GregP

Sorry. Gratuitous *bump*!

It may not BE a 'normal' 5-way switch, though with some of the options presented, it could still be. It may be a 'superswitch', which has hundreds of combination possibilities. Greg

Hey all, I dunno when my guitar project is ever going to get done. It's aggravating me that I never have access to the shop, and when I do, the smallest little thing that's either forgotten or not working sets me back another month or two. In the meantime, a quick hacked-together lap steel will require far less precision, and if I screw it up, I'm just screwing up scrap wood. If a prototype works out successfully, I might invest some time and effort into making something worthwhile. But for now, I just want to throw one together to get a feel for what I want out of such an instrument. So, I don't want to be buying any Lollar pickups or anything else expensive. If it comes down to it, I'll just put a GFS tele bridge rails pickup in and have done with it. BUT, I'd rather have something more like a stacked P90 (ie. P100) instead. Anybody see such a thing around? Or am I dreaming? Any other budget recommendations also accepted. Thanks! Greg

I don't see any diagrams! Don't suppose the posters want to switch to Photobucket instead of Tripod? Greg

If he's jealously guarding his secret, I bet it's something simple. He's just enjoying the "nyah nyah" factor and doesn't want his own fun to end too quickly. Greg

Real-time would be ideal, since many guitarists don't like the extra latency of FFT-based effects and so forth; however, non-realtime would still prove useful. Greg

It's gotta be said: What the heck is your problem? People keep giving you very viable options about what it could be, and you keep saying, "no, no, no, no". Well if you don't KNOW, how can you say "no"? And if you DO know, why did you ask? Why not just tell us, "My friend does this neat thing." It could very well be any of the things mentioned. What makes you think he's magically transforming just one single-coil into a fatter sound? It has to be one of two things only: a ) active electronics, some sort of 'booster' kit b ) a combination of pickups, which isn't necessarily something that will fit the normal 'visual' strat paradigm. Just because he's using a push-pull doesn't mean he's not adding in another pickup. For all you know, pulling the knob DOES add in the neck pickup in series, as suggested already. It could be a fake S1 system, but with a push-pull knob instead of Fender's sneaky special button. It could even just be a 'part' of the S1-- perhaps the push/pull just adds in a second capacitor to the tone equation. Yours for the cost of the push/pull and $0.50. I mean, you don't know (hence the reason you asked), and yet you're not willing to listen to several viable options. If your friend won't tell you and you're willing to give him 800 bux just to find out, something smells funny. Greg

Fair enough. It's to be a software plug-in, though, so it's not like I'm able to advise people to just get humbuckers instead. It seems you're correct about the resonant frequency, though. I'll look into that, which will possibly be the key to the whole thing. I wonder how the frequency smear could be emulated. I'm sure it's possible, though it might require some work. While I'm at it, I'm wondering what the best way to try to cut the noise of a single-coil would be. Notching at 60Hz doesn't actually work the way one would think. Perhaps an algorithm similar to that used by 'noise reduction' software... you take a 'fingerprint' of the noisy signal (ie. without any notes being played, just the noise floor) and then subtract it from the incoming (ie WITH notes) signal. Probably not usable in realtime, but it might make a handy per-track effect. Greg

The short answer is, no. There's nothing that will take an audio track (MP3, CD, or whatever) and just isolate the drums. The long answer is: your best bet is to learn how to use MIDI, download the MIDI file, and use just the backing sections from the MIDI file to play along to. That's what I've done for a buncha tunes. There's also a thread around here that I lost track of (it WAS stickied once upon a time) that contained a bunch of backing tracks. Greg

Hey all, I don't remember the name of it, but there's a 'booster'-type pedal that became available within the last 2 years. Nothing innovative, but basically it allowed you to use your single-coil equipped guitar to get semi-humbuckery sounds. I don't need a level/gain boost, since that can all be done on the input. I'm wondering if anyone has ideas on what else can make a single-coil sound more humbuckery... A little bit of cuts on the highs, but that still won't quite get you there. It's not exactly an 'eq' thing, though I'm sure certain EQ would help. It's about the 2 different 'nodes' picked up by the individual coils of the humbucker, more than anything.... I don't know. I'm at a loss for anything useful. Greg

