JoJo T. Magnifficent

hey, I got a PCB printed out at university for the 4-transistor modified electra distortion pedal (just as a fun project, dunno how it sounds, but i can get most of the stuff for free at uni, including the PCB ) and i was just wondering about a few of the components: Resistors: I could only get 1/8 watt for the 470 ohm resistors (no idea why, all the others are 1/4 watt ), will this be enough? I figure running of 9v that means the would only like sub 20mA currents, which may be cutting things a bit close. Diodes: I could only get 1N4148's, the schematic says to use 4x 1N4001's and 4x 1N34A's, is this likely to have a signifficant effect on anything other than the tone/gain levels? and finally, Transistors: The schemtaic used a 2N3904, ive never even heard of that kinda code for a transistor, im only familliar with BC named ones, had quick look this afternoon at a eletrical supplies store and couldnt find any, so if anyone knows of an alternative code that would be helpful, and also again, if using any other NPN transistor would effect anything other than tone/gain (I think we have BC337's or sumthing at uni that are NPN) cheers for any help you can give guys -nick

heaps of ppl find it hard (including me) but the only advice i can give is practice till u can do it, it just randomly happend for me The black Metal band i play guitar for just lost our vocalist (he was good too ). I decided it might be fun to try vocals, so atm im doin em for our cover of cradle of filth - her ghost in the fog. I can do it fairly competently (although i suck at the screaming parts, and i do tend to run outa breath pretty quick ) but it only took a few goes to get it down adequately. so the moral of the story is just keep trying till you get it and have fun. btw, if anyone knows of a correct tab (or wants to tab it for me, in powertab preferably) for cof - suicide and other comforts could they PM me? cause i wana try singin that one next, and i already got the lyrics down. cheers - nick

I got the C-1 Classic recently ( after a 1 year wait from a local shop [ I gave up on them ] and a 6 month struggle with music123.com who seemd pretty determined to not give me the guitar [ i wouldnt recomend them as an online retailer ] ) and I must say, it was well worth the wait. It sounds pretty nice, altho I imagine it will sound a fair amount better once i get some 500k pots in it ( one push/pull ) and get it re wired for lots of fancy combinations. I played a c-1 plus recently and it was alright, although i didnt give it a good go, and it was throuhg a cheap peavy amp. As for the Ibanez, they certainly look like a good play, but i dont have any experiene with the Sz to speak from. Id have to say play them both before you make a decision, because every guitar is differnet to different people.

You should try visiting New Zealand my freind saved himself about $500USD by getting some koni shocks for his car from the UK instead of here.

I thought they were just made by the guitar manufacturer instead of SD? So were they are made is subjective to were the factory is. Either way, they are probly still made in korea

yea, it seems to be common concensus that everything on the c-1 classic is great, except for the pots, i was gonna get them changed, and probly put some locking tuners on it aswell (altho the locking tuners may be a bit overkill). had a look yesterday for pots, and it seems nobody has any the main electronics supplier in town, spectron, only had up to 250k, and those things were monstrous, and had shafts about 4 inches long. im gonna keep looking, but im not liking my chances, might have to buy off the net, and after my experiences with music123, im not lookin foward to that . would any of you think its unreasonale to expect a response from them within a week? Ive even sent them emails reminding them ive sent them an email.

I think the wires were falling off becasue they were all made of strands about a hair thick. all wire has now been replaced, and most of my soldier joints are pretty good ( im not too fussed bout noise so i havnt deen making them uber tidy, just aslong as its playable). I tihnk it may be something to do with the pots grounding ( mayb a short inside it), as ive grounded to the bridge, and all my grounds are on the pot cases and the switch case ( pickups grounds and the bridge ground are on the switch, and pots are grounded on themselves, and the output jack is grounded to a pot). I might try your idea of the washer to the ground of the jack. Im getting new pots for it neway, i need some good 500k pots for my schecter (If music123 ever gives it to me or my money back so i can buy it elsewere). cheers for the help Godin nick

