hessodreamy

I was trying to check that the output jack works correctly. So I hooked it up directly to the pickup on my electric. It didn't work. But my new acoustic pickup turned up yesterday and everything works great now. Except I have an extra pre-amp I didn't need to buy! But thanks for your help, guys!

Thanks for the clarification. Now that I've ordered a new pickup I'm glad to hear it's not the output jack that's dodgy. I guess this also explains why I got no output why connecting the output of an electric guitar via this output jack?

Still looking into this and found something else. Like I said there are 3 pins from the preamp to the output jack. The output jack looks like a stereo jack in that it has a shield and 2 pins. I can't see what's going in inside the jack itself. The 3 connections are electrically separated, but when I insert the lead into the socket the ground becomes connected to one of the pins. Any idea if this is supposed to happen? I presume the output isn't supposed to be stereo, so this 3 pin configuration isn't one I'm familiar with. Thanks

Ah right - I get you. OK I tried running the pickup straight into a guitar amp. Didn't really get a signal, but didn't get the nasty buzz like before (more like the hum from holding thinly covered wires). Then I plugged the pickup into the on-board preamp and took the output straight from there to the guitar amp. I'm not sure I was doing this right because 3 of the 4 output pins are used - 1 ground and 2 to what looks like a stereo output jack. SO I tried connecting the ground and either of the 2 output pins. Still no signal, but a bit of hum. Still no further forward. Then, while manipulating the wires, I noticed that pulling the wire to the pickup makes the signal toggle from nasty buzz to low-level hum - all without any guitar signal. I reckon the pickup (or the pickup wiring , which is all closed in) is screwed. Sound about right?

I've got this Simon & Patrick acoustic guitar with a b-band new frontier pickup system. A few years ago it started making a terrible buzz. so it sounded 90% buzz and 10% signal. A local guitar tech got out his multimeter and concluded that the pre-amp was fried. I finally got around to replacing the pre-amp, but the same problem is still there. So I'm trying to figure out a diagnosis myself before I make any more unnecessary purchases like the pickup itself. Any suggestions as to how I go about this? The pickup is a thin electret film that sits under the saddle. This is wired to the preamp, which has connections to the output jack and the battery. Any suggestions?

Also, at this stage I'm not too worried about the hum cancelling. I'm more concerned with getting a series combination that has a decent character. So not, strictly speaking, a 'hum bucker'. I did manage to bastardise some cheap single coils and flip the magnet and the bobbin (I think - it was a while ago) to make an actual hum bucker. But for now it's tone I'm chasing.

I love the idea of splitting humbuckers, but the reality seems to be that the split sound never really seems to have any character. It's always like 'generic single coil'. So I thought I'd get some proper single coil pickups - which sound mint on their own - and push them together and wire them up like a humbucker. But which pickups to use? It seems that each coil of a bucker is usually of a lower output than a standard single, so perhaps I should get one hotter and one fairly cold? Perhaps it's an issue of choosing a 'main' coil which I like on it's own, and a 'top up' coil for a humbucker sound. I tried it once with some lace sensors (a red and a blue) but they don't really have very much character either way. As it's an experiment I'd prefer to use fairly inexpensive pickups, like gfs or tonerider or something. Another issue is where to put them. Should I put the 'main' single coil where it would normally be, and put the second coil next to it? or have the humbucker 'straddle' the normal single coil position? I hear mixed opinions over the importance of matching pickup position with vibration nodes etc. And, seeing as I'm using separate coils, there's nothing stopping me from having them an inch (or whatever) apart, if it would aid matching to vibration nodes. I could have 4 or 5 coils spread across the whole body of the guitar. I'll probably do this on my strat, but I might also be tempted to do it on the tele. Any thoughts? ps Oh yeah, I play a big variety of sounds (hence the crazed modding) but basically jangle-rock like the smiths, rem, smashing pumpkins...

I'm looking into replacing the tank and I've seen some on eBay. Are they pretty generic or do they need to be matched to the amp?

Figured it out. It's screwed. Can't seem to get enough of the wire free to re-solder. Unless anyone has any tips for this situation it looks like a dead duck.

I think I understand now. Never looked at these things before. Basically the resistance I measure across each of the connectors is the impedance of the in/out coils, right? When I said there was no resistance across the input, it was actually about 35 ohms. (must've set multimeter wrong) And where the output was showing infinite - further inspection shows the coil wire has snapped. So rather than a short, it's a break. Now let's see if I can get the bugger back on...

Yup, I removed the tank from the amp and checked the resistance across the 2 lugs on the input. Absolutely zero. Also i measured just before where it gets to the transducer. Zero there, too.

