Master Guitar FAQ #4 - Other Guitar Electronics.

[Mark Wein]

What pots to use with which pickups, what do the capacitors do?, what else can be onboard a guitar and what shouldn't be?

[Prages]

250k pots with single coils
500k pots with humbuckers
Or play around with them.

Caps simply control the frequencies that get rolled off to ground in the tone circuit.

I like my volume and tone pots to offer some kind of smooth mechnical resistance, ie, I like to feel like I have to put some effort into turning them. They should still turn smoothly, but I don't like them to just spin around freely.

Other than that, I'm not too picky.

[Modern Saint]

250k pots with single coils
500k pots with humbuckers
Or play around with them.

Caps simply control the frequencies that get rolled off to ground in the tone circuit.

I like my volume and tone pots to offer some kind of smooth mechnical resistance, ie, I like to feel like I have to put some effort into turning them. They should still turn smoothly, but I don't like them to just spin around freely.

All of the above plus Switchcraft jacks. On very rare occasions I will use a mini DPDT to split coils as well as the other good stuff.

[Mark Wein]

this is going to be the shortest FAQ thread, I think

[mosiddiqi]

this is going to be the shortest FAQ thread, I think

Yep.

I just like everything to work and sound nice.

Oh, I have a "thing" on the volume control of my Strat that keeps the treble frequencies when I turn it down. I like that.

[tgk03]

How about brand names for pots? Recommended suppliers? Would a wiring kit for a Strat, for instance, bought from an eBay auction be OK?

[John Watt]

Fender being 250k and Gibson being 500k used to be the big difference,
but that's just like a smaller pipe for less water, and a bigger pipe for more.
Any 500k will handle anything 250k,
and the electronic differential is almost unmeasurable, not an audio that humans can hear,
and that's from companies using war surplus electronics to add to their previously just acoustic production.
But that's just pure electronics, not the artistic combinations that create sounds we want to generate, or recreate, with feedback.
After that, you're dealing with an electro-magnetic field you are hopefully focussing over your pickups,
and everything from pickup covers to wiring shielding has incrimental, detrimental, and extra-oriental qualities of phenomena and singularities.
We are now also expecting to sound good when we are digital.

What I explored in terms of electronics became inventing a "ground soak" that has obvious volume and tonal impact, so quiet, widening the feedback potential.
Also, within your pickups' magnetic field, imagine a "node" of self-centering magnetism, the input from less efficient wiring or deleterious specs of a part,
that is carried by your signal until it reaches amplification, becoming an unheard sub-distortion that breaks up your overall feedback output,
or prevents you from sustaining loud, never-ending echo, with other guitar driven effects.
Your sound, through the wires, looks like a small comet, centered along the wiring axis, surrounded by electrons that get eroded around the edge,
frictionalized by the cable, folding back elements of the signal envelope due to wire travel, and all that effects that.
Slowing your signal softens the sound and allows greater signal density, as does modifying your sound, say by phasing, to graduate your signal.
And then you do it all in reverse when it goes through the speaker coils.

While this aspect of my invention is unique, calling it a "ground soak" borrows nomenclature from Peavey.
Peavey invented a "plate" for electronic assimilation in a specific amplifier, and I saw the same parlance of ouput with my ground, hence "ground soak".

[Mark Wein]

How about brand names for pots? Recommended suppliers? Would a wiring kit for a Strat, for instance, bought from an eBay auction be OK?

good question.

[Prages]

How about brand names for pots? Recommended suppliers? Would a wiring kit for a Strat, for instance, bought from an eBay auction be OK?

CTS, Bourns, and Alpha all make pretty decent pots. I think I prefer CTS.

FWIW, a local store carries Ernie Ball branded pots, which appear to just be rebranded CTS.

The only new pots I've ever bought that I've hated were from Stew-Mac. I bought their LP rewiring kit. The pots were junkier than the stuff that came in my ***** from the factory. The switch and jack were nice, but those pots were horrible. I ended up buying 4 of the EB branded CTS pots at the local store.

[Flamencology]

Piezo, MIDI, 13-pin, and USB outputs are also all options that might be worth discussing... but none of them are likely popular enough to generate discussion.

