GregP

*bump* in case anyone is wading through the hackiness.

It's a good price. I like the literature-- "enough power to kill chupacabras and evil payasos". <chuckles>

So, I looked on the net and got some guages so that I can make a "custom" set of strings for my lap steel project, using the C6 tuning. I found a site that sells sets with this spec: G = .012 E = .014 C = .017 A = .020 plain G = .026 wound E = .030 wound Now, I'm assuming that the two "E" strings are an octave apart. But a .030 on a low E? Wouldn't that be extra flop-tacular? Or if they're NOT an octave apart, wouldn't that be uber-tight? My lap steel is obviously going to be a different scale length than a pedal steel, but these were listed as "non-pedal" strings, so I assumed for short-ish scales as well. It didn't specify scale length. Can anyone give me insight into lap steel string guages? Particularly for the C6 tuning, which is where I'm going to spend most of my beginning steps with the instrument. Greg

I'm doing a really basic little project... essentially a hot-rodded and personalized version of Koch's lap steel "plank". Most of it has been done for days, but I just got around to the electronics today. I felt like I had routed a plenty-large passage for the electronics. Then I thought that with one exception, I had made enough room for the electronics in the other areas. Not a chance. And the worst part was that I broke one of the "cardinal rule" and hoped for a miracle while jamming. That was entirely stupid and I broke off 2 of the little "tabs" from my 3-way switch. Now I need to either use the still-visible contacts (not the remainder of the snapped off part, but the contacts you can see on the underside of the switch itself... I'd need to take a photo to show what I mean). Just another thing to add to my huge list of seemingly small setbacks that added up into reminding me why I respect the talented/intelligent builders around here. A bit more intelligence and I would've realized that it makes no difference whatsoever if my control cavities are larger in certain places (SOME of the size limitations are due to the placement of the controls, but the thin (not "too" thin... the wires get through...) wiring channel should've been twice as wide and a bit deeper. My entire life would've been easier. Tomorrow, I get to de-solder, decide whether or not to buy another switch, and solder'er up. Sounds like a 1-hour job, right? No way. I know myself and the way things go by now. This supposedly small project (the wiring) will take the entire afternoon, which I won't even be at liberty to use because my girlfriend will want some of my time, as will my dog... and possibly other people on the planet calling to nag and interrupt. <grumbles> I'm sure I'll see the humour of it later, and I can ALREADY see the valuable lesson learned, so not a total waste. But I'm sure grumpy now!

It does whatever you assign it to do. Is he recommending them because you want coil-cutting options? If you're just going to use them as full-size humbuckers, you don't need them. Also, even if you want coil-cutting, you might be better off using a custom wiring scheme and a 4-pole, 5-position "superswitch". That's the option I personally prefer. Greg

Totally agree with the stacked pots idea. Wish I had thought of it myself-- it's perfect!

Mounting them "in the wood" requires a back rout rather than a top one, that's all. Like a Les Paul- (and many many others-) style control cavity on the back. Regarding the "hole to fill", nothings saying you can't just leave it empty and shape the cover (whatever it turns out to be!) appropriately!

I have a few minor "concerns," but keep in mind that I'm a complete amateur numpty despite (or because of-- indicating where my time is actually spent) my post count. 1. The pickguard/electronics cover. I'm glad you're not 100% decided on this yet, because in the mockup it looks odd. I know you want to be mainly tele-style, but I think that a double-sized metal plate is going to look strange. I'd suggest either making a custom pickguard that extends down (rather than 2 separate ones), or mount at least some of the controls on a "bare wood" area, like the Yamaha 302S: Now, I'm not saying "exactly" like this, but split up the duties from pickguard to 'bare wood' somehow, or that panel is going to look like a beast, IMO. 2. Forget the on-board FX, or if you DO get something, get something other than distortion. Distortion is such a personal and heavily-tweaked thing that I can't imagine you'll be pleased with it. In general, it's only a matter of time before either you're displeased with the FX, you replace it with a "better" stompbox, or it craps out. 3. If you want the Les Paul style 2-vol, 2-tone, I personally (and admittedly, conservatively and boringly!) think it's look better in a typical "diamond-shape" configuration rather than all lined up straight like that. Combine staggered knobs with my point #1 (some bare wood mounting) and I think the controls will look a lot more organic and less like an afterthought. 4. In conjunction with my point #2, since you wouldn't then need the battery deal, I prefer "side" output jacks rather than front ones. Front ones look wonky IMO, though there are certainly exceptions. ---- What I liked: - Neck humbucker on Tele = sweeeeeetness. - Mustang-style pickup switches aren't my thing, but they looked fine on your mockup! ---- PS, I've only seen Sons of Butcher once, but it was teh funnay. Greg

