Paul Marossy

Try going to a hardware store and getting some plumber's solder there. I understand that that type of solder is different than the type that you use to solder electronic components...

I have never heard of a "low friction" pot before in any catalog that I have seen or on any online source that I have checked out. The friction that you feel on guitar pots is mainly a function of how the pot is designed and/or if your knob is dragging on the guitar body or the nut that holds the pot in place. If it's a function of design, it just takes some time to get "broken in". I personally don't like pots that move too easy. If the setting gets changed, I want it to be very intentional. To each his own.

The unfortunate thing about really microphonic pickups is that they squeal and feedback like a son of a gun with any kind of distortion. It's a double edged sword...

I did this to a Strat type guitar - you can read all about it here: http://guitarnuts2.proboards45.com/index.c...amp;thread=3718 John Hey, that is a pretty cool idea! I refer to your website once in a while for guitar related info. From reading many people's experiences with trying to use homegrown piezo pickups, it sounds to me like me like the best way to go is to just get the real deal so you can have an authentic acoustic sound. I can not recall anyone ever really nailing that sound on an electric guitar with DIY piezo pickups, but you come darn close.

Ah, I see. Interesting idea.

So, in essence, you have made a built-in noise gate, right? I got around this problem in my SpankenStrat by getting some Fender "Hot Noiseless" pickups on the mid and neck (bridge is a coil-tapped DiMarzio FRED). They really are very quiet, no hum but still has a single coil sound.

The cloth wire I use is multi-strand. Its a joy to work with. They have stranded cloth wire? Wow, I didn't know that. That's cool. I actually do like they way cloth wire looks.

WOAH i disagree there. Cable capacitance does play a role in guitar tone; you lose high end, especially with the volume pot turned down. It's never been a concern for me, I HATE that icepick in your forehead treble sound. I like a thicker, meatier sound. I also think that most people probably couldn't tell the difference between a $100 3-foot long Monster cable and a 25-foot long $25 cable in a blindfolded test. This kind of stuff is psychoacoustics at work again. The same kind of snake oil hogwash as "oxygen-free copper". I know, now you're going to tell me that you can hear the difference, blah, blah, blah. But can you really? Or are actually thinking that you can because you believe it is true? That's why people need to do a blindfolded test to really truly let their ears decide. I submit to you that it's in people's minds that a cable that costs four times as much and has a few pF/per foot less capacitance is so immensely better. i certainly think (some will say its psychoacoustics i suppose, i guess i have to trust my ears) i can hear the difference between a curly and straight guitar lead... the treble roll off you get seems very noticeable but different to the treble roll-off you get with a long vs short lead (which is also obvious and undeniable). And i can tell the difference between my 10' cheapo cable and the 10' dimarzio one, why i havnt thrown the cheapo one out i will never know!! You dont have to spend stupid money on cables but i wouldnt just accept cheap ones either. The dimarzio's are a fair price for a good sounding (and non tangling) cable, the award session cleartones seem good as well I personally am not really concerned about cable capacitance. But I am concerned with how long it's going to last and how reliable it is likely to be. Of course, I don't want something with terrible capacitance, either. I will agree with the coiled cable having more capacitance vs. a straight cable. The coiled cable has a lot more capacitance by design. I still think people that fork out ridiculous money for Monster cables and "oxygen free" copper are being, well, ripped off.

WOAH i disagree there. Cable capacitance does play a role in guitar tone; you lose high end, especially with the volume pot turned down. It's never been a concern for me, I HATE that icepick in your forehead treble sound. I like a thicker, meatier sound. I also think that most people probably couldn't tell the difference between a $100 3-foot long Monster cable and a 25-foot long $25 cable in a blindfolded test. This kind of stuff is psychoacoustics at work again. The same kind of snake oil hogwash as "oxygen-free copper". I know, now you're going to tell me that you can hear the difference, blah, blah, blah. But can you really? Or are actually thinking that you can because you believe it is true? That's why people need to do a blindfolded test to really truly let their ears decide. I submit to you that it's in people's minds that a cable that costs four times as much and has a few pF/per foot less capacitance is so immensely better.

I agree, it's mostly hype. Just like hi-fi speaker wire and guitar cables. And a good many other things, too.

Hey, isn't cloth wire also solid core? That doesn't work too well in an environment where the wires will get moved around a lot - they will break.

In my opinion, straight & plain diode clipping never sounds good...

Cloth wire isn't any different than any other insulated wire. Like already mentioned, it's mainly just for the people obsessed with vintage this and vintage that. If you're building a '59 Bassman or a brownface replica, then the cloth wire would need to be included since that is what was used at the time those amps were made. Details, details...

Look at this page for how to wire a guitar using a toggle switch for each pickup: http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/sw1.php

My "contour control" is my Maestro Boomerang wah pedal.

Wow, those are pretty snazzy. I bet they're not cheap, either...

Yeah, it does change the taper on the pot a little bit, but I adapted to that pretty quickly.

Congratulations!

I also like using 0.033uF

Hmm... it sounds like your circuit is miswired somewhere. All I can suggest is trying all of the usual troubleshooting stuff like verifying that the circuit is getting power, all grounds are connected together, etc., etc. I know it works because I used that same PCB layout in my own guitar...

It happens to the best of us.

No, you won't hear anything with the volume all the way down because all of the signal is shunted to ground via the pot.

Yeah, I guess you could say that it is a mid-cut control. The wah circuit on my guitar is a Maestro Boomering clone on a compact PCB that I designed. It's not a passive circuit, it runs on a 9V battery.

you mean like put just a cap and inductor in series (or in parallel, shunting to ground) to make a bandpass filter? to cut out the highs and lows? is that what you mean? I was thinking of it more as a tone control, using a cap an inductor in series to ground. Essentially, it's the Gibson "Varitone" circuit: http://www.blueshawk.info/varitone.htm I like the on-board adjustable "Q" filter (wah) idea. That way, I get a resonant filter in conjunction with having all of the tone controls I am used to.

As a passive circuit, an inductor with a series cap is more like a notch filter. If you want to play around with something interesting and make a resonant filter using an inductor, you could take the standard inductor based wah circuit and have an on-board "Q" filter kind of like what I did on my "SpankenStrat" - http://www.diyguitarist.com/Guitars/SuperStrat.htm