[tgk03]

^^^ Thanks Prages. I almost pulled the trigger on StewMac's kit.

I plan on rewiring a Les Paul copy and a MIM Strat.

I've seen recommendations here for a $100 soldering iron. Is there a recommendation for one that is any cheaper?

[John Watt]

If you want to do a professional job, you need professional tools.
Your Les Paul copy took hundreds of thousands of dollars of assembly line everything to make,
and you'd, what, use a $10 soldering iron that barely tacks things together?
But that's okay, if you're using a cheap guitar cord too.
You won't notice the difference.

I see Flamencology is in a real Godin mood.

[Mark Wein]

Piezo, MIDI, 13-pin, and USB outputs are also all options that might be worth discussing... but none of them are likely popular enough to generate discussion.

I was hoping they'd come up at least a little, though...I'm really a novice when it comes to anything other than a 1/4" output on a guitar

[John Watt]

If you're sticking with 1/4" at least you're keeping it real.

[Prages]

^^^ Thanks Prages. I almost pulled the trigger on StewMac's kit.

I plan on rewiring a Les Paul copy and a MIM Strat.

I've seen recommendations here for a $100 soldering iron. Is there a recommendation for one that is any cheaper?

This is what I have and I can't ever see me needing anything more.

http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WLC100-...4336477&sr=8-1

Telecaster911 posted one when I was in the market that was something like $15 and got great reviews. Let me see if I can dig it up.

[Prages]

Here it is:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=374-100

[tgk03]

If you want to do a professional job, you need professional tools.

Agreed.

Your Les Paul copy took hundreds of thousands of dollars of assembly line everything to make,

But it is still one dingleberry shy of being a complete POS.

and you'd, what, use a $10 soldering iron that barely tacks things together?

I was hoping for a happy medium between $10 and $100. If it doesn't exist, I'll save my coin till I can afford it.

But that's okay, if you're using a cheap guitar cord too.
You won't notice the difference.

I know I'm a noob but I am trying to learn....

[John Watt]

$15? I bet it's not made in America.
Do you want to be a consumer for life, or build?

[Flamencology]

I see Flamencology is in a real Godin mood.

Godin does XLR outputs, as well.

[Johnny N.]

I have absolutely no idea.

[Modern Saint]

Don't forget pots come in two types - Audio Taper and Linear Taper. Audio increases and decreases exponentially so it is more acceptable to our ears as it is a gradual change. Use disc caps for the tone control and not electrolytics or tantalums. The later are polarized and are designed have some type of polarized DC potential on them which is great for Power Supplies.

You can also use shielding in the cavity whether it be lead based paint or copper strips to help reduce unwanted noise. I like using a .01uF cap between ground and the bridge wire. This way I don't get zapped from stray 60 Cycle or DC voltage as well as provides an efficient HF ground path.

[Modern Saint]

Godin does XLR outputs, as well.

They must have a Bal-Un installed or some active electronics to convert from Hi-Z to Lo-Z

[John Watt]

tgk03! I hope my walking offstage attitude about equipment doesn't seem harsh for you,
especially if you're not used to putting it out onstage, and handling audience comments.
On the road, what looks so nice and graphically interesting becomes worn and dirty,
unless you like a ritual of cleaning your guitar, a nice thing to do, killing time in rooms,
or just waiting out a rainy day when you're in a city without your own transportation.
It would be a better world for me if I could boil strings to refresh them like bassists can.

Godin is really pushing their new guitar technology, plugging in to most synthesizers and working.
I don't see any new electronics as generating new sounds that are practical,
unless you are still using music as a weapon, through your own p.a. or a military application,
as the C.I.A. used against the Nicaraguan leader, Daniel Ortega, blasting super loud Metallica for days at his residence.

And as someone who was so caught up in the world of Marshall stacks and effects, after seeing Jimi,
I'm willing to say weird sounds that are moderately acceptable have been found already.
Knowing the world of classical music, all the different "voices", those frequencies generated by wood and metal and gut,
when rock musicians glom onto those, even through left-over home entertainment organs,
then musical complexity, and a new template of rock band might be possible.

