I has a Jaguar (photos & mod details added)

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 7:17 pm

Right, the 1meg pots have don't have thin enough shafts for the roller wheel to fit on, so I just soldered a 1meg resistor between the cap lug of the 50K pot and the cap, making it a 1Meg -> 1.05Meg pot effectively for now until I get a replacement. It works exactly like I wanted and now I have my crisp neck pickup sound I wanted on the rhythm circuit, it's basically exactly the same now with the Lead circuit volume and tone maxed out with the neck pickup only switching to and from the rhythm circuit, awesomness.

The switch dealie I couldn't be arsed to fix because the wiring job on the Jag was done really well (i.e. no excess wire fapping about) so it would have been tricky to turn one of the switches. Also they're all grounded together using a straight wire I'd have had to unsolder and recreate and I just couldn't be rigged. I fixed the rhythm circuit, which was always the main aim.

Then I built a Harmonic Perculator for a guy I'm making a pedal for.

MattK · Post by **MattK** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 9:52 pm

Post by **Mike** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 10:52 pm

I'll probably do the switch flipping tomorrow if I get bored.

Post by **Mike** » Sat Nov 22, 2008 11:51 am

Did the benecol recommended pickup flip modification today. I flipped the orientation of the bridge and neck pickup switches (but kept them in their same positions) so that now down is the ON position. I left the strangle switch as it was as I want the down position for that to be OFF.

This is the stock orientation. Orange = Neck hot, Yellow = bridge Hot. The switches when on connect the pickups to the bare wire which goes to the strangle switch. When the strangle switch is OFF, the bare wire is connected directory to the other lug of the switch (the cap is shorted out) and then sent to the Volume knob. When the strange switch is ON, the signal is connected to the Volume knob via the cap (which cuts the lows passing through it).

After the mod. Since things aren't lined up now I used two pieces of wire to replace the original bare wire. The pickup wires didn't have much play in them, the hardest part was getting the grounding tag back on the bridge switch and screwed in. It was awkward but I got it done.

Now the switches are perfect, at this stage I'm thinking I won't end up installing a Toggle + Plate.

Here is the mod I did to the rhythm circuit to brighten it up. This is the stock rhythm circuit:

The Tone pot and the cap form a low pass filter. The high frequencies are dumped via the cap to ground, the pot controls how much, however 50K is a low resistance compared to the 1meg Volume pot, so even at max tone setting, you're still going to dump a huge bunch of the signal to ground via the cap.

I did this, which makes the two paths more comparable, now the circuit is much brighter and sounds great, I can trim a little of the top of the trebs off if I want with the pot. This will do fine until I ever feel like replacing the Tone pot with another 1meg.

ultraviolence · Post by **ultraviolence** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:01 am

Damn mike, nice jag man, I played the CAR one and it was awesome.

Just out of curiosity did you sell your mustang because you thought of the jag as a better guitar? or for other reasons?

sorry if you already answered this, too lazy to read all these posts

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:06 am

He built a duo-sonic and decided he didn't want two quite similar guitars.

It also probably helped pay for the jag.

ultraviolence · Post by **ultraviolence** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:25 am

Zaphod wrote:He built a duo-sonic and decided he didn't want two quite similar guitars.

It also probably helped pay for the jag.

ahh, I guess that makes sense. The duo must be a damn good guitar, to be chosen over the mustang.

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:28 am

Well yeah playing a guitar you built yourself is always going to win over played a mass produced one.

ultraviolence · Post by **ultraviolence** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:31 am

Zaphod wrote:Well yeah playing a guitar you built yourself is always going to win over played a mass produced one.

depends on how good you are at making things...I wouldn't touch a guitar built by me...Probably get electrocuted or something

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:34 am

Electrocuted by passive electronics? It would certainly be a pretty incredible feat.

ultraviolence · Post by **ultraviolence** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:36 am

wouldn't put it past my electronic skills that kills...literally.

Reece · Post by **Reece** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 5:41 am

We're taking this topic on a collision course here.

Question for you mike, I don't use the rhythm circuit on my jag at all but I don't really need it to have the same sound as the neck on the lead circuit. Other than a kill switch, you got any ideas for what I could do with it?

