've got band practice this coming week, so I'm resisting reopening the Strat again until after that, But then maybe over the holidays, I'll wire up this scheme, unless something different pops up. At the same time, I'll change from 9's to 10's. I find this amusing. I have like 8 perfectly serviceable guitars, but I won't mess with my "gigging" axe when I've got a show coming up. Wouldn't want to mess up the Xavier. That might mean I'd have to play the (Gibson) LP or ***gasp*** the Rickenbacker!
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 5, 2012 22:01:37 GMT -5
Buy at least five times as many of everything! If you get them from a real retailer, they cost almost nothing to begin with, but you could do well to pay to ship a pile of stuff at once rather than make several small orders. When these succeed you will want to make more.
Most importantly, if you buy exactly one of each component that you need, one of them is nearly guaranteed to fail. Especially if this is your first run at this, you may end up soldering, unsoldering, resoldering, and burn or wear something out. It really sucks to be short just one resistor!
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 5, 2012 20:16:50 GMT -5
Nope. The coils being similar helps, but it's their proximity one to the other which causes the more total cancellation. A greater proportion of all the harmonics are more likely to be closer to in phase as the two coils get closer together. Thus more of the total signal is cancelled when you wire one coil to pull against the other.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 3, 2012 23:04:10 GMT -5
And thanks newey - you are the one that deserves a prize most! J This! I kinda feel like posting in this thread is cheating.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 2, 2012 13:33:36 GMT -5
FuzzFace and the like have a deliberately low in-Z. This combines with cable capacitance and pickup inductance to kill a bunch of the higher frequencies and basically feed the thing all bass and low mids. And that right there is the difference between fuzz and distortion - one clips the low frequencies and the other clips a more full range signal, often with the low frequencies rolled off a bit. If you want distortion out of your fuzz pedal put a buffer ahead of it. The circuit to which you linked is pretty low-Z also, though maybe not as bad as some. You may need to roll down the Tone control on your guitar to get a convincing effect. I've heard it said that there are other interactions between the pickups and the fuzz, but these are subtle and device dependent and the "tone suck" is the biggest part.
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Post by ashcatlt on Dec 2, 2012 13:17:43 GMT -5
I would use the line in rather than the mic. It will have more headroom and avoid the unnecessary extra gain of the mic preamp. Note that this is usually a 3.5mm (1/8") TRS (stereo) jack. You only need one side usually for mono recording, though you can use them as separate inputs in most DAWs to record two sources at a time.
The thing with the pedal is not about level, but about impedance. The inputs on the computer are very low for a passive guitar pickup, and you'd lose a lot of treble connecting your guitar directly to them. This can sometimes be an advantage if you don't have any other form of speaker emulation. But since you're going into the computer, there are all kinds of better ways to knock off that top end. So, we usually want to get all the treble we can into the machine and have finer control over what we throw away. The buffer in the non-true-bypass pedal accomplishes this by presenting a healthy in-Z for the pickups, with a very low out-Z to drive the computer ins.
All of that said, there are a number of benefits to an external interface. I don't honestly believe that the cheaper units must use exactly the same ADC/DAC as you'd get in an on-board soundcard. But all of the analog circuitry is outside of the computer case, and theoretically better isolated from any of the EM noise flying around inside the case.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 26, 2012 21:44:39 GMT -5
sg - we're talking about a No Load pot here, wired as a variable resistor.
The connection between the two outside lugs is broken internally. The wiper connects to one of them (via the resistive track) up until just as you hit 10. Then it is disconnected from there and connected to the other lug directly. The resistances cant possibly ever be parallel to one another because one or the other always has one end floating. I've done it, tested it, use that pedal all the time. It quite definitely works.
When I mentioned the cap I was picturing a fairly small value along the lines of chrisk's thoughts on pickup response tuning. Just ideas for in case the "No Load Tone" turned out to be a little too bright. Didn't realize earlier that JohnH was talking about an HSS guitar, but...