Downloaded it, haven't had the time to watch it yet. Cheers for the link, though!! I get a kick out of how he says, "Mr. Marshall, my dad." Greg

The hunk with preliminary electronics 'channels' routed into it. (the other piece is cherry) Greg

The reviews on Harmony Central should just be banned. They're no longer a legitimate source. Which doesn't mean that some of them aren't true, just that they're now useless. Once upon a time, you could count on HC reviewers to be honest and intelligent, but now... forget it. You're probably right that there's a flux of quality from day-to-day, though. Greg

Mickguard-- I'm with ya, man. If the intonation is completely screwed and/or the nut is cut like crap, I DO notice. But as long as the "normal" nut is cut properly and the bridge is compensated, I'm cool with that. rhoads-- what tgm said. I think the comparison was being drawn with the typical factory nut, not a nut made by someone with any degree of competence. Hoser Rob-- interesting stuff, the whole physics of it. I can't imagine restricting myself to one key. redwhite-- as mentioned, fanned frets are to accomodate 6 (on a 6-string) different scale lengths on the same guitar; or what's more honest, *2* scale lengths (at the high E and low E) with all points in between. Some people don't like the feel of "normal" scale lengths in the lower strings... too floppy for riffing, especially with dropped tuning. But on the other hand they don't like a longer scale length adding tension to their upper strings where they do a lot of soloing! Additionally, if we spread our fingers, they "fan" out, so the contention is that a fanned fret system is ultimately more ergonomic as well. Kiwi-- neat anecdote, illustrating how our brains can so easily adapt. I bet there are people out there for whom it would seem WORSE with each passing moment, but I suspect I'd be the same as you and "get used to it." GF-- while not necessarily adjustable, there ARE roller nuts out there, and they don't seem to negatively affect tone. Some people might argue that the metal-on-metal is more in line with the tone of notes being fretted and therefore desirable. As for potential loss of sustain with moving parts, it's hard to say. The whole TOM + Stop tailpiece is really terrible from an engineering standpoint, with "loose" and flimsy parts galore. Yet, TOM-equipped guitars manage to sustain. So, I don't personally see it as being too much of an issue. Greg

The nice thing about Mahogany is that because it's relatively soft (compared to Maple, for example), the router bits seems to go through it without issues. It's the hand tools that I found problematic. Cool tips, those. If I work with mahogany again, I'll refer back to this thread! It might also just be this particular piece or species (which I haven't checked into yet), because at times it feels and works almost like a thick hunk of balsa.

The physics aren't tricky, unless you're talking about the raw calculations... here's the "need-to-know" though: The 12th fret is the halfway point, physically, of your string. Which means that at the 12th fret, you should in theory (purely) be exactly one octave higher than your string as an open string. However, when you fret a note (thereby pressing physically down on the string) you will pull it sharp. The elasticity of each string is slightly different, and the B string tends to pull sharp more easily than the other strings, for reasons that aren't all that interesting. The other strings also pull sharp, but the actual amount they go sharp varies from string to string, and even between manufacturers to a very small degree. To "compensate" for this pulling sharp, you compare your fretted note at the 12th fret (ie., it's pulled sharp) with the harmonic note at the 12th fret. When they're the same, your bridge is compensating for the amount pulled sharp. The PROBLEM is that the closer you get to the nut when fretting, the more easily you pull the string sharp, expecially with a nut that's not cut very well and with strings sitting too high. This is because the tension of pulling sharp isn't evenly distributed anymore. To make up for this, people realized that if you compensate at the NUT as well as at the bridge, you will be able to have a more consistent average compensation, though of course it STILL won't achieve perfection. Greg

