New Members Q&A and Greetings

[Reverie]

Hello hello! I used to take classical acoustic guitar lessons back forever ago, even had a PC program to link the guitar to the computer to practice when I was younger. I enjoy guitar in general. As I was cleaning up my dads house I found my old acoustic guitar and thought I would give it another chance over this summer. I miss music so I figured this place could also be a place to get some great information from! Looking forward to getting to know all of you!

[newey]

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2, Reverie!

While we're mostly about electrics here, acoustics are cool, too.

[gerinski]

Hello all,

My name is Gerard, from Barcelona, Spain (nick Gerinski). I'm currently developing a project of building my own self-designed custom guitar (solid-body electric) and I have some questions which I hope more experienced members can help me to solve (and surely more will come as the project progresses).

I look forward to enjoying nice discussions and exchange knowledge with you all!

Cheers!
Gerard

[thetragichero]

Jul 12, 2023 13:20:38 GMT -5 gerinski said:

Hello all,

My name is Gerard, from Barcelona, Spain (nick Gerinski). I'm currently developing a project of building my own self-designed custom guitar (solid-body electric) and I have some questions which I hope more experienced members can help me to solve (and surely more will come as the project progresses).

I look forward to enjoying nice discussions and exchange knowledge with you all!

Cheers!
Gerard

welcome! there is certainly a wealth of information from the folks around here

[ncblue]

Hi I'm Nick, yep I'm a guitar nut, just look around my house! I'm a retired mechanical engineer, and I've gotten into modding/building many guitars, effects and some amps too. Lots of wiring mods so I've lurked here a bunch. Recently been doing pickup experiments and learning a lot from this site.

[newey]

ncblue-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Please do keep us up to date with your projects!

[bassplayerordinaire]

It is not often I enjoy looking at a blank slate, or perhaps a blank screen image would be more appropo in this setting tonight, except when there is a musical component.

I joined this forum last night without knowing one darn thing about it, other than it achieved "Featured" status with ProBoards and I was on the search for a bulletin board platform for an acquaintance looking to build something for my local community.

Part of why I acquired a tendency to shy away from publishing to any platform long ago had to do with a topic I fell onto here on this site.

I've been a web developer for well over 20 years, but I can take this quirk back to the days of software like Liquid Audio offering up the strongest watermarking system for music and my still not being satisfied the science behind it would ensure I could pull off making a literal dollar or two off of my own originals before Limewire and others provided opportunity for "fans" to justify the passing of music along to their friends as a "greater good value outside of the scope and influence of the artist.  

That time period tended to remind me of all of the local bars who would insist the only way to play their establishment was for free, do all of the advertising and marketing and of course, perform.  Sure, there are places where a shot at a stage free of payment is exactly the right move, but some places did it just to exploit the musicians by implying we were "renting" the establishment for our "event" and if they weren't going to do their part by helping bring new audience members to see the band...freedom of choice and those were gigs I avoided, btw.  I always strived to help with promotions whenever I could and my computer skills allowed me to whip up good old-fashioned mailing list forms to bring to every gig and I expected the establishment to be ready, willing and able to put its best efforts on full display as well.

My reasons to be wary of technology were also part of the same equation that not only led me to this forum, but actually motivated me to open an account so I could add a moment of my voice to what I construed to be one worthy of a reputation to land it on the "Featured" of ProBoards.

While its always important to consider the hows and whys we do our searches for information, it was made quite clear to me this afternoon that this forum wasn't chosen to be featured as a great example of what people can do with ProBoards, the technology.

For me, it reflects an inspiring example of a group of people wanting to publicly interact in conversations that have a tendency to transpire when the heart and soul of a site embraces the worldwide music community, such as the history leading to this second chapter in the Guitar Nuts series...

Extra thanks to those who contributed to the conversation about navigating around the forum and helping this 4 stringer sort through some of these more profound aspects of the craft.