What Modern Saint is typing about audio versus linear tapered pots works the same way acoustically onstage,
even if you're thinking about the historic human experience with different sounds and instruments, even symphonies,
what goes deep into our soulful consciousness, just like the rattle of the turtle drum shaker.

[tgk03]

tgk03! I hope my walking offstage attitude about equipment doesn't seem harsh for you,
especially if you're not used to putting it out onstage, and handling audience comments.
On the road, what looks so nice and graphically interesting becomes worn and dirty,
unless you like a ritual of cleaning your guitar, a nice thing to do, killing time in rooms,
or just waiting out a rainy day when you're in a city without your own transportation.
It would be a better world for me if I could boil strings to refresh them like bassists can.

I'm sorry for my knee-jerk reaction. I appreciate your input and enjoy your posts. I've been a sofa noodler for so long and I want to bring it up a notch faster than middle aged coordination and reasoning allows.

[Help!I'maRock!]

oh look, John Watt has a completely reactionary and ethnocentric point of view. shocking.

[Peeker]

oh look, John Watt has a completely reactionary and ethnocentric point of view. shocking.

you mean you understood that?

back to the topic at hand, I'd like to throw this in there.

I will never again buy an instrument with active pick-ups/electronics.
or, perhaps I should say it so:
if I do, they'll be replaced with a passive system.
my "stage" bass has 'em, and they're fine for MUNG gigs, but at home, I have no need, or use, for them whatsoever

[Mark Wein]

I'm about ready to strip the thread of posts that are not on-topic, since this is really supposed to be a USEFUL reference for the forum.

[Tiltsta]

I really like the Gibson style varitone circuit. It is a cheap way to add a lot of different sounds to a guitar. I'm surprised more guitars don't have them, actually. I guess there never was a huge desire to have them, so guitar companies never bothered installing them, but they are a really neat device. They basically are a 6 position rotary switch wired in or out of the circuit on a push pull pot or toggle switch. When in the circuit, the varitone is a series of capacitors that provide various frequency cuts to the output signal, one capacitor value per switch position. This can really sculpt the sound of a guitar in pretty dramatic ways. The positions of the standard Gibson model are shown below, at least these are the values on my blueshawk.

Position 1 : Bypass (no effect)
Position 2 : -5dB at f0=1875 Hz
Position 3 : -6dB at f0=1090 Hz
Position 4 : -7dB at f0=650 Hz
Position 5 : -10dB at f0=350 Hz
Position 6 : -14dB at f0=130 Hz

Next time I rewire a guitar, I am going to add another one of these to the circuit. A couple of builders, aside from Gibson, make these things pre-wired and ready to drop in. I think they run in the range of 45-50 bucks.

The only thing I have found that is more versatile is actually having active pickups with an active pre-amp. With an active pre-amp unit (active meaning it can boost AND cut frequencies, unlike the varitone or capacitor that can only cut signal) I can turn up the treble or bass, turning my EMG equipped guitar from a metal guitar into something that sounds like a tele or a fat jazz box. Combine this with something like a dual mode EMG like the EMG89 (both an 85 humbucker and a SA single coil in the same housing), and put a hollow steinberger body under it and a giant metal trans-trem behind it, and the tele and jazz box claims don't seem so crazy.

[Help!I'maRock!]

I really like the Gibson style varitone circuit. It is a cheap way to add a lot of different sounds to a guitar. I'm surprised more guitars don't have them, actually. I guess there never was a huge desire to have them, so guitar companies never bothered installing them, but they are a really neat device. They basically are a 6 position rotary switch wired in or out of the circuit on a push pull pot or toggle switch. When in the circuit, the varitone is a series of capacitors that provide various frequency cuts to the output signal, one capacitor value per switch position. This can really sculpt the sound of a guitar in pretty dramatic ways. The positions of the standard Gibson model are shown below, at least these are the values on my blueshawk.

