TGwaH

There were many Garnet models made, is the one for sale the one you wanted, or just because it says Garnet you want it (which would be a bad move)?

And what model/year Traynor do you have? (I've owned about 10 over the years, still have a few)

I own a 1978 YGM-3.

And Garnets are not really collectable per se, you should not feel the need to jump at the first one, rather, you can choose your model and wait till the best one comes along.

Look at it this way, if you owned a Garnet, you wouldn't have very many people breaking your door down to buy it from you, so you are in a better position to haggle than the seller is, not too many people out there thirsting after a Garnet unless the price was -really- good.

Bottom line: I think you'd be trading your perfectly fine working amp for another one pretty much just like it, and with known problems. No go.

I think that North of the border Garnet's are a little more desirable, if only for it's place within Canadian rock and roll history, but you make some good points Drak. I might keep an eye out at pawnshops and on eBay and hopefully a sub $300 Garnet will turn up.

Searching craiglist to kill some time, I came across one of my amp holy grails a Garnet amp! The seller is willing to take a trade, but it looks like only because the amp is lacking in volume. He says

It has new tubes with 2 EL 34's like the Marshall’s. It's a 50 watt amp! I was using this amp last week and my friend sugested I put in Yellow Jackets that convert the amp into a class A sound. Unfortunately after doing so something inside has shorted out as to now I've lost all my volume?? I can still get a sound but it sounds like it's a power problem. I know it's not the tubes or the transformers because they are working fine. it's something else ... a capacitor or a transistor.

Now I'm sure most of you know I'm an electronics dummy, and I'd hate to offer up my 50W Traynor only to find that the repair is a $500 job or worse, it's entirely unrepairable.

Hereis a link to the ad. What do you guys think? Presuming of course that it's still available of course.

In a week, you could save up enough money for a Rondo and always wish for something better. In three weeks, you could save up for a guitar that's ten times better and enjoy playing what you bought.

That's what I was thinking, and unlike Rondo, I can drive down to Reverend's number 1 store in Warren which is only about two hours from here and pick out the axe I really like.

It'll be a few months yet before I can swing one, but I figure come May I can pay cash for the whole deal with all the options I want.

Leader right now is looking like the Flatroc in Rock Orange with a LesTrem option.

Thanks for the input guys, now I've got some thoughts to mull over.

In the end, I decided to hold off a little bit and get a better guitar. I figure by the time I swap out the pick ups in a Rondo guitar, I could have a fairly decent player anyhow.

As of right now, I'm really, really liking the look of some of the guitars by Reverend.

I cannot stand Rondo Music, the store, & Agiles.

I have an SX LP Jr type thing. I like it a lot. It's made pretty well, plays good, sounds good and I don't worry about banging it around because I can replace it no problem.

So it does appear to be a love 'em or hate 'em kind of thing. I suspected the dichotomy might have been as such, but still a little surprising.

Thanks for the input guys, now I've got some thoughts to mull over.

A good friend of mine has been big on the idea of the Agile Les Paul copies for a while now, and with all the links he's been sending me has me intrigued, so I've been doing some research. From what I've been able to gather, in terms of quality the only ones that are really worth a damn are the Agile LP copies... all others are, as I understand horrid.

However, here is where I run into the problem. Without actually being able to examine one of them, I have no idea what kind of plability/quality it has based on the reviews. For a larff, I headed over to the Agile Forums and I got exactly what I expected; a bunch of fan boys raving about their axes. It was almost like watching hardcore Star Trek geeks argue over who was better Kirk or Picard.

Then I did a search at The Gear Page, where I'm a newly registered member and found some positive mentions of the guitars but only in passing, and I'm afraid to make a post there, especially about this considering they have discussions surrounding Dumbles and boutique pedals I've never heard of, much less could ever afford.

A quick search via google of PG showed that Wes was definately not a fan of Rondo music.

So I throw this out to the good people of the community. Anyone play one recently? What did you think?

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I'd keep this all together

Figures I'd do the hard part but blank on the easy bit d'oh.

I've got the guitar all wired up, the humbucker is split and sounds fantastic, the problem, as aluded to