In closing my intro to who I am as a new member and sending out greetings, I started piano at an early age and couldn't wait until I was old enough to quit, which I did.  In my teens, I would daydream about learning bass while watching at 2 piece band playing on the lawn and in the shade behind the stage at Grant Park.  I learned how to play bass using an acoustic guitar with two cut strings (kleenex available for those mourning the intentional loss of 2 strings via any search engine of your choice ) and a bassist who would invite me to open jams they were hosting while allowing me to use their bass (thanks MR!!!).  Found a band.  Lost a band. (x3 or 4) Lost a bass in a house fire.  Found advanced funding for a bass and found a band.  Lost a band and kept the bass paid in full. Life brought more changes and reasons to play for an audience of one (myself), simply because I did not have access to participating in the local music scene (no car + suburbs = limited options, if any).

Then I became an aneurysm survivor a few years ago.  Two, in fact.  And until I was told about the need for surgery, questions about the impact of music on my brain was always limited pretty straight forward towards intellectual exploratory questions rather than questions about the effects of a JBL or Fender speaker on a bolted titanium plate keeping the world literally out of my head.

Left to my own devices, I ended up stumbling unexpectedly onto a jam night I could actually get to and over time, I've been able to spend one night a week with a group of people that changes from week to week...except for the drummer...and sometimes it is just the two of us for a few hours in which I remain the bumbling, but happy, bass player to his absolutely insane drum patterns he like tossing out for the heck of it that have caused me on rare occasion to full-stop and glare at him and he just keeps going until I get back into it.

So to all those who have contributed in the past to this forum, thank you for your unique and uniquely human contribution to this thing we all call Music...even if its behind a keyboard and screen.  It is appreciated.

Signed,

Bass Player Ordinaire

P.S.  Just curious.  What does it mean if a guitarist demands of a bassist to "up beat the down beat?"  Are we talking perk up the bass line itself?  Double or triple up on a beat?

[reTrEaD]

Nov 28, 2023 20:53:18 GMT -5 bassplayerordinaire said:

P.S.  Just curious.  What does it mean if a guitarist demands of a bassist to "up beat the down beat?"  Are we talking perk up the bass line itself?  Double or triple up on a beat?

My initial reaction to that was a cross between an elephant and a rhinoceros.

SPOILER: Click to show

Elephino!

[stevewf]

Nov 28, 2023 20:53:18 GMT -5 bassplayerordinaire said:

P.S.  Just curious.  What does it mean if a guitarist demands of a bassist to "up beat the down beat?"  Are we talking perk up the bass line itself?  Double or triple up on a beat?

Just a guess: maybe it means hitting the note early, like a pickup note, tied to the downbeat?
Example: in "5:15" by The Who, at about the :42 mark, the bass begins to hit the note just before the downbeat (on the "and" of the 4th beat). The horns do the same kind of timing during the verse of that song.

[mitch88]

Things im finding hard to accomplish or understand:
I cant find what 'BBCode' is/means, and AVATAR?....what is Avatar?, also theres never messages/replies to me in the 'message box' except the initial Hello, and 'Profile' seems to have messages/replies to me but why My Profile ??.
So if someone could lead me from astray and answer these questions ild be grateful. And again .... AVATAR, what is Avatar?
Thanks.

[newey]

mitch88-

See my response to your post in the thread Forum Finesse and Feature familiarity

[pasqualino63]

Hi All!

I'm actually a returning user, locked out of my old account, which has a similar UN (Pasqualino31)...  Let's do the introduction anyway, since my life has changed a bit since I last posted.

I'm an EE who designs digital systems with FPGAs (mostly, but not limited to HDL, particularly VHDL).  I was out on disability after a serious motorcycle accident in 2012 and after a year of trips in and out of the hospital, I got the urge to go back to my hobbyist days (both guitar and guitar electronics) and found this great website.  Just when I was getting my projects going I was offered a contact opportunity in Aug 2018 that I had to take since I really didn't have enough retirement grease to get by.  Unfortunately, I have to drop my hobby work when I'm doing electronics to support myself.  It's just too much of a good thing and I get burned out and/or divorced.

We all had to deal with the COVID thing in 2020 and I was out in Portland, OR working a contract for FLIR and everyone had to work remotely from home.  I live in the NYC area 3,000+ miles away, but was staying at an Airbnb until FLIR had to reluctantly dismiss their consultants since their IT infrastructure just couldn't handle the load.  I returned to NY and thought, great, I can pick up on my guitar projects again, but another contract came along, this one with Brookhaven Nat'l Labs (BNL) on Long Island.  This too was remote and it did allow for some dabbling with the hobby stuff.

