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Post by murrayatuptown on Mar 22, 2009 20:59:44 GMT -5
Hi:
I just deleted pages of rambling questions, but they seem to have recreated themselves...
I'm undertaking my first guitar build (hack) project which is lacking focus. The goal is to keep the cost minimal (isn't there a site with a $100 Strat-copy forum?), and hand it off to my daughter, hopefully something usable!
All the from-scratch body concepts & "what kind of neck won't kill the budget" went aside with finding an Indonesian Starcaster body & neck for $36, bartering for the tuners & tremelo bridge, and a gamble on some new 'generic' single coil and humbucker pickups on eBay (4 SC and 2 HB for <$5). I figure it must be better than my early thoughts of making my own body, winding my own pickup and salvaging who-knows-what neck that's affordable (means no one else wants it?)
Looking at an HSS layout, I'm wondering what wiring combinations are suggested. Is there any point in paralleling the two SC's when there is already an HB there?
I would like to know how good or bad cheapo pickups are. I plan to shield the body/pickguard and wax pot the SC's. I'm not sure how well the wax can get inside if I follow the 'leave 'em taped' rule of thumb on-site here.
I am looking at ChrisK's circuit PSpice modeling circuit analysis and wondering if there isn't some ability to modify a pickup's touch or transient sensitivity by choosing some of the tone curves he plotted with and without significant response peaking - these suggest some exploration into the theoretical 2nd-order RLC under-, over-, and critical- damping the pickup response curves remind me of (remotely anyway).
How about an FET buffer with a small lithium battery to allow other values of resistance (tone, volume or blending) without killing the freq. response? Anything to be gained there?
Some of this may be in the category of 'who the heck knows, have to try it to find out', but hopefully some of it can be flagged as just plain time-wasting if you recognize it as such.
I realize there are cheap guitars aplenty, but the reason for even pursuing this has been lost to oblivion - I've got the family on board thinking something resembling refinement may result from properly directed effort.
Thanks.
MURRAY
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Post by ChrisK on Mar 22, 2009 21:52:14 GMT -5
Well, you might like the middle in series with the neck (a neck'ish humbucker sound) or the middle in parallel with the neck (just a plain regular standard Strat sound).
Well, if they were really good, they wouldn't be cheap since folk would flock to them. If they were really cheap, folk would buy them based solely on price. If you know what model they are, look them up on harmonycentral.com
Why are you waxing the SCs only (or any at all)?
Yes. The way that we do this is to use pSpice models and futz with the component values and "see" (literally) what happens.
I did not "plot with tone curves". In a concerted effort to do some exploration, I built a schematic model of the circuit in pSpice, chose various component values based on actual theoretical 2nd-order RLC circuits, ran the simulation in pSpice, and it plotted the actual response curves of components in a guitar circuit. The peaking is part and parcel of said components. This is why we invented pSpice. In modern electronic circuit engineering, ALL circuits are simulated prior to anything even being wired up as a prototype.
I also show the effect of having a series resistance with the peaking cap and its effect on the circuit "Q" (quality function), which lowers the peaking amplitude and widens the response bandwidth.
The way that YOU do this is to get pSpice (it's free) and model away. Have fun.
What needs to actually be tried depends on what "touch" means and what "transient sensitivity" means to you.
Yes, it relieves the signal from the capacitive loading effect of the guitar cable. Of course, this all depends on what you think "kills the frequency response".
Much of all of this "stuff" can be understood by looking at the many posts a'board. JohnH has done some excellent work with FET preamps.
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Post by cynical1 on Mar 22, 2009 22:01:33 GMT -5
I'm undertaking my first guitar build (hack) project which is lacking focus. The goal is to keep the cost minimal... A noble ambition. I had the same thought...but the costs generally expand exponentially...somewhat like a CEO's bonus after a bailout... I'm still working off the original list from a year ago on my projects. Yes, much better to find good used components then trying to save a buck on new "bargain" components. eBay was my salvation more then a few times. I was able to get 1st grade parts for around 30-40% of their discount price (That was the rule I set for myself) It took about 5 months, but I was able to get Seymour Duncan, Dimarzio and Rio Grande pickups, Schaller bridges, Schaller tuners and a bubinga\granidillo and a solid maple neck for a fraction of what they would have cost new. I generally lost 48 out of every 50 auctions. I would say that the neck is the last place you want to go cheap on. If the neck has fret issues, is warped/twisted, has truss rod issues or is a log, it won't be any fun to play. All the wiring mods in the world won't make it usable. I worked in a series parallel on the HSS project I'm doing. The inspiration, and a great deal of theft, came from a design by JohnH, Strat with Two Volume ControlsMy shameless ripoff is here under H-S-S, 2 Vol, 2 Tone...& Switches... Scroll down to the second drawing, as I hosed the first one. There are actually quite a few H-S-S designs and modules hidden on this site. A search back over a year or two should keep you busy for a while. I've heard people rave here about GFS pickups, and they're pretty inexpensive. Generally the rule "you get what you pay for" applies to no-name offshore pickups. You may get lucky. Put a few rubber bands around the tape, dunk'em and they'll pot just fine. Take your time, measure twice, cut once and all will be right with the world. Happy Trails Cynical One
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Post by murrayatuptown on Mar 23, 2009 23:24:41 GMT -5
Wellllll,
Chris, I very inaccurately described what you did, but it was for lack of creativity at the time I wrote/rewrote my excessively long post, as well as not having it to look at, so I had a rough memory of what inspired me about it.