Position 1 : Bypass (no effect)
Position 2 : -5dB at f0=1875 Hz
Position 3 : -6dB at f0=1090 Hz
Position 4 : -7dB at f0=650 Hz
Position 5 : -10dB at f0=350 Hz
Position 6 : -14dB at f0=130 Hz

The only thing I have found that is more versatile is actually having active pickups with an active pre-amp. With an active pre-amp unit (active meaning it can boost AND cut frequencies, unlike the varitone or capacitor that can only cut signal) I can turn up the treble or bass, turning my EMG equipped guitar from a metal guitar into something that sounds like a tele or a fat jazz box. Combine this with something like a dual mode EMG like the EMG89 (both an 85 humbucker and a SA single coil in the same housing), and put a hollow steinberger body under it and a giant metal trans-trem behind it, and the tele and jazz box claims don't seem so crazy.

i have a pedal called the Catalinbread Varioboost. the original was a Varitone with depth and volume knobs so that you could keep the level consistent. it's a cool circuit. (later versions were changed to a parametric EQ.)

as for the original premise of the thread, i tend to be a bit more specialized in my approach. for instance, the volume and tone pots on my PRS and Ibanez are push/pull. each pot puts a pickup into parallel operation for a thinner, but still humbucking tone. combined with a 3 way switch, i like the combinations, the thinner sounds, and the silent operation. i go with audio taper pots, but tend to leave the treble bleed mod off. i just don't think it's really necessary in my setup. but i do like the premise of treble bleed caps.

regarding different value pots, it does make a difference. nobody is ever going to want to use a 500k pot on a tele bridge pickup. the treble will shear your eardrums apart. but depending on the humbucker, i would even consider a 1meg pot.

i don't go for cloth wrapped wiring or silver solder, or any of that corksniffer stuff. a clean solder joint is a clean solder joint and none of the expensive metals are going to have a different tone than regular old tin solder. electrons only know that they can pass, not how much you overpaid for something.

[Tiltsta]

i have a pedal called the Catalinbread Varioboost. the original was a Varitone with depth and volume knobs so that you could keep the level consistent. it's a cool circuit. (later versions were changed to a parametric EQ.)

as for the original premise of the thread, i tend to be a bit more specialized in my approach. for instance, the volume and tone pots on my PRS and Ibanez are push/pull. each pot puts a pickup into parallel operation for a thinner, but still humbucking tone. combined with a 3 way switch, i like the combinations, the thinner sounds, and the silent operation. i go with audio taper pots, but tend to leave the treble bleed mod off. i just don't think it's really necessary in my setup. but i do like the premise of treble bleed caps.

regarding different value pots, it does make a difference. nobody is ever going to want to use a 500k pot on a tele bridge pickup. the treble will shear your eardrums apart. but depending on the humbucker, i would even consider a 1meg pot.

i don't go for cloth wrapped wiring or silver solder, or any of that corksniffer stuff. a clean solder joint is a clean solder joint and none of the expensive metals are going to have a different tone than regular old tin solder. electrons only know that they can pass, not how much you overpaid for something.

I agree on the series/parallel wiring idea on humbuckers. I really like this and have added it to a couple of my guitars and set it up to a mini toggle. I also agree on the 'non cork sniffer' choices of materials. I use whatever wire and solder I can find kicking around in my toolbox. Doesn't seem to make a darn bit of difference.

[telecaster911]

I pretty much roll with electronics as is in a guitar. Pots need to have a nice smooth taper and no abrupt turn on point. Pickups need to be articulate and percussive which pretty much means I prefer low power pickups. For replacement parts I use CTS pots and switchcraft jacks.

[John Watt]

Electrons and their activities should not be taken for granted by any electrician, or serious artist.
Electrons are the building block of life on our planet, what makes our brains work, if nothing else.
No-one on earth understands this life-giving, and earth-transcending aspect of our existence.
No-one knows where this energy is created, or where it goes when we die. But we do exist.

Your electric guitar is a live circuit. Mixing variables of electronic values creates a complex magnetic field.
You defragment your computer, why not look at your guitar that way. It is more complicated,
feeding off human input, and human musical input at that, far beyond mans' ability to build a similar "machine".
For me, it's all about the potential, the different sounds, environmental absorptions, of your synapses and guitar pickups,
so you can reach out and blend with everyone's musical heart, and take it from there. That's not an act.
That's being a musician.

[Help!I'maRock!]

