I has a Jaguar (photos & mod details added)

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:27 am

It's the way forward, and a three way win: keep the nice aesthetics, no more clumsy turn-offs, and you keep your killswitchability.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:29 am

Kill switching can still be done on the Rhythm Circuit in the event I lost my fucking mind and thought I could pull off that behaviour.

I was going to flip the whole plate but I don't want to knock the strangle switch into the "on" position with my Spazzies so I think I'll unscrew and flip the two pickup selector switches only.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:38 am

Do this. It is right.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:43 am

I will still get a toggle on there by the way. doing the two finger flip to switch from bridge to neck is not cool.

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:40 am

... hence the rhythm circuit. But I take your point.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 11:45 am

Fuck the Rhythm Circuit.

Well, actually not after tonight anyway, since I'm replacing that fucking stupid 50K (WTF?) tone pot with a 1Meg. It will give me the ability to switch to a full treble neck pickup, since I roll off a little bit of the top end on the Lead Circuit. The neck and bridge together on the Lead circuit sound fucking amazing, even with Crunchy Overdrive - really full and defined. I likes.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:11 pm

Does the CP hum cancel with both pups on?

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:16 pm

Yep. Every well designed guitar should after all.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:20 pm

Awesome.

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:57 pm

Hahaha, it's a 50k pot in the rhythm circuit?

I didn't know it was that low.

MMPicker · Post by **MMPicker** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:15 pm

In my case, no modification of the standard switches would have been satisfactory, so long as the pickups stayed controlled individually using separate switches.

I was not willing to get used to having to flick two separate switches, certain ways, to execute what should be a near-automatic, thoughtless act of switching from bridge pickup to neck pickup. I fumbled through it for a few days and was not happy.

The last straw was when I inadvertently shut myself off, several times, when fumbling through lead circuit switch selection. Not by accidentally hitting the switches while strumming, but by not remembering, fast enough, which way the stupid switches had to go to get the results I was after. Too much thought required for this feable, tired mind.

I've had 3-way toggles on my guitars for many years, and I saw no advantage to the Jaguar's scheme over these that would make me want to retain & master it, quite the reverse. And I don't think it looks that bad with the toggle either, certainly not enough to go back to the original scheme. No regrets.

I've never had a kill switch on a guitar, so its appeal is not terribly apparent . To me, indavertent shut-off seemed a lot more likely than intentional shut-off. As was suggested, a lot of what other people seem to use kill switches for can be done by switching from the lead circuit to the rhythm circuit. If I wanted to do those particular things in the first place.

BTW, my rhythm circuit is hugely less basss-heavy, and quite usable now, since I switched to significantly less hot pickups. But the guitar does not sound the same as before overall, either. If you're really liking the sound as is, your plan to just monkey with the rhythm circuit pot values is probably best.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:16 pm

Zaphod wrote:Hahaha, it's a 50k pot in the rhythm circuit?

I didn't know it was that low.

Apparently it's that way with the AVRIs also.

Retarded.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:17 pm

MMPicker wrote:In my case, no modification of the standard switches would have been satisfactory, so long as the pickups stayed controlled individually using separate switches.

I was not willing to get used to having to flick two separate switches, certain ways, to execute what should be a near-automatic, thoughtless act of switching from bridge pickup to neck pickup. I fumbled through it for a few days and was not happy.

The last straw was when I inadvertently shut myself off, several times, when fumbling through lead circuit switch selection.

I've had 3-way toggles on my guitars for many years, and I saw no advantage to the Jaguar's scheme over these that would make me want to retain & master it, quite the reverse. And I don't think it looks that bad with the toggle either, certainly not enough to go back to the original scheme. No regrets.

I've never had a kill switch on a guitar, so its appeal is not terribly apparent . To me, indavertent shut-off seemed a lot more likely than intentional shut-off. As was suggested, a lot of what other people seem to use kill switches for can be done by switching from the lead circuit to the rhythm circuit. If I wanted to do those particular things in the first place.