Because of the difference between simulation and best guess at what I actually have installed, maybe building as I originally thought I wanted to, with an excess of adjustments. This would appeal to me to have a 'bench' or 'lab rat axe', but I don't think my daughter wants a guitar that looks like a synthesizer from the 70's (or earlier?)...so maybe single turn trimpots inside - hey, there's a use for an empty pickup cover!) would satisfy my desire to tweak, and allow more options vs. sticking to shafted pots and the existing pickguard holes.
Potting - because I assumed that cheap no-name pickups would likely have more of the possible problems than something better would.
They are unmarked, but the SC's look like possibly Saga to me , straight parallel base sides, not triangular. A single slab of ceramic magnet on the bottom. Mighty Mite and my old 50's P-90 have two symmetrical magnets. Well, I think I'll make some effort where improvement is suggested, and can change them later once it's working. The pigs squealing over rotting melons description sounds pretty specific...I'll keep an ear out for that phenomenon, but I am a city kid, anyway.
No opinions found online about the Saga ones yet, but I'm not done looking. The humbuckers: 1 has a very thin red coax cable, and the other has a blue cable. Interesting that a pair together have different color wire...maybe that implies neck/bridge.
M
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Post by newey on Mar 24, 2009 6:12:08 GMT -5
Neck/bridge is a likely guess. Since you found them on Ebay, they were likely sold off by someone who is replacing the pickups in a cheap Asian guitar with better ones, that's a pretty widespread thing to do.
I doubt that Saga makes their own pickups, these are probably sourced from one of several Chinese pickup manufacturers. The one name that comes to mind is "Billion Pickups", they're a big Chinese mfr, although I don't know that they make them for Saga.
If they don't have any sort of markings on them, identifying a source is going to be pretty hit or miss. You might save yourself some grief by inquiring of the seller via Ebay's message function as to where these came from. Tell him/her that you really like them but want to know more info. You'll probably get a response if the person doesn't think you're a dissatisfied customer.
The opinions I have read on Saga kits generally start out with "replace the pickups", and again, that is probably what your Ebay seller did. But again, it sounds like "Saga" is just a guess on your part.
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Post by ChrisK on Mar 27, 2009 19:33:11 GMT -5
I like it! Remember, you're starting with a cheap guitar. No matter what you put into it, it will still be worth only what a cheap guitar brings used (maybe 50% of what you paid). The Fender "Hello Kitty" guitar'ettes are fairly cheap. Depending on your daughter's age, a used one might be a winner (they should be on the used market, girls are functional pre-teens for just a few years). I offered to buy my daughter a guitar when she indicated interest. We went to the store where she confided that she'd rather have a car. I said "I'm paying your way thru William & Mary, go buy your own damn car." Well, I didn't buy her a guitar then, but ended up lending her a car for only 5 years and 80,000 miles. The First Bank of Dad strikes again.....
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dugg
Apprentice Shielder
Posts: 48
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Post by dugg on Apr 2, 2009 11:41:10 GMT -5
I don't know about Saga, but I built a Grizzly kit and was surprised by the quality, particularly the wood, which after a lifetime of cabinet making, I'm picky about. The Alnico 5 polepiece 5.3k single coils that came with the kit are far from 'cheap' sounding, in fact they sound better than the hotter 'stock' pickups on my friends MIM Fender. I've also bought two pickups from GFS, a fatbody 7k tele bridge and an Alnico 5 boutique RWRP strat 5.5k. Both sound exellent in the guitars they're in. When it comes to pickups, I don't know if 'you get what you pay for'. I think they're so inexpensive to make that anyone who is charging the 'high prices' is basically just selling mojo more than actual manufacturing superiority.
Hows this for an alternate?; "You don't get what you pay for, you get what you know. And, the more you know, the more you get".
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