Electrons and their activities should not be taken for granted by any electrician, or serious artist.
Electrons are the building block of life on our planet, what makes our brains work, if nothing else.
No-one on earth understands this life-giving, and earth-transcending aspect of our existence.
No-one knows where this energy is created, or where it goes when we die. But we do exist.

Your electric guitar is a live circuit. Mixing variables of electronic values creates a complex magnetic field.
You defragment your computer, why not look at your guitar that way. It is more complicated,
feeding off human input, and human musical input at that, far beyond mans' ability to build a similar "machine".
For me, it's all about the potential, the different sounds, environmental absorptions, of your synapses and guitar pickups,
so you can reach out and blend with everyone's musical heart, and take it from there. That's not an act.
That's being a musician.

please show, with quantifiable data, that a signal passes through standard tin solder more poorly than other forms, and that it can tell what wattage iron the solderer is using.

until then, you're just dancing about architecture.

[Flamencology]

until then, you're just dancing about architecture.

Post #33: In which HIAR grievously insults both dance and architecture in one fell swoop.

[John Watt]

No... no... Flamencology, even if you're right, but no... Help!I'maRock! is right, coming in from the storm.
Architecture is a good build term, and eventually, why I like it onstage, I do get dancing, around it, and all over it.
I did get gigs where I was told nothing before the mike, no whipping with guitar cords, no hitting the cymbals, etc.
But that's my problem here, the dancing of it all.

Different solders, wires, lengths, all create or interfere with optimum magnetic patterns.
So, Help!I'maRock!, I'm not trying to be trippy, dancing over it, thinking in terms of holding a drill in front of a pickup,
to make motorcycle and chainsaw effects, or avoiding vacuuming when your guitar is close, to maintain field strength.
That's how delicate our types of magnetic fields can be.
Look at Tesla, for a historic electronic example, relevant to our commercial supply, what our guitars use.
We're using Teslas' variation, what we now call AC-DC, as a current characteristic, but not his distribution method.
Dr. James Watt used wires to proliferate his electrical generation, and as we all know, we're talking watts now.
If Tesla was followed, we'd be living in an electronic atmosphere, scientifically possible, but...
would you want to live in a world where hydro capacity fills the atmosphere, and individual homes and outdoor appliances
just need to stick an antenna up to catch some juice. That would be medically wrong for our brains, not known back then,
except for maybe to Dr. James Watt, who travelled the world to mitigate the potential damages of the electronic revolution.
That's historic, scientific, but... is it still something that helps you understand electric guitars. It should.
Uh-oh... office hours over.... gotta go!

[Help!I'maRock!]

no quantitative data, whatsoever. thanks.

[Peeker]

someone hold me, I'm ascairt.

[John Watt]

Along with my literate approach, enjoying myself, I supplied irrefutable, quantitative data.
You might not have seen it that way, because I'm expecting you to try for yourself.
I'm hoping you'll find an active electronic, magnetic field, by trying a drill or vacuum cleaner, as described.
You'll never see it, unless you can form a nucleac cloud of magnetic material that will coalesce in the air, revealing a magnetic pattern.
I've never had that opportunity, just spending a lot of time in front of a 100 watt Marshall stack, mostly by myself.
And as easy to hear as the drill and vacuum are, you are degrading your electronics by doing that.

I'd think of the electricity leaving your pickups as water down a drain.
If it's flowing all together, not a combination of soapy, greasy, or hair product water, like having too many electronic values,
then it's obvious the water will flow most efficiently, providing a focus that can be aimed efficiently.
Think of the water circling your drain, now with your finger in it, creating a sub-vortex that is part of the main flow.
Who cares about that, or how different art works, icing for cakes, to animated screen savers, can look good,
because different materials repel each other and make their own patterns.
Electricity is more atmospheric than that. Shuffling your feet on a rug while you're playing to create static electricity,
is as much of a variable source of electricity as different 9-volt batteries.

Musicians say if you can't sing it you can't play it.
Scientists say if you can't describe it, you can't build it.
John Watt, inventor, says people don't care for something they've never seen or heard of before, or tried.

Peeker! If you want to come over, I'll let you look.
If you promise to behave, and not leave lipstick stains, I'll let you sit with my guitar upside-down to try it.
Only maybe by the time you're done it won't feel, uh, upside-down.

