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Onboard anything suggestions


komodo

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All- I'm building a strat for home playing and recording only. I've got a custom wound set of singles, and am wiring with three mini switches instead of the blade. My middle pup is stock and not RWRP.

I've got a place for a battery box, and room for onboard electronics. I also don't need the traditional third knob. Electronics are not my strong point, and am fishing for ideas on something either useful or cool. With direct recording being a main goal, I'm wondering about on board buffers, XLR connect, preamps . . .or maybe some kind of cool on board effects, not just a chorus, but something I couldn't do with regular effects?

I realize this is broad, just have fun with it. Don't worry about wrecking a rare Fender, it's not. Anything goes here.

 

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Totally. He's in my top three and I've studied that guitar. I almost bought some original Adesons for another build. Really I'm thinking out loud here and it may need nothing really. Just thought I could fo something that may help the tone or recording somehow.

 

im thinking active buffer or something insane like this: Insane!

 

Edited by komodo
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The new ones? I was looking at all of the botique winders, and realized there are plenty doing the same thing without the hype and price. After searching carefully I picked a guy on Ebay whi had a good track record. I'm doing a sort of Gilmour like set with Alnico 5. Neck around 6.2k mid around 6.5k and the bridge up at 11k, similar to the SSL5. All north poles, and a kind of semi stagger, not flat, but not full vintage. Those strat staggers were made for wound G strings.

The higher values on tbe pups should give me a slightly darker, less brittle tone. And I've heard A/B of middle pup RWRP vs all the same, and the latter was noticable nicer IMO. Just no humbuck option in 2 and 4 now. But, with three minis I can do neck + bridge, all off, all on, or even kill switch. Oh, neck and mid are 42awg and bridge is 43awg scatterwound.

Edited by komodo
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I would keep it simple on the guitar itself there's too much room for effects on the floor to try and cram them onboard.

 

My suggestion would be a eq or simple preamp/buffer.  Although I have always thought a hidden wireless would be cool for a stage rig

 

The setup for my strat is

Volume/tone/bass cut with a push pull for the bridge all passive.  I have been thinking about swapinf he bridge switch for a phase for the middle pickup.

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So after looking at a million things, and my main goals are recording, something useful and fun - I think I'm going to do a Graph Tech Hexpander MIDI and/or the acousti-phonic systems. Then I can get a decent acoustic and do weird stuff with MIDI. It'll take me 15 years to do it, since I need to finish two three other builds, save money and find time.

While I was looking for demos on YouTube I discovered Jack Thammarat. Check him out if you get a chance. Wow. 

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Okay, that sounds more useful. Have you seen how the Rickenbacker "Rick-O-Sound" circuit works? Two output jacks, one for "normal" operation and one stereo which outputs each pickup individually for bi-amping or some other signal chain fun. For studio work you don't have to worry about having to use wireless (fewer conversion processes, the better) plus having several options for output mean you can re-amp a performance with different pickup combinations. Being able to record a piezo separate to mags, or even different mags to each other is invaluable and opens up all kinds of fun. Not entirely sure how you would do this with three pickups though. Probably some kind of multi-pole connector?

If you were so inclined, having an A/D converter circuit onboard could theoretically send several channels of high-resolution audio simultaneously through a USB 2.0 cable however I've forgotten why you might want to do this. It seems a bit redundant when you could simply have a bank of analogue jacks. At the most here for a multiple-output system, you'd want to buffer the signals to lower impedance and noise performance.

I guess depends on how you record and how dedicated you want the design to be. You could go mad on this really, but it's genuinely best to refine the design based on the expected end use.

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Yeah, I'm reading and rereading the Ghost system manuals to wrap my head around it. I love the idea of MIDI capability and of a good piezo acoustic almost equally. I'd love to keep this complex system as simple as possible, so I will likely not install all of the extra switches and volumes. I'm not sure I would need a buffer in this, the acoustic system is active, and the Hexpander takes power from the MIDI. I'm just not versed well enough in electronics! I'm also wondering if you could completely bypass either system for the cleanest passive system? I think this might be doable with my body . .  .

I've got a Strat body from Ebay that has a regular 1/4" jack, a 5/8" hole on the side under that regular jack, just like how a Les Paul has. It also has a large rectangular area on the end that the body was shaped around that looks like a MIDI port or some kind of battery box opening. Also, the under pickguard route is a boat which I usually don't like, but here I have mega-options.

Check it out.

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A passive system is rarely clean! Purists like to say that active somehow sterilises a passive signal, but that's sort of looking at things the wrong way around. Like bad focus being so common that when clear optics are used the clarity and detail are just....unnatural. Know what I mean?

You can modify a dual gang pot and swap wafers around so you have a low value (10k-50k) and a high one (250k-1M) controlled by one knob. Basically have an active and a passive circuit running in parallel. I've been working on Aria Pro II SB-1000s for a few years now, and the '80-'87 model had this kind of thing. PITA because the loom is a ratnest and parts have to be custom made, but hey.

Personally, I think active is cleaner and kinder on the pickups. It removes cable capacitance treble bleed and with a bit of thought can be given a ground lift for hum killing.

Nice catch on the body! That's a good price for the basis of a project. Any idea what wood that is other than "solid" wood?

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I know exactly what you mean! l've got a very nice sound system in my truck, and find I listen to stuff that's well recored rather than what I actually want to listen to. You can hear all of the seams in everything. My wife was just this evening talking about seeing a 4k tv that she didn't love because it was too sharp. I made sure to quickly let her know it was probably just an over sharpened setting to make sure there was one in our future. Ha.

No idea on the wood, but my guess is poplar, alder, basswood. I've looked at a lot of sunburst strat bodies recently, and there is a distinct difference in the cheap sunbursts vs the Fender. This one actually looks like a Fender burst. Besides the three piece glueup with the darker one on the top, and some knicks, etc it's pretty decent. WHAT the square hole and bottom hole is IDK. The bottom is 5/8 which very well may be a MIDI, and the square some kind of battery box. But who was manufacturing that? I've searched and can't find anything like it.

I may be asking for help with the electronics, as I think my wiring is going to get complicated. lol

My recording is pretty simple. I use a Steinberg UR22 into my laptop using Reaper. All I have is the interface, a cheap dynamic mic, a small MIDI keyboard and a decent preamp. I built a bass to use, and a ribbon mic which turned out REALLY nice. I've got a great amp I could mic, but so far the soft amps (LePau) and cab simulators have been amazing. 

 

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