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 26, 2012 12:51:43 GMT -5
Yeah, looks like the first link says it will work the way you want it to. I didn't read that whole second thread, but I didn't find an answer to your question, though it seemed to offer some ideas on how you could DIY the detent thing.
Your idea sounds pretty cool, though it means that the "bridge on" on the Tone control will be mutually exclusive. Adding the bridge pickup in parralel with anything else will be quite a bit brighter already. Then you lift the load from the T and it gets even snappier. And you can't tame that down with the T control, because...
Not to hijack or anything, but I've used a trick in one of my pedals which I just realized might have some use in a guitar also:
Connect a resistor between the two outside lugs of the no-load pot. Maybe absolutely no load is too bright, but the full value of the pot is too dark? You might just use a bigger pot, but that can mess with the action of the pot, skewing the taper in one direction or another. Or maybe you want to get really fiddly and really fine tune your tone, but cant find the right value pot at a reasonable price.
You might also put a cap across those lugs, or a combination of cap and resistor. Heck, how bout a back-to-back pair of shotky diodes for a bit of "black ice" action?
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 25, 2012 0:21:10 GMT -5
The sound samples, damn the distortion on the bass sounds like poo fluttering on a speaker That's what we're shootin' fer! They are essentially the same distortion circuit. That bass pedal has quite a bit of range to it. Especially when you start playing with the insert loops. I never considered the ProCo Rat as a boutique pedal. I guess they're not Boss or DOD/Digitech... it's really the only distortion pedal I need. It can go from pretty subtle and "transpaerent" to way over-the-top. With the right settings, through right amp, it somehow manages to sound like more of the amp's own breakup. In other situations you can get a fairly convincing metal sound out of it (especially if you're into "stoner metal" or true black metal), or a pretty creamy fuzz tone. Mine makes me feel the way I remember feeling when I played my original in the '90s. Better even because I built it my own self! To me, that's far more important than some cork sniffing comparison to "the real thing".
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 24, 2012 17:54:42 GMT -5
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 24, 2012 17:54:11 GMT -5
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 24, 2012 17:47:53 GMT -5
Gave it a bit of a facelift the other day:
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 24, 2012 17:46:15 GMT -5
Finally finished the darn thing:
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 18, 2012 23:10:24 GMT -5
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 17, 2012 4:34:23 GMT -5
+1
Though I'm not sure that will sell enough Butterball brand turkeys and Stove Top brand stuffing...
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 16, 2012 13:32:33 GMT -5
Sorry to hear that it has failed. I guess things got a bit hazy there toward the end of thoes 9 joints? But seriously: What to do when it doesn't work. That site is quite a bit busier than this one, and I am absolutely sure there are people there with experience with this build - probably with this exact kit. Course, there are folks here with enough general knowledge to help given the info requested in that link, too!
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 16, 2012 12:19:42 GMT -5
Ah, but learning is the answer! Education, and more importantly Enlightenment, of those "just people" is the only chance we have. While most of the people in the world really just want some basic security - food and shelter for their families and a reasonable assurance that they won't die a violent death - they have also been de-educated.
Unfortunately most of the cultures of the world have suffered for a couple thousand years from getting all of their education re: the nature of reality and our place in it from people with a vested interest in seeing that we don't get the truth - that in fact the Truth is heresy and blasphemy and un-patriotic and sick and evil. It's been going on so long that even most of the folks teaching and preaching the Lie honestly believe it to be Absolute Truth.
Revelations says that in the end times the Beast will sit in the house of God and be worshipped as God.
We've got a lot of reprogramming to do if we ever want a truly peaceful, free, and equal world.
And if that doesn't get me banned...
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 15, 2012 23:06:07 GMT -5
I am infinitely amused by the fact that the things that we guitarists find interesting about our amplifiers is the way that they and their speakers fail at their jobs. I think just about everybody agrees that electric guitar reproduced through a truly flat and clean system sounds like complete poo. Even laymen expect to here some amount of non-linearity (compression/distortion) and limited frequency response. How that happened is up for debate. Anyway, here is a pretty in depth description of how and why guitar speakers fail in that special way. I learnedly some stuff. Maybe you will too.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 15, 2012 20:46:21 GMT -5
I guess I'm not sure if it's true all over, but I suspect that it is.