Just as The BNL contract came to an end in Aug 2022, I got hit by a car crossing the street and it was back to the hospital again.   So at 61 yrs of age, it took a bit to sort myself out, but now I'm back to 100% of my free time doing guitar(s), amps and efx.  While I was away (and in the hospital) my dear sister (the F'n old bag) threw all my Sh!t into a box as if it were trash, so this is an ongoing, uphill battle.

Last time I was here we were discussing modelling of gtr pickups for the purpose of doing PSPICE or Microcap simulations for electronic projects.  It was very productive and I've picked up a few new tricks in Microcap for modelling magnetics.  I've gotten better at Microcap in general which has some great Audio amp examples for both Tube (Valve) and Solid State.  There's only a couple of Gtr examples, but it's easy enough to adjust the component values of the Hi Fidelity audio examples to make them suitable for guitar.


I would be remiss if I didn't mention the axe I'm working with.  It's a cheapo Epiphone Les Paul knockoff.  I replaced the pickups with Seymour Duncan Jazz pickups and put a nice roller bridge on it.  It was a pain in the butt to adjust everything, but it's all set.  I replaced the Sw with a 6-Way super Switch and stopped in the middle of wiring that up (big mistake to stop in the middle of that).  I'm working on two amps, a Solid state one and a Fender Reverb Style using old Soviet NOS 1515 tubes I bought on eBay from Ukraine before Vlad  (that D!ck) went in there to ruin that connection.  This Ukrainian guy was such a reliable source for tubes, germanium transistors and all sorts of stuff he and his friends pilfered from an old USSR army base.  I did manage to build up a good stock before that supply line was severed and also have some great toroidal transformers to work with. 



Enough talking, there's some work to do here and it's great to be back!

[newey]

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.

[mccready]

Hi everyone,
My name is Alessandro Garatti and I'm writing to you from an island: Sardinia.
I'm a bit of a jack of all trades: watchmaker, motorcycle mechanic, guitarist (obviously), almost an architect, occasional construction contractor, and when I have time, a swimmer. Oh, and I'm celiac and lactose intolerant, so no pizza or cheese for me.

I'm not the martial arts type (I think I've only punched someone once in my life, in middle school), I never lie, and I don't do drugs... but I drink a lot of (gluten-free) beer and have heterosexual sex whenever I can.

I often use online translators... To write correctly in English and translate messages into other languages. Mea culpa! I apologize...

I'm here because I'm building my first Nashville guitar, and my goal is to get closer to Mike McCready's sound in Yellow Ledbetter when he plays with Eddie Vedder at the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert.

I follow "Antigua" on this forum with great interest, I love the precision and rationality with which he tests pickups. I hope to shake his hand someday! By the way, do you have any suggestions on which pickups can get me closer to that McCready sound?

Since I'm at it, I'd like to try making the fretboard myself, but I have no idea how to build the jig to do it. And I would like some tips on the Nashville wiring.

Thanks in advance for the help, I'm here to learn and share!

Alessandro

[newey]

mccready-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

Unfortunately, I don't have any answers for your questions. But someone will be along soon. However, most members here go straight to the wiring section, so you should repost your wiring question there. As for the fretboard questions, the Lutherie section would be the place for that.

Just off the top of my head, though, I suspect that there would be a pretty steep learning curve, you might end up with a pile of rosewood matchsticks before you get a useable fingerboard/fretboard. Also, while it's great to learn, if this is a one-time project and you're not planning to go into the fretboard trade, the tools needed to make a single fretboard may make it pretty costly as compared with buying a commercially-made fretboard blank and hammering in you own chosen frets. Not much point to buy a bunch of costly tools if they won't be used regularly.

Of course, if you have a fully-eqipped woodshop already, it may not be as much of an issue.

[cynical1]

Welcome to the asylum.

Sas Sardo mias tenet bisòngiu de un'tradutore fintzas...