I could just leave it I suppose but it seems like a waste of electronics otherwise. I might actually make it do the opposite and use a higher pot value in the rhythm circuit than in the lead just to see what sondz I can get. Hmmm.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 8:46 am

Zaphod wrote:We're taking this topic on a collision course here.

Question for you mike, I don't use the rhythm circuit on my jag at all but I don't really need it to have the same sound as the neck on the lead circuit. Other than a kill switch, you got any ideas for what I could do with it?

I could just leave it I suppose but it seems like a waste of electronics otherwise. I might actually make it do the opposite and use a higher pot value in the rhythm circuit than in the lead just to see what sondz I can get. Hmmm.

The switch is a DPDT so it can switch two things at once, so you could do phase flipping of the pickups up there if you wanted. Personally I'm really happy with what I've done to it. I can now have a full volume, full tone sparkly neck sound on the rhythm circuit which I can flip to with one switch from either a bridge or a bridge & neck sound. I generally roll the tone off a little bit on the Lead circuit a little bit. So yeah, I'm happy with it.

And ultraviolence - Zaphod is right on the money, Robert(original) on the board built my Duo-Sonic body for me and I worked on it and finished it off with my Dad, so it has massive sentimental value to me, aswell as being a thunderously great instrument. I love it. It is similar in far too many ways to justify owning it along with the Mustang, which I also loved, but I had to sell it, and it paid for 80% of the Jaguar.

ultraviolence · Post by **ultraviolence** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:25 pm

ahhh, alright good luck with the Jag.

robert(original) · Post by **robert(original)** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:32 pm

you know mike, you should have a job trying out stock guitars, modding them or improving them overal, then send them back and get paid big bucks for it.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:38 pm

robert(original) wrote:you know mike, you should have a job trying out stock guitars, modding them or improving them overal, then send them back and get paid big bucks for it.

Obviously this would be a dream job, but I doubt my idea of what is Good would mesh with other people. After all I can barely play the thing competantly.

robert(original) · Post by **robert(original)** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:39 pm

neither can 90% of the people that want one.

MMPicker · Post by **MMPicker** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:41 pm

Personally I find the rhythm circuit quite useful despite the fact that it has substantial tonal overlap with the neck pickup on the lead circuit since I switched pickups.

The reason is because it has its own volume/ tone controls, so I can pre-set them separately to settings that I find useful for changes within a particular song. When switching mid-song, I find it easier to just flip a switch than to monkey around with the volume and tone knobs. Plus once I've monkeyed around with them, I've now screwed up the settings that were appropriate for when I go back to the first part. So more mid-song monkeying required. The use of the rhythm circuit avoids some of that.

robert(original) · Post by **robert(original)** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:45 pm

mmmpicker, that is the first competent thing you have said in 21 posts.
i completely agree with this statement, i have said time and time again that i wrote at least 2 songs with the jaguar in mind, it has such color when you use it properly.
the rythm section is actually my favorite, it might just be my amp or my lack of hearing capabilities but its my number one, especially after getting to play that 62 jag for a week.

Post by **Mike** » Mon Nov 24, 2008 2:49 pm

MMPicker wrote:Personally I find the rhythm circuit quite useful despite the fact that it has substantial tonal overlap with the neck pickup on the lead circuit since I switched pickups.

The reason is because it has its own volume/ tone controls, so I can pre-set them separately to settings that I find useful for changes within a particular song. When switching mid-song, I find it easier to just flip a switch than to monkey around with the volume and tone knobs. Plus once I've monkeyed around with them, I've now screwed up the settings that were appropriate for when I go back to the first part. So more mid-song monkeying required. The use of the rhythm circuit avoids some of that.

That's exactly why I fixed my Rhythm Circuit - because on my guitar there was no overlap at all between the two circuits. it was incredibly dark all the time. However when I pulled the control plate up I noticed that the middle and cap lugs of the tone control could have been touching, explaining why it was always dark, either way I knew I wanted it to be the same as the Lead circuit in terms of the tonal range - I can still preset it - that's the whole point, I like a max tone neck sound, and a slightly tone rolled Bridge sound. Now I can get them.