Howdy all… thought I'd share my latest project despite it having nothing to do with short scales… it's basically a Strat that I jammed full of all the same electronics found in Garcia's Irwin-built Rosebud guitar. It features an onboard effects loop, preamp buffer, and a threesome of Dimarzio humbuckers with coil tap switches and an effects bypass toggle. Of course I can't try it out plugged in as I still need to make the junction box and get a stereo cable… I'll keep you posted if anyone's interested. Cheers, JG
DGNR8 wrote:Jesus christ. That's got three hamburgers on it. Is there a setting that uses all six coils at once? Onboard loop very compelling.
No, no setting for all three pickups on. I don't know if I could jam another toggle switch in the cavity to facilitate it!
Yeah, i'm excited to try the effects loop out… basically it sends a constant signal to the effects loop so that even if you turn the guitar volume down or change the tone control, your pedals are still being sent a constant signal. Then when you set an effect to a preferred setting, you can use your volume and tone knobs without it changing the sound of the effect. It's particularly good with touch/volume sensitive effects like envelope filters… one of the toggles can bypass the effects loop entirely and sends a direct signal to the amp. The preamp changes the impedance of the signal so basically you could run 100' of cable between your amp and guitar and not lose any signal (in theory). The downside to all this is that in addition to the guitar, a junction box is needed if you want to easily use the amp/effects setup with another guitar. I mounted the preamp in the term cavity where it lives with a 9volt battery. I replaced the stock trem block with a brass one from GFS and then blocked the trem with as large a piece of wood as would fit thinking that it may take on some more "hardtail" sound qualities… it does seem to have amazing sustain unplugged but who knows, sometimes the ears what they want to hear.
If anyone is interested, here's the link to the schematic for the guitar. Info about the preamp can be found there too. Wald Electronics and Wiring Schematics
The guitar is up at running, at least well enough for a test drive… this is just the guitar with the preamp buffer, not the effects loop. I think it's wired up correctly so far, time will tell how the OBEL works once the box is finished. It took a few hours to get the controls down… it's a little unusual in that the middle knob controls the middle pickup tone and the neck and bridge share the other. The first of the three toggles coil splits the middle pickup, where as the middle toggle splits both the neck and bridge. I'm not exactly sure what this accomplishes (if anything) but it does make for a nice middle pickup tone to my ears. It's definitely a hot guitar signal wise. I'll get some other videos up once the rest of it comes together… cheers.
Sounds pretty good, but somehow I get the feeling it doesn't sustain as much as the original, but it's kind of hard to tell because it's not the best recording.
Maybe it would have been better in an Aria Pro II Thor Sound or something like that.
Also, although I'm not sure if it would help the sustain all that much, but it would be kind of cool if it had the final brass bridge and tailpiece of the Alligator. Although obviously if you do that you'll never be able to sell it to a non-deadhead. But that might as well be the case as it is now.
The junction box is coming together… just doing the final clear coats on the housing before attempting painting the outside. I painted in the inside for practice more than anything… not sure why I signed and serial numbered it… as I'm only planning on making two of these (it seemed like the pretentious pedal builder thing to do… they'll be worth a fortune now ).I think I'm going to make one for my backup rig too… I have to say, this pedal building thing is pretty fun… I might like to try and build a pedal with actual electronics inside.
Hey folks… I'm stuck on the last bit of the junction box labeling/toggle orientation. The box itself came out kinda cool for a first pedal attempt… it's certainly not pro but good enough to get the job done in style.
So when looking at the box schematic, I assumed (and yes, I know what that means... ) that the box view was looking at it from the back with the box bottom off. So that when flipped over and all hooked up, the OBEL jacks would be on the bottom right of the pedal. So then there's the issue of the numbers on the bottom of the toggle not corresponding with the numbers or orientation of the toggle as picture, which says it's a back view. Do I follow the numbers or what? Before I paint the toggle positions I want to make sure that UP & Down are what they say they are… and I would like to have the toggle go up and down, not the left and right… This stuff confuses the heck out of me even though I know it's relatively simple electronics. Thanks!!!
I think you have a different brand of switch, so it's not numbered the same. Simply find out the switch axis using a multimeter. One one side the lugs on that side will connect with middle ones in one position, and in the other position the middle is connected with the lugs on the other side of the axis. Once you know the axis, connect per diagram (visually, not numbers).
You can position the toggle switch however you want when you put it in the case, it doesn't matter (as long as it fits), just connect it like in the diagram and turn it when putting in the case if you need to.