My ear is DEFINITELY capable of hearing the typical "out of tune-ness" of typical nuts and typical setups. Compensation isn't about perfection but rather about improvement. There's no way the guitar, due to its physics, can EVER be "perfectly" intonated (and indeed, even a Piano which CAN be, is tempered to make it pleasing to the ear), but that's a different issue. Some people are obsessed, but others simply want to make an improvement to their guitars that's easily and instantly audible to a great many people. Greg

Having the strings aligned exactly over the polepieces isn't as important as people might think. Lots of guitars for years and years were fine without F-spaced pickups. Now, if you didn't get what you paid for, that's another story. Greg

Sorry, George! I'm not offended at all if a moderator deletes the unrelated posts. ;-) In the meantime, while waiting for them to be cleaned up, let it be said that I maintain despite my admittedly "poor" example that the similarities are shocking in the silhouette, because the REST of the guitar is so obviously different. The rest of the debate has gone to friendly (not angry!) PM. Good luck George! Greg

In any event, I suspect I'll get no peace, so I did what Setch suggested, and my findings were exactly what I expected. Some very subtle differences WERE present when comparing the two photos I could find. Without access to 2 official "absolutely straight-on" shots or schematics, this isn't very scientific, but here's a blend of the two. The PRS is a bit more oblong in the lower bout featuring the electronics cavity-- but as I was getting at, it's the carve of the cutaway in the PRS that makes it "look" different, because our eye follows the shiny line of the carve and not the actual silhouette. There's also a very slight difference in angle coming out of the "waist". It's enough that I'm willing to concede that I'm ALSO guilty of overstatement: it's clearly not "identical" after all. But "a blind man in a dark cellar"? The differences are subtle, and it's the human brain's capacity for interpretation of detail (primarily, in this case, the carves and hardware) that allow us to so easily differentiate. It's not the silhouette. In any event, here's the blended shot... dunno if it makes any sense to anyone else-- it's easy for me to see what's going on because I have the "opacity" fader that I can fade in and out... without realtime control over the fader, it might just look like a mess: The Les Paul's binding is peeking through the transparent PRS at the bottom right, and the PRS is not about 0.5 cm less deep at the waist on the left there. The cutaway horn is actually fairly identical even though that's where most people will have the illusion of seeing the difference. In the right side of the waist, don't let the jaggies from extracting the photo throw you off... the edge of the jaggies is NOT the edge of the PRS. And again, reminding that it's not all completely perfect or scientific. In summary: "absolutely identical" -- nope but it IS a huge overstatement of the case to say that they're completely different. They're at least "almost" identical. Like identical (appearance-wise) twins who you can still tell apart because of our brain's sophisticated ability to separate differences. Present the kind of twins that are physically identical to one-another to new friends, and it'll be a while before they can tell the difference. But once you're around them for a bit, it'll become obvious. This is the same. Present the sihouette (which is what we're talking about-- the rest is a dead giveaway) twins to someone not "friends" with them (a non-guitar-person) and they won't know the difference. Give them a few years of intimate familiarity (in some of our cases, a lifetime of familarity with the LP) and they'll spot the difference. That kind of subtle difference doesn't warrant the "blind man" OR the "completely different" comments. George-- the KTS stuff looks interesting! I don't know if I'd buy TOOoo heavily into their "vibration" and "hexagonal crystalline structure" arguments, but the part looks to be -quality-, which is important enough, scientific justification aside.

