Keegan

What guitar? How old is it? How long have you been playing it? When did the buzzing start? Where does it buzz-- every fret or just in a few places? What is the relief (not the action)? Etc. The more information you provide, the better we can steer you to a diagnosis. It may be just a case of needing to reset the relief to accommodate for weather/humidity changes. MIM Strat, 10 years old, I've had it for less than one though, the buzzing started after I had it taken in to get a new nut(I broke the plastic one). I shimmed the nut and that helped some of the buzz on strings 2 and 3, but all of the middle strings, 2-5, buzz somewhere. Frets 1-11 on 5, 0-11 on 4, 1-11 on 3, 0-11 on 2. How can I measure relief? Now that I think of it, I might have screwed up the relief because I tightened the truss rod when I put heavier strings on. It doesn't seem any straighter than when it had 9s on it though. I knew the difference, I didn't know that it had to be leveled before being crowned again though. I thought the leveling was a 1-time thing. Thanks for saving me from attacking my frets.

Let us know how it sounds.

From their site: "Seating the frets in a piece of wood is a difficult process to accomplish with extreme precision. There are usually slight variations in this work and it's further complicated by the fact that the neck woods seldom respond uniformly to string tension. Therefore, a fret leveling operation performed on a raw neck is likely to require further attention after the neck is strung up. It's an accepted fact that final leveling and instrument set-up are best done after the guitar has been strung up to pitch for several days and the neck has time to settle in to the tension of the strings. Then, if it's needed, the frets may be leveled under tension to provide the finest action. After the frets are leveled then they are individually recrowned to restore their rounded shape. Most Warmoth necks do not require a fret leveling; they are good to go as they are received. Of course, if you want really low action then yes, the services of a good tech to accomplish this, as well as to adjust the nut and do an overall set-up, is probably called for. This is highly skilled work and the associated costs are relatively high, as one might expect for professional services."

Hmm, possibly, but that'd just be in parallel, and I never found that switch useful on the G&L S-500 I had. What about the Black Ice? Would that be possible on a SPDT? Edit: Like this, would this work? Edit 2: I just found this http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/blackice.htm Does anyone know where I can get one of those? Or how to build a simple clipping circuit myself?

They won't warranty the neck unless you get it finished. Something about how it would warp without a finish.

My strat has 1 vol, 1 tone, and the third hole is occupied by an On/on switch that I'm just using as a kill switch for now. I'd like to get more use out of it. Are there any cool small passive circuits around?

I've started having trouble with buzz lately, and the action doesn't seem to be the cause of it. The nut was giving me some trouble since it was hand-carved bone and the 2nd and 3rd string were about .2mm lower than the rest, so I shimmed it. Now the action at the 1st fret is around 0.8-1.0mm, and about 2mm at the 12th. Is this too low? It's starting to sound like a sitar. Do I need my frets looked at or could there be another cause? I use strings .011-.054".

So I'm not the only one who notices! To add another thought... an equal tempered guitar will always be out of tune somewhere on the freboard. Try tuning your guitar to a perfect 2nd fret Emaj chord. Then play a D chord in the same position. The G string will be sharp and the B string a little sharp. The guitar is a compromise in many, many ways. Because no one wants to carry a piano around everywhere.

Why do these look familiar? Oh yeah, because they're Stewmac kits.

By changing the length of each string at the nut, i.e. moving the break point closer or further away, as seen with Earvana nuts. Pure pitch is impossible on a guitar though, without having a separate set of frets for each string or something crazy like that. Guitars are eternally out of tune, but not enough to really bother anyone.

Here you go: http://www.guitar-mod.com/rg_passive.html That uses caps/resistors and an inductor to cut out the mids. Edit: Oops, that operates at 850Hz though. Edit 2: They have some information on making your own http://www.guitar-mod.com/rg_mods_faq.html including an equation to give you the value of inductor and capacitor you need to cut at 550Hz

Oh, so you are using 2 humbuckers, okay. Then your wiring is just like this: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wirin...=2h_2v_1t_3w_pp Except that instead of a push pull, you just have a swtich, turning the switch one way runs the red/whites to ground, turning it the other way does absolutely nothing(ie, leave it in humbucking) Does that help?

Might want to use the method described in this report to get started: http://online.physics.uiuc.edu%2Fcourses%2...inal_Report.pdf Mahogany balances well with perceived loudness, that's probably why we see it as such a good tone wood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness The curves on that graph represent equal loudness as we perceive it. Ex: If you had a 20dB 1000Hz sound(about where the C on the 2nd string is), a 330Hz sound(low E) would have to be almost 30dB(10 times more intense than 20dB) to be perceived as the same loudness. Mahogany's resonant peaks are highest in the lower registers, making it sound very full and balanced. I'm not quite sure how you'd get a setup like theirs, the piezo transducers are easy enough, but I don't know what you'd need to receive the data or create the waves.

I think an ebony fretboard would be better. On the trem, I would say no, but mostly because I hate trems. Lots of extra tuning work and all for a cheap trick. The body shape could use some work. Maybe bring in the bottom side more. And I think the top side would look better swept backwards instead of forwards. Looks like a good idea though.

Well, the semi is in there because it's only a little bit acoustic, and it would be a little bit acoustic and somewhat louder than a solidbody when played unplugged. But yes, I guess I meant chambered, but this forum doesn't let you change your topic title. I thought about the back, but 4-screws on just a control plate in the back would be a lot easier to work on than 20-some screws to take off the whole back. The back could also be aluminum though, and just have an extra plate to get to the controls. The screws are mainly for decoration, they're meant to be permanent. Yes, I think I'd use inserts, if I could find some small enough. And countersunk screws so that I wouldn't be scratching myself on the screws all the time.