ok... all wiring has been completely redone. the wires have all been replaced, and it was wired according to the seymour duncan wiring diagram for 2 humbucker, 1 vol, 1 tone ( and I ignored the extra 2 wires soldierd together from the 4 conductor pickups in the diagram, i think thats the right thing to do, as the saga is only 2 conductor, but sd only had a 2vo, 2 tone diagram for 2 conductor ). the volume problem is pretty much gone now .... but I have a horrible buzzing in its place I think the volume pot is busted ( may be my fault from soldiering, is a 45watt iron to much? ) as if i tap the volume knob fairly hard the sound sometimes cuts out, and goes back to being really really quite, liek before. the buzzing is REALLY bad too, it makes my squier sound silent. It gets much worse again aswel if i touch the strings or bridge, so it may be that theres a problem with the grounding on the pot. thats my guess atleast. If anyone has any better ideas, can you let me know? cheers nick

Out of those choices, Id go with the Dimarzios, with an HS-3 in the mid, im not really a fan of the YJM. EMG's are good, but they wouldnt be my choice for versitility, except for the single coils, EMG single coils are great. Wes's suggestion of the duncans is pretty good too.

all the wiring was redone today, and i plugged it all up and there is the same output as before . put the pickups right up to the strings and no change. i dont think theres a problem with the wiring now, so pehaps the pickups are the problem? im gona take one to uni tomorrow and have look at it on a multimeter, see how that goes. in the meantime any more guesses as to whats wrong would be welcome. cheers nick

thanks for the replies, i tried soldiering the broken wire today at he electronics lab at uni, and more just fell off. So im gonna try and redo the whole thing, and replace the wires while im at it, there isnt a wiring diagram (one hats accurate atleast) with the saga kit, so ill just go off the 2 hum 1 vol, 1 tone, 3-way switch schemtic from the seymour duncan website, i can figure which is live and which is ground on the saga kit no sweat. and if that doesnt help ill just put some EMGs in it, there should be enough room in the control cavity for everything.

I just got my saga kit all together, with no help from sagas "colour coding" and im pretty sure its all right, givin my limited knowledge of guitar wiring ( im guessin all the black wires connected to the selector switches frame were grounds, and the two red ones on either side were the bridge/neck positions, and their use of male/female type connectors means i couldnt have gotten the ground/live wrong way round). Only problem is the signal im getting out of the guitar is so increadibly weak that i cant get a readin on my tuner. its definately there though, becasue i can hear something if i turn my little Marshal MG10( it was the closest amp) right up ont he distortion channel, then i get some relatively clean sounds commin out, and the clean channel i cnat hear anything unless i rest my head against the amp, and then its still really quiet. I went through trying all the different combinations of ground to see if it made a difference, and, as i thoughtm it didnt. Then i noticed that one of the red pickup wires on the switch had just fallen off, so perhaps bad soldiering is the problem My 3 guesses as to what is wrong are: 1/ Im a moron and Ive set it up completely wrong, and/or the solution is blatantly obvious and I havnt figured it out yet (1/ is quite likely) 2/ the soldiering is REALLY bad, and that is causeing lotsa resistance, which is killing the signal to the output jack ( this is supported by the wire that fell off) 3/ the pickups are extraordinarily weak and they are just too far away from the strings (havnt adjusted them yet, they are bout 1/2 an inch or less away from the strings) I havnt had a chance to adjust them since the wiring went bung. If anyone has any better ideas of what could be wrong, or even worse ones, id apretiate the help, and suggestions of how to fix it would be even better cheers Nick

thanks, that all sounds just like mine, but there is no way the pots and switch will fit in there :S the switch is off by about 1/2 an inch short, and the pots are about 1/4 off. Guess ill just have to learn to use a router then , its a shame but brians nice shielding paint job will have to go i guess. Thanks for the reply.