I've got this fender solid state amp but the reverb doesn't work. You turn the reverb level up and it just hums a bit, but no verb. Anyway, I opened things up. The cables from the main amp to the spring unit at the bottom of the chassis are ok. One thing I did notice when I checked inside the spring unit (a simple 3 spring unit, pic attached) is that there's no resistance between the inner and outer lugs of the input socket ie they're connected somehow. Is this right, or does it point to something being shorted?

Hokey Kokey. 1 more thing (as columbo would say): It Will work, won't it, to daisy chain 2 daisy chains? ie take a 5-way daisy chain and plug one of those connectors ( i don't think it matters which one) to the input of a second chain. oh and 1 MORE thing: Any suggestions on places to buy components, now that maplins has gone bad? Can't think of any shop. And it seems like such a waste to pay a fiver's postage on £1.50 of components.

Yeah, something like that, but it's a bit overboard! Unless you need to power AC pedals as well. I was just going to get a regulated, high current supply and wire everything to a central node, though i do like robert's idea of using polarity changers just before the pedal. Anyone know where I can get some in the UK? Maplin don't seem to do any. The supply Xanthus was talking about says How's that work? Is it possible to feed your circuits whatever frequency supply you want? Just curious.

I'm building a pedal board for my many pedals. At the moment I'm using a daisy chain to power them, which is a little bit awkward as some pedals have different polarities/connections, so things get a bit messy sometimes. For when I'm building my board, would it work to take the power connections from a central node, rather than the daisy chain arrangement? This would give me a bit more flexibility in the pedal arrangement and simpler wiring. Oh if only I could remember my lessons on kirchoff's laws...

Can anyone suggest a fairly simple distortion circuit which would be suitable for vocals? ie one that won't feedback loads, and has a suitable input level for a microphone (balanced or unbalanced, i'm not fussed at this point, though it would be REALLY ace if it could do both) I was thinking of something with a distortion control and a low cut knob, for that 'megaphone' sound - so that it would disguise my somewhat questionable vocals! Any suggestions?

Wired it up at the weekend and it works a treat. Having a hot single and a fairly cold one gives great tonal options. It's like directly controlling the amount of 'twang' from the pickup. And as humbuckers the lace red and silver together can go from aggressive to sweet really nicely.

Hi Oren, Welcome to the forums how many positions do you have on the sound chooser? is it a normal 5-position switch for a strat? Or a 3 way switch like on a tele? Or is it only 2 ways? It looks like a strat switch. (with the 8 tongues) So if there are 5 choices on the switch, which ones do you want to select the singles, and which do you want to select the humbucker? If you wire it like a normal strat, you would have 5 choices: 1. neck single 2. neck and middle singles 3. middle single 4. middle single and bridge humbucker 5. bridge humbucker (The diagram for a 5 position strat with a humbucker can be found here: http://static.zoovy.com/img/guitarelectron.../wdu_hss5l12_03 which is more options than you wanted, but if you wanted only 2 choices, you could have positions 1-3 for the 2 singles, and position 5 for the humbucker. position 4 give all 3 pickups. Or you could have position 3 as a 'kill switch' where it gives no sound at all. This can be good for fast switching on and off, like radiohead. But if it's not a 5 position switch then how many positions does it have?

It's something I'm working on at the moment. Check my thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=22578 I've not wired it up yet, but I'm assured it'll work

ok cheers. Just wanted to check that before I get my chisel out...

I've got a strat and I've never been happy with the sound of it - it sounds very thin. But thinking about it, I chiselled out a little wood under the scratchplate to fit in some oversized humbuckers. How much would the loss of this wood affect the tone of the guitar? I'm thinking of getting a tele now, and if I get a standard body, I'd definitely have to remove some of the body to get a normal sized humbucker in there. So how much of an effect does/would this have?

Yep. That's great. I'll get the soldering iron out!

Ah yes I see now. You mean like this?

OK I think I get it now, thanks. Here's my new diagram. Its the same as one I've done before except for the choice of coils. The reason i've used an on-on-on is that I can't immediately find any on-off-on. For the sake of simplicity I've assumed a separate ground wire for the body of the pickup. The second pickup would be same but without the phase reverse. I think its all good??

I got this diagram from the guitar electronics site for tapping each individual coil of a humbucker. I'm using a lace sensor red-blue humbucker otherwise I doubt I'd have bothered with choice of coils. Looking at it, though, I'm not convinced it would work. Seems that if you wire the series link wires to the hot out, you'd get something like the 1st coil in parallel with the series combo. Or am I wrong on this? I couldn't find a suitable on-off-on switch but have a 2 pole on-on-on which connects the common to one of 3 lugs in turn. Am I right in saying this isn't a problem (with slight change to the circuit)? I also presently have a phase reversal switch to put the bridge out of phase with the neck. How do I incorporate this into the above wiring? I can't just switch the hot and cold, or can I?