Is it actually cancelling the hum, or is it just 'fatter' sounding? If it's 'fatter', it could be that he has the two coils operating in series (one leads into the other) instead of parallel, which is the normal 'strat' way. Greg

You sure they weren't just combining the middle and bridge pickups? That's standard fare for a Strat-style guitar. It's also possible they used a 'mid-boost' or some sort of boost circuit, but I have my doubts. If they did, it's a full-on active effect, kind of like having a pedal built right into your guitar in a way. Relatively imple to install if you buy one, but you'd have to search around if you want to make one. I still think you've probably simply seen someone engaging the middle and bridge pickups at the same time, which will buck the hum. Greg

You've enabled it as your device globally for the program, but now you have to set it to a track. Kind of like having an 8-track Tascam recorder... you can't hear anything until you have the guitar plugged into a track.... or something... I don't know how to tell you how to set up a new track. Usually there's at least one set up by default. Check your manual. Well, you're half-way there. I recommend Tracktion 2 most heartily. However, while a 'budget' program by comparison, it's not cheap at $149 USD or so. Greg

I don't know about ACID, but in general, here's what to look out for: 1. You need to plug into the "line" input, not the "mic" input. The mic input of a soundcard has a pre-amp that usually sucks. The Spider II has a line-level output anyhow, so you'll want to use the right input. It depends from card-to-card how to enable the line input instead of the mic input, but you need to sort that out. 2. In your program (in your case, ACID), you will need to enable your soundcard as an 'audio device' on a new empty track. 3. Most soundcards aren't made for this sort of work, so they will have a noticeable "latency", which is the delay from the time you play the guitar to the time you hear it coming out of your speakers. To fool your program into thinking you have a better card than you do, Google for the "ASIO4ALL" drivers and install them. Then restart ACID and select the "ASIO" device as your audio input. 4. Yes, you should be able to hear your guitar coming through your speakers, assuming your card is at least newer than a Soundblaster AWE32. (which is ancient). However, you may need to enable an option in ACID called "monitor" in order to do so. Again, I don't know ACID so well. Hope that helps a bit. Greg

In other words, it might just be that I did a kick-ass job shielding the guitar? Greg

Bah! One more question... honest! With standard wiring, when you touch the strings, the hum gets reduced, because all thsoe electronics are grounded to -you-, correct? In this wiring, touching the strings doesn't affect the noise levels whatsoever. Is that because everything's getting grounded to the 400V capacitor? I'm still only 85% grasping everything that's going on in my electronics cavity.... Also, while the chassis is electrically continuous (I can touch a pickup and a screw in the control cavity cover with a multimeter and complete a circuit!), I don't get continuity between a pickup and the ground of my cable. Is that as it should be? Something's striking me as dodgy, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I could use some reassurance that touching the strings shouldn't quiet down the hum anymore. Greg

The parallel mode seems to hum more than the series mode, but it's definitely still bucking the hum. Is that normal? You know, regarding the cap-- I almost always just leave the tone up to full anyhow, so I think I'll take your advice and leave it for now. Greg

Excellent. Well, even before I saw this reply, I just did it the way you told me to and it works great! I'm well impressed with the way it turned out. There's not all that much difference between the two "SC+SC" combinations, but it IS noticeable. With the wiring you gave me, which is which again? (parallel vs. serial) I'll post up sound-clips soon. Along the way I had to knock the saddles way out of place (to access one of the screws), so there's still intonation that needs adjusting. The switch wouldn't accept the old 'normal strat' style switch tip, so I threw a top-hat style mother on there, and I love it. It takes a bit to get used to in terms of looks, but I love the feel of this kind of switch tip. I'm an idiot, though. I switch the wire, and then 'tested' the tone control... so dumb... dumb dumb newbie mistake... I had only put one string on, because if I had to pull the whole guitar apart again at some point in time, I didn't want to deal with taking off 6 new strings. That one string didn't give me enough of a picture of the tone control's range, so I thought the 0.01 wasn't doing enough. Put a 0.022 back in, and now I'm back to the exact same tone control before, which I find gets too muddy already at about halfway, now that I have all the strings back on. I'd put the 0.01 back on -again-, but I'm not sure it survived getting removed. The little wires got wiggled around so much that I'm not sure they're structurally sound anymore. Pics and sound clips soon enough. LK, you are a prince among men. Thanks so much for the wiring diagram and patiently holding my hand through 3 pages of this thread (plus other related threads). Without your quick attention to my questions, I surely would have struggled more and run into more frustrations. Thank you so much!!!! Greg