I think action is usually measured from the bottom of the string, so that the distance you have to push each string to fret it is the same. If you measured from the center, they would get progressively higher and they would be more out of tune when fretted, since they'd be at a higher action and have to bend more to meet the fret. You'd have to invent some kind of compensation system, or angle the frets, and it would already just be more awkward to play.

After my current build, I think I'll have to start an "Alternative" guitar build. And with thinline chambers, there'll be all kinds of room to play with different electronic stuff. And if I bolt-on the back control plate, I won't strip all of the screw holes like I've done on my strat =P

Alright, I'm going to start with the assumption that density and grain direction are the most important factors in a wood's tone. Scientifically speaking, metal has the best acoustic properties because it's grain is very uniform and has a fairly flat frequency response. But our ears don't want to hear a lot of those overtones, so wood is what we use for instruments. If you look at a chart of wood densities, you can see that the properties we perceive are almost perfectly correlated to density: http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_wood.htm Ebony and Maple are very dense, and also very "bright", and the "brightness" goes down with density. These are generally not used for bodies as they would sound "harsh". They are used for necks however because they offer stability and also can make the whole guitar sustain better, though there's not enough neck wood to significantly brighten up the sound. Plywood could make a good body wood if it was the right density, but I'm not sure the implications of the grain would be good for tone. Also, plywood is a pain in the ass to work with. Some sort of molded material would probably be the best alternative to wood, given it had the right density. And indeed, this is what we most often see manufacturers turning to when they try to find alternatives to wood. The only real benefits of using plywood are the cost and stability. The cost is really a non-issue if $50 more could make the difference between a great-sounding guitar and a poor one. The stability isn't even important to the body of an electric guitar, because the neck or neck join will break far sooner than the body ever will. I could only see it realistically being used for necks, because it has a similar density to maple, and with lots of plys it can be even stronger than quartersawn wood. But the trouble would be making a good-feeling neck. I think if I were to take a shot at a wood-free guitar, I would use something molded for the body, like hemp: http://www.guitarsite.com/news/electric_gu...made_from_hemp/. For the neck, I think aluminum would be good, because it has all of the properties you need for a neck: stability, feel(if brushed, that would be a fast neck), and sustain. The fretboard...I'm not sure what the fretboard would be made of, you'd want it to be slick. Perhaps it would be a 1-piece aluminum neck/fretboard with the back brushed and the fretboard polished. The frets would be stainless steel, because nickel alloys blow and wear way too fast. It looks like someone else already discovered aluminum as an awesome neck material: http://www.bergeronguitars.com/id19.htm

My favorite set I've tried is the Dragsters on the Fender Jaguar Special HH. The only other sets I've heard have been the Fender Highway One and SD Hotrails on my MIM, Gibson burstbuckers, stock PRS pups, stock Epiphone pups, and G&L MFD pickups. The Jaguar definitely has the best clean sound I've heard. Other people call the sound "weak", but that's what it's for, it doesn't have that brittle high end squeal like you get on a lot of hotter pickups and the bottom end doesn't overpower the sound. I haven't quite figured out what the pickups in my strat would be good for, maybe grunge. They are definitely hot, overwound to 10k. They want to be played hard and detuned.

Jazzmaster is the silly one with simpler controls, flashy paint, and big fat single coils. Jaguar is the awesome one with crazy controls and either strat single coils or humbuckers. To confuse you even more, here are two with the same finish and both have single coils: http://www.warpdrivemusic.com/vintage/63Jazzmaster.jpg http://www.rocknrollvintage.com/prodimages...-guitar%20b.jpg

The body's ready-made? Including the bridge route? Then chances are you won't be able to use a 24-fret neck. You have to get a neck that's going to work with the scale length. Frankly, I think your best bet is to buy the neck from the same place, they'll make sure it'll work. The 24-fret extension from warmoth doesn't alter the scale length at all, because it just makes the fretboard hang over the end of the neck more. It doesn't make the neck any longer.

Only a humbucker can be split, but yes, two pickups can be split with the same switch if it's DPDT. http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wirin...=coil_splitting http://www.guitarelectronics.com/category/...ckerwiringmods/ Edit: This is probably the closest full diagram to what you're doing, except that the humbucker would run to the coil split first: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wirin...c=1h1phat2v1t3w Edit 2: I'm really confused, are you using two humbuckers or

Narrower than what? It won't be any more narrow than a standard strat. Also, Warmoth has a 24 fret option on their necks, so you wouldn't have to replace the fretboard if you got it from them. And they'll make it in whatever profile you want. Edit: Links to the relevant pages- http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....n=back_profiles http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....board_extension http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks/necks....fuseaction=heel

True. Then you'd have something like like a Jazzmaster pickup switching scenario, right? More like a Jaguar, except less mysterious.

I think the 2-1/4" heel is if you plan to have the pocket and heel of the neck finished. 2-3/16" is the standard Fender size that will fit most necks snugly. The nut width determines how wide the neck is on the lower frets, 1-5/8" being thin, 1-11/16" is standard, and 1-3/4" is large. There really isn't much variation in neck width on 6-strings, just where the strings start at the nut and where they end at the bridge.' Edit: I assume that you're buying the neck, since you're also buying the body.