BTW, my rhythm circuit is hugely less basss-heavy, and quite usable now, since I switched to significantly less hot pickups. But the guitar does not sound the same as before overall, either. If you're really liking the sound as is, your plan to just monkey with the rhythm circuit pot values is probably best.

The Lead Circuit is perfect, I don't want to change that at all, so I'll fix the Rhythm Circuit.

MMPicker · Post by **MMPicker** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:31 pm

Mike wrote:
Zaphod wrote:Hahaha, it's a 50k pot in the rhythm circuit?

I didn't know it was that low.
Apparently it's that way with the AVRIs also.

Retarded.

I wouldn't say it's retarded, it's just not that usable for the type of music you want to make.
For classic jazz, that kind of tone is desired, even preferred. Listen to the old jazz guys, and they all sound as if the treble knobs were removed from their amps.

The Jaguar was originally conceived as a better Jazzer, an upgrade over the Jazzmaster for this purpose. In that function, the rhythm circuit might work fine. And the AVRI is intended to be relatively faithful to the original design, so no surprise, to me, that these specs would be retained on that model.

The real question is why it was retained on the Classic Player, which is "allowed" to diverge from original specs more.
Maybe nobody makes the same size rollers with other pot values. Or they didn't want to bother getting different ones. Or they wanted to still appeal to some jazzers? Don't know.

But having the rhythm circuit set that way means it does not overlap much with the sounds you get from the neck pickup on the lead circuit. Which means that the total range of tones you can get out of the guitar, somehow, are increased.
You just do not happen to prefer those extra tones, vs. other tones you'd rather have readily available via the rhythm circuit.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:32 pm

MMPicker wrote:
Mike wrote:
Zaphod wrote:Hahaha, it's a 50k pot in the rhythm circuit?

I didn't know it was that low.
Apparently it's that way with the AVRIs also.

Retarded.
I wouldn't say it's retarded, it's just not that usable for the type of music you want to make.
For classic jazz, that kind of tone is desired, even preferred. Listen to the old jazz guys, and they all sound as if the treble knobs were remove from their amps.

The tone is far too muddy with the tone on full and it makes zero difference when you roll it off. It is retarded.

Baaan012 · Post by **Baaan012** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:37 pm

Do you possibly think you could make a sound clip or a vid showing me the difference of your rhythm circuit 5k vs 1meg?

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:40 pm

The 50K version is in my original Classic Player demo. I'll make another after I have made the change:
[youtube][/youtube]

If I can be bothered I'll make one where I slice a clip from this video and the post-mod video so they're back to back for easy comparison.

MMPicker · Post by **MMPicker** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:48 pm

It would be interesting if someone could compare the AVRI and Classic Player back to back.
My theory is that the CP rhythm circuit is even more bass-heavy than the AVRI, due to some effect of the significantly hotter pickups on the tone.

It certainly was pretty darned dark before I switched pickups, no argument here. I wouldn't have been able to use it much that way. I did think that I might have used it if I was a jazzer though.

As for the roll-off: it may be that those roller pots are just not very good. They don't provide a full range of variation even now, on either the tone or volume controls. Maybe different pot values would change that though, I don't know.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:58 pm

MMPicker wrote:It would be interesting if someone could compare the AVRI and Classic Player back to back.
My theory is that the CP rhythm circuit is even more bass-heavy than the AVRI, due to some effect of the significantly hotter pickups on the tone.

It certainly was pretty darned dark before I switched pickups, no argument here. I wouldn't have been able to use it much that way. I did think that I might have used it if I was a jazzer though.

As for the roll-off: it may be that those roller pots are just not very good. They don't provide a full range of variation even now, on either the tone or volume controls. Maybe different pot values would change that though, I don't know.

You realise the roller pot isn't necessarily a special pot, it's just a pot on it's side with a roller wheel on it. It could have a crap (Linear) taper, but the Roller aspect of it is neither here nor there.

MMPicker · Post by **MMPicker** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 3:04 pm

ok then a crap (linear) taper, if you like.
I'm just meant to say they don't seem to work that well, not so much diagnosing the cause, which I frankly don't know.