In my school public school district there was a policy which required that anyone who wanted to coach an athletic team to also teach. Maybe a budget thing or whatever... Any given school can only have so many PE teachers, so the rest of the coaches usually ended up teaching Social Studies. So for 5 years of middle and high school my History and Geography came from guys who had gone to college for sports, and were happy to coast class the same way from the other side of the podium.
On top of that, of course, we were taught a curriculum dictated by Texans, designed specifically to show that the progress of civilization started in the middle east, led through Rome to the British Isles to its culmination in the US Congress.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 15, 2012 18:22:13 GMT -5
For quite a while I've used the Tortex in either blue or (preferably) purple. Not too long ago I followed a tip from this thread and asked my local Music Go Round about the Tortex Pitch Black. I was just asking if they could get them and whether there would be a price difference, but dude went and ordered a whole pile of them. I specifically told him I wanted the ones which were the same as the purple (1.14mm?), but he got the 1mms instead. I don't think anybody else buys them, so I kind of feel obligated. Now I've got a bunch of black picks which look cooler than the purple. Of course there's that old problem of finding the damn thing when I drop it on a dark stage.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 15, 2012 18:04:28 GMT -5
Looks to me like the wires coming from the pickups are single conductor + shield cables. They change from red to white there by the volume control, where the outer insulation has been stripped back to allow the shield braids to be collected there. If that's not the case then it can't work. I've seen pickups make a little bit of noise when the bottom end is disconnected (I imagine some sort of capacitive coupling to ground) but it would be very quiet and thin and sound obviously broken.
Don't put too much stock in the "ground loop" thing. We've seen instances where folks star-grounded and ended up with noise which could not be fixed without replaced the wire between the pots.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 14, 2012 19:51:39 GMT -5
A meter is far more reliable for figuring coil selections than tap test. You know...nostril...brain scan...where's that link? Course it kind of helps to measure the pickups out of circuit first, but heck! This thread seems to be all about going off half-cocked, switching horses in mid stream, and etc... ADHD is a b h! Anyway, if it sounds good who cares what's actually happening?
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 14, 2012 19:11:12 GMT -5
Anthrax sucks! No seriously. In high school my girlfriend was a huge fan of theirs. I always leaned more toward metallica, myself, but I remember being able to tolerate anthrax at the time. Well, 20 years later we're just friends and both around the same time went to the youtube and looked up some anthrax and OMFG, what were we thinking-?!?! SOD (most of Anthrax, with a different vocalist) still rocks though. And I can definitely dig some ST. Was always more into punk and industrial than actual metal, though. BB King - probably sounds like he's playing straight from the book because HE WROTE THE FRICKING BOOK! Seriously, those "how to play blues" books? They're teaching you to play licks either coined or made popular by one or the other of the King brothers. It sounds generic now because everybody in the world has stolen them and spammed them all over the radio for...what 90 years? Is it his fault that he hasn't had an original thought since? It's funny. For most of my career I have purposefully avoided learning scale boxes and licks and all that stuff. I understand theory, can find any note on the fretboard. On the rare occassions where I played a lead I would work it out by intervals and by ear rather than muscle memory. I managed to pretty much avoid cliches and come up with a very few truly original solo type things. But true spur of the moment improvisation was hit or miss at best. Then I got into this band playing music quite a bit more straight-forward and listener-friendly, leaning heavily toward old country, blues, and rock and decided that I finally needed to bite the bullet and learn to play some "real leads". I caught wind of the CAGED system around here and started working with that. "Studied" a couple classic solos from Tony Iommi and Angus Young and some old country stuff. And now I'm quite a bit more confident in my spontaneous lead playing - especially over more traditional chord progressions. The point of that long story, though: Most of the time I feel like a dink doing it! In the moment I just feel like I'm noodling