Just wonderd if anyone wiht an HT-10 kit would be so kind as to tell me the depth of thier control cavity, aswell as if they got long shafted pots and a long shafted switch aswell, becasue the ones ont he kit i just got seem to be too short, and dont make it all the way to the guitars top. are thier any work arounds, or will i just have to route the cavity deeper do you think? Thanks in advance.

the neck poket problem is sorted now , unfortunately, there is another problem ive discoverd. the pickups selector is about 1/2 an inch too short for its hole. oh well, its still functional atleast. how do saga manage these things? o yea, if anyone knows how the saga decals work, could the PM or sumthing? casue i cant figure it out, and it apears a monkey wrote sagas instruction manual

Id just like to thank Brian for sending me a Saga Kit (it was paid for ofcourse ). It arraived today(about a week earlier than expected ). Ive already gone through and checked it out, and everything is threre. Ive also gone through and done a test fit, and its not too bad (for a saga kit atleast from the things ive been hearing). The only problems I encounterd were 1) the neck bolts were too long and stick up in the neck pickup cavity, which from what i have read, happens on all sagas, and is no biggie cause they can be easilty filed down to size. 2) there was a couple of places were the guitar had obviously been chipped during manufacturing, and had been filled in (one on the horn, another seemed to be in the neck pocket on a corner). The filler in the neck poket seems to be a little overdone, so it isnt quite a perfect fit for the neck, but sandpaper can fix that. and the neck polet filler leads onto.... 3) one of the neckplate screws doesnt quite fit right. shouldnt be too hard to fix, also one of the truss rod covers plate screws is a wee bit off. so, all in all im quite pleased with the purchase, it cost the same as my squier bullet strat did (Damn New Zealand prices !! ), and seems to be a bit better quality. I plan on puttin up some pics of the finishing process (which will be bloodburst, using black paint, and a tinted laquer over the top. iIll probly combine a review with that so there will be another review to throw on the pile Thanks again to Brian, and to everyone else on the forums for no particular reason THE END

i voted for toddlers because its so nice and shiny. I like shiny. i very nearly voted for ragas' though. all the entries were great though

Personaly, i dont think its worth the bother. If you were to clean the rust off, you would then have to do something to seal over the exposed metal or it would just rust again. My squier has more rust than the titanic at the moment, becasue ive been takin it to the beach I never noticed any change in the sound to be honest when it started rusting. If your worried about asthetics or something though, you could swap them round, but factory errors in winding could mean that they arnt identical pickups, and it might not sound the same. its up to you really.

I have a Spider 1x12 and its pretty good. the Insane setting makes even my squier sound relatively beefy. i find the 'green' metal setting is a bit muddy tho, and the 'red' metal setting just seems to be missing something... but that could be my squiers fault (correction, is most likely my squiers fault ). my only other gripe bout it is tat they mixed the chourus and flanger effects together, so its either both or none.

Im pretty sure that Fender would have given a thurough background check before they decided to officially endorse Bills pickups. personally i dont get a good impression form that wajcman guy. Bill n Becky seem much more reputable to me, though i would be disapointed if they were operating under false pretenses.

I guess thats a "No."

Which Bill Lawrence? Willi Stitch? or 'the other guy'?

if its 100 US$ for installation, then its a ripoff, the local muso shop here in NZ charges 80$NZ for pickup installation, thats about 40-50 US$, but that quote is for passives, they might want alot becasue they want to route a battery compartment, but id ask them bout that, and make sure its completely nessicsary first.

I think youll find that the pickups you used have a different colour code, there is no internaltional standard or anything for colour coding ( some peopl use black for cround, some use green for example). you should have used the wiring diagram that came with the pickups (if it had one) or got one from the manufacturers site. Were did you get it from btw?

those grizzly heratige kits look nice (atleast the PRS style ones do). you could also try universaljems.com, that way youd be helpin support the site. Im gonna be getting the HT kit from there soon (I would be getting a heritage kit, but they only sell in the US, and im a long way from the US ).