The LP is also much thicker, in terms of the body and the neck. Which is something not visible in the sillhouette view. The heel of the neck is very different, also not identifiable with silhouette. That's all I'm saying. It's NOT as clear a difference as a Telecaster and and LP, or an Axis and a Telecaster. They're far more similar to one another than any other singlecuts that I could name. Even a Yamaha Pacifica "tele" (302S) and a Fender "tele" have more differences between them in terms of just the body. Greg

I AM basing my opinion on seeing them overlayed in a graphics package. When the whole lawsuit came up, somebody did just that, and discovered that they were identical. I'm willing to be convinced that I'm wrong, but I don't have the patience to go ahead and do it myself. Perhaps a search on the internet or even on this forum would reveal said pic. Heck, Setch, you're well-known as a DC guy... you're aware at how staggeringly similar even the "modern" (ie. not the original Santana) PRS is to an LP DC, right? The offset certainly tells us that they are different beasts, but in an overlay like the one you describe, you shake your head and go, "damn, I never woulda guessed how close they still are." That's the case with the Singlecut, too. The small things (headstock type, very different carve, different bridge, different control placement) give us the illusion that the pure black sillhouette must be quite different, too. But they're not. At least, not in my memory which I'll admit to not placing absolutely 100% faith in. Even if I turn out to be wrong, "completely different" is the overstatement of the day. Regarding compensated tuning-- details aside, it comes down to the fact that if you're closer to the nut, particularly if your nut slots are cut too high, you will pull your string sharp. Because the varying guages aren't absolutely identical in terms of distributing string tension, the B string in particular is easier to pull sharp, even compared to, say, the D string fretted at the same fret. Since the fretted notes aren't being pulled sharp evenly, and especially in contrast to open strings that aren't sharp at all, tuning on a guitar is pretty much a compromise. A carefully-cut "normal" nut or a zero fret should both intonate pretty well unless you like your action really high, so those are two options without going for a compensated nut. The pre-cut Earvana-type nuts still operate under the same principles as other compensated nuts like the Buzz Feitin, but the quality and price difference comes down to: Earvana: We're going to adjust the "common" problems with an average compensation that should work relatively well for most guitars and a variety of guages. A bit of compensation on the B string, even if not scientifically measured, will still be better than no compensation! Feitin: Tell us exactly your string guage, scale length, and work with our technician so that he can see if you're a heavy- or light-handed fretter. Based on these criteria, we'll come up with a precise compensation that should meet your needs. Plus, we'll show you how to use a tempered tuning to maximize your experience, rather than just using a mathmatically-"perfect" tuning. Now, the way I've ennumerated what Feitin does shouldn't (I hope) imply that it's magic. People on this board who make their own compensated nuts do so in much the same way. They know from experience and from dealing with their clients (or selves, for self-builds) how the guages differ and how playing style affects compensation, PLUS they know to go bit-by-bit until the right compensation is reached. It's doable (though not by me, I'll say!). As stated earlier, though, a properly-cut "normal" nut or a zero fret might be enough of a compromise that compensation won't seem like a big requirement anymore anyhow. Greg

I couldn't tell you. It's for a lap steel that's really nothing more than a plank, so I just went into the Wood Source, and asked for some basswood. They replied that they didn't have any in the size I wanted, so I grumbled and inspected the mahogany stock. I believe it's Honduran, but I wouldn't bet my firstborn on it. I could find out. This particular example of the species wasn't chippy until I tried to do any sort of chisel work with it. Then it became a friggin' nightmare. I'll happily send you a cube of it so that you can verify its species. Greg

Awesome.

Bonjour!

Sounds good! The actual sillhouette of the singlecut is identical to the LP, but its carved treble cutaway gives it a much more elegant appearance, IMO. Where do you source your KTS parts? I'd be curious to have a peek to see what they offer. As for the Buzz Feiten thing, you can still make your own compensated nut, which if done right can be in the same league of effectiveness. He's not the first person to do a compensated nut, he's just the first person who took the time to work out thousands of calculations based on string guage, etc. It's his math that's "important", but compensating your own nut will still give you similar results. Greg

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