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Nashville guitar". Typically, as I recall, Nashville wiring was originally for a Telecaster, but it's essentially just a middle pickup blend option, like this:



WE have a thread devoted to that here: middle blend scheme (aka Brent Mason, aka Nashville wiring)

My other guess is a guitar in Nashvile tuning...using high strings from a 12 string set tuned an octave higher than standard tuning. If I have this wrong, fill me in.

...my goal is to get closer to Mike McCready's sound in Yellow Ledbetter when he plays with Eddie Vedder at the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert.

According to an interview I read, McReady used a '57 Strat re-issue.  Not sure if it had the Custom Shop Hand-Wound Tomatillo Strat pickups, but I never saw a word saying the guitar had anything other than factory installed pickup.   So, more than likely any Strat pickup will get you close.  Then you need the same amp...and sadly, the same fingers to pull it off...

Since I'm at it, I'd like to try making the fretboard myself, but I have no idea how to build the jig to do it. 

Cun custu est tropu masochist a, huh...

These are deep waters you tread into...  There is a decent sized investment into making your own neck.  The fingerboard, being the most critical part of the neck, involves the most attention.  Before you go down that rabbit hole, you might want to investigate a luthier supplier in your part of the world.  LMII used to provide this service in the US, but they closed down this year and got sucked into Stew-Mac.  You used to be able to order any radius and scale from a selection of different woods.

That still doesn't get you out of the woods.  You need the rest of the neck to glue it to...which is another can of worms altogether.  

Fret work is the cheapest to pull off...you just need a few dozen necks to practice on to get it down...

A much better option is to buy the neck in the configuration you want.  For years I built my own necks.  After a while I realized I could buy it ready to fret and build out in a fraction of the time it took me to build it...and I didn't have to sweep the floor afterwards...

Enjoy and good luck.

Happy Trails

Cynical One

[sillyhobo]

Hey, all, first-time, long-time.

I've been following some of the pickup/pickup testing threads for a while now while researching different pickups for my guitars. I appreciate what this forum provides for members and readers to expand the knowledgebase of different pickups and their applications.

In particular, I've been following some of Antigua's exploits and his breakdowns/teardowns and analysis of pickups, which has been handy for my understanding of different pickups, their makeup, and their function.

I was wondering, is there a way to submit pickups for this kinda review/analysis? I've got 4 pickups right now, that I think the community and myself could appreciate review of, for informing but maybe also demystifying. I'm new to DIY work on my guitars, and before I grab a multimeter and so forth, I thought I'd ask about such a process, especially while these pickups aren't yet installed into anything.

Thanks for all that the staff and members do, and for creating / maintaining this forum.

[newey]

sillyhobo-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

I'm tagging antigua here so that he will see your post. If we don't hear from him, you could also drop him a PM.

[sillyhobo]

Oct 16, 2024 19:44:41 GMT -5 newey said:

sillyhobo-

Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!

I'm tagging antigua here so that he will see your post. If we don't hear from him, you could also drop him a PM.

Hey, thanks, I think I finally found the 'create' button for sending PMs, so I'll reach out.

[stefan]

Hello Guitar Nuts Forum,

I'm Stefan, I'm a fresh aero engineering graduate and I have come to the oasis of guitar modding, wiring, and engineering, in the desert of the guitar internet for the ever popular "Brian May" Stratocaster mod originally devised by JohnH .

I have to say, I have learned so much from reading this forum's threads, drawing, redrawing, and drawing once more the various circuits and diagrams from senior members, and using archived conversations as jump off points for my own research to fill gaps in my understanding. 

I'm in the middle of rewiring my S1 switch equipped "Brian May Series/Parallel" strat and learning the ever numerous spoken and unspoken conventions and practices of electronics and diagrams... When done, I will share my drawn diagram, helpful tips and tricks I found so that it might help someone trying this or a similar project in the future, and hopefully get a couple nice shots of the circuit. I feel confident that this go round the circuit is going to fully work as intended, it's only my 3rd time rewiring... haha. 

I'm using this post as a test to make sure I get everything with pictures, links, and text right so that when the time comes, the post with diagrams is good to read. 






If this embeds properly we'll know it worked! (This is a little teaser of a huge project in the pipeline, but first I will post the strat when done... baby steps.)