around playing notes only because they fit in the box. But then I get applause, and compliments from other guitarists who actually know how to play. Better yet, when I listen back (we record almost everything) I'm often pretty surprised and impressed myself! Apparently somewhere along the line I've developed my own distinctive style with a certain feel and phrasing which borrows here and there from folks I respect and mashes them together into something unique - and which doesn't completely sucked. I think that sort of gets us back to the thing about BB. The big difference between BB King and somebody just running off cliched pentatonic rifts (ahem, Clapton) is the feel. The phrasing, the inflection, the particular way that he works around the beat, or bends a note, not to mention that vibrato for which he is so well known. Like so many other of the blues "greats " he may play all the same notes in the same order as everybody else, but let him play one single note and you know it's him right away. But finally to the topic at hand... When my wife gave up on me last year I was left with half of a big pile of money which we'd been saving for something that is now never going to happen, and I had nobody to yell at me for spending it. I had credit card companies who wanted to pay me to take their cards, and nobody to complain that I should avoid debt. So, of course, I bought three guitars, an amp, a GK-3 pickup, and a bunch of minor upgrades to my recording (well, i guess the new computer was more than minor) and live rigs. Oh, and some pedals, and... Then I got a girlfriend and haven't hardly had time to use any of it!
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 9, 2012 13:12:21 GMT -5
Just to be a pain, I've got mention that if the sliding contacts are, in fact, sliding - and especially if they are wearing out - then they are wasting power. Course it's motor power being wasted rather than amp power, but sg didn't specify. Conservation of Energy is.
Otherwise, I agree wholeheartedly with what he said. Spinning the drivers themselves is inefficient and prone to all kinda issues.
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 7, 2012 17:22:40 GMT -5
I'm not sure I know how to answer that question. At its most basic, this thing really just makes the guitar signal louder. It does have some tone shaping at higher gain levels. The action of the switch modes is pretty subtle, and also gain dependent.
I built it for live use and it works equally well into a Vox AC4, a Deluxe Reverb, and an amp modeller.
Seems like a digital emulation of this kind of thing would require about four times the circuitry. I guess if I had a digital box doing other things already and could also do something like this I wouldn't hesitate, as long as I could turn it on and off with my foot.
In a situation where I was recording direct to the computer (as I often do - through the PodStudio UX1) and using a software amp modeler I would most likely forgo the pedal and use some software tool to accomplish the "boost" and/or tone shaping that I get out of it. Save the headroom and noise going in (some of my humbuckers can overdrive the UX1 on their own) and use silent digital processes instead. Again, it's mostly just there to make the guitar louder and drive the amp harder, which becomes a bit of a fuzzy question (pardon the pun) once you're ITB.
That said, when the diodes are engaged the overdrive sound is subtle and interesting in a way that might be tough to dial in with the plugins I've got, so if I ever found I really wanted that sound...
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 6, 2012 14:27:38 GMT -5
No, sg, you picked up on my intent. Just keepin' it goin'.
Anyway, did you know that there's a place in New York state that is halfway between Mexico and Phoenix?
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 6, 2012 13:11:52 GMT -5
What's so funny? These are true stories. Truth be told, the first was a thinly veiled attempt at revealing the whereabouts of Walmart HQ. In case anyone's interested Do you find something amusing about 9/11? When I saw those towers fall I new immediately what was happening: an elaborate plan to get That's My Bush off the air!
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Post by ashcatlt on Nov 6, 2012 12:16:08 GMT -5
What kind of guitar is it? I've had three rotaries in a strat. Course, their not the double-decker things that your 4P switch must be. The lugs sticking out the sides would make trouble maybe where the mid T normally goes, but I'm sure they'd fit in the other two spots. If you took everybody's advice (!!!) and gave up the nearly silent internal OoP on the HB you could get away with a single deck DP there and maybe squeeze it all in.
Oh wait! Did you want pots also?
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