I had my old wiring diagram that I was going to use out-- from Guitarelectronics.com, and I noticed that they have the capacitor on the right lug, and the wire to volume on the middle. So now I'm confused again. Greg

The capacitor is correct, but using the above illustration as a 'guide', the wire to volume on my guitar is located on the left instead of on the right as above. So yeah, I should just need to switch the wire over. I'm not loving the 0.01 cap-- even though I wanted my tone control to be more focused on the treble frequencies (I don't ever really go down into the mucky range of my tone knob), the result hasn't been spectacular anyhow. I may end up putting in a 0.022 instead. Thanks for the amendment! Greg

Thanks, Ansil. I won't be doing much soldering, so while the Weller station looked nice (it was about $90 CDN at the shop here) I ended up just going for a 25-watt non-variable Weller iron. It was tough, though... enough people recommended the stations that I almost sprung for one. But I ended up with the $18CDN jobbie instead. Then $8CDN for the holder-thingy. I had one grey joint, but I had read that it was a sign of a poor soldering job, so I re-heated the area with a super-hot iron, gave the wire a bit of 'tension' to maintain the mechanical connection, and then let it cool off again... after that, it seemed nicer and shinier. Greg

Nope! Since I'm using star grounding, I didn't solder the cap back to the casing of the pot, I just sent it right to star. Is that wrong? The only 'deviation' from your diagram (on page 1 of this thread) that I made was instead of soldering back to the casing, I went directly to ground. I thought I was avoiding ground loops that way or something. Also, I'm fairly certain (almost about to go home now so i can check, but my memory on this is fairly clear) that the capacitor is on the middle lug, as per your diagram. That diagram was my bible, and I usually triple-checked before wiring up. So it goes from middle lug to star. I'm not sure about the other lugs, but I can assume I did ithe tone-to-volume wire correctly because my volume knob works, right? Greg

Awesome!

I don't have any experience, but I was wondering the same thing myself. I would think that they should fit together properly, and if they don't, you should send them back. They're made to exacting specifications, and if they don't fit together properly there might be a manufacturing defect. Even in the neck pocket, it might not be QUITE as tight as a custom-routed pocket, but there shouldn't be a big gap. That's just my thought on the matter, though.... if I buy some parts and assemble them and don't get a snug fit, you can bet there will be some phone conversations. Greg

Hey all, So as some of you know, I've been undertaking a major soldering job. I had good 'mechanical' connections before soldering (tested with the multimeter, more or less 'clamped' each wire into place!) so even if my actual soldering was 'mediocre', I'm convinced that it'll all still hold up. However, I do have a fair bit of confidence in the soldering job. There was no evidence of cold joints, and I made sure to heat up the part and the wire before applying solder, as per all the instructions I've seen, rather than try to "apply" it with the tip of the iron itself. One thing struck me as odd, though-- most instructions I saw said that the solder should never really contact the iron except when you're pre-'tinning' the tip for better conductivity. Beyond that, you apply the solder directly to the joint area that's been heated by the iron. Fair enough... but I could never quite get that area hot enough without fear of frying the capacitors, melting the wire's insulation jacket, or being concerned about damaging the pots. Consequently, I ended up touching the solder to the tip of the iron "just a bit" in order to sort of... get it 'going'... ya know? At that point in time, it was then using the joint's heat for melting and flowing, rather than the tip of the iron. Is it normal to give solder a 'jump start' by touching it to the tip of the iron, or am I STILL doing it wrong? Was I overestimating the amount of heat that was emanating from the pots and further down into the wire? I just don't want to fry a pot or cap by holding the iron there for too long. I know it takes more than a second, so I WAS holding it in place, but the solder wasn't melting without that 'jump start'. Greg