Mr. Mark Wein! Yes, I would question the usefulness of my semi-solid-body references.
All along, the guitarists I consulted and talked to said it would be a low percentile invention,
something only 5 to 12% of electric guitarists could understand, hear or feel the difference.
I kept boosting everything in balance as best I could, having a real good time,
getting a lot more than I thought, and invented "accelerated acoustics".
That's so pickup focussed, nothing else matters to me anymore,
getting acoustics through the pickups trumps any new sound effect,
because it makes the whole guitar more playable, plugged in or not.
The unexpected, greater neck feel is the best bonus.

I typed inventor. But at my age and experience, having something new and exciting is a real miracle.
Those acoustics were out there already, waiting, and I certainly didn't create that world, and universe.

[Help!I'maRock!]

you provided nothing, John. you made an assertion and have nothing to back it up. the truth is that nobody can tell the difference between solder types. unless you can prove it, and you can't, you're just talking out of your ass. again. and it's that kind of blind corksniffery that fleeces people of hundreds of dollars buying stuff they don't need.

[John Watt]

I'm not talking about the differences in solder, even though there are. I'm talking about too much soldering, unbalanced soldering design, and the "luxurious" electronics that get soldered into guitars. My bottom line about solder? Take your guitar, cord, effects and amp, and what sounds just as good, gold wires to your speakers soldered with NASA technology, or just twisting the wires together? You're right again! Unless you are just trying to extend a speaker as far as possible, over a hundred feet away, and just measure for volume, you and I won't hear a difference.

tgk03! I'd like to comment on your line about being a middle-aged couch noodler,
thinking that and your middle-aged brain are going to hold you back. I think you're totally wrong.
In the symphonic world, most violinists aren't considered virtuosos until they're sixty or sixty-five years old.
Let me apply that to you.
But first, from a real world, real life, perspective, you're there already.
You have a residence, definitely a couch, and have equipment and are playing already,
and are hot and heavy enough about it to be posting here, and coming across, at least to me.
So you can afford to just be as professional as you want, when it comes to performing.
You don't have a band to be responsible for, and you're not known as a single, acoustic artisit.
So not only can you be anything, but you are financially grounded, and can afford be and do what you want.

And you're not beaten up, physically, by having been a road or full-time player all these years.
Even if your mature self loses it, and you come out of rehab, it's new news that might pump up a career.
You're an unknown quantity, and will be a fresh and new act, in a band or solo.
You haven't been part of a recording act, so you can enter competitions because you don't have a contract.
And with a couch, you might have a garage or basement you can use for band rehearsal,
making you an attractive potential bandmember, even for young and hot to trot players.

What you might be unaware of is the extent you have to exercise and loosen your fingers,
to keep them going past middle age, into the virtuoso vector.
Don't be so self-conscious, definitely don't be shy, unless it's Peeker, just let him see a little.

I recommend getting into the song "This Masquerade".
You can be rootsy with it, gettin' Nawlins wit'it lak Leon Russel, who wrote and first sang it,
or you can elevate yourself with Mr. George Bensons' version, who set a new standard for jazz-funk-pop production,
playing guitar like the genius he is.
jus'riffin'

[Mark Wein]

bump

[El SteveO]

Tone Fiend blog by Joe Gore has some interesting DIY articles on guitar mods and building your own pedals.
http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/

Here’s links to 2 mods that really impressed me:

This one combines a standard treble-bleed tone knob with a bass-cut control to modify your tone & clean up your sound.
Two-Band “PTB” Tone Control: Useful, Easy, Cheap & AWESOME!
http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefie...cheap-awesome/



The following is the mod using pickup mounting ring switches to add multiple combination possibilities (split coil, parallel, series, etc.).
An INSANELY Versatile Les Paul
http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefie...tile-les-paul/


When my schedule mellows a bit I will do one of these. Still debating. It not a matter of soldiering skills, its just that modifying my Paul is like modifying one of my kids or the dog.

Husband: Where's the dog?
Wife: He's at the vet getting fixed.
Husband: I didn't know he was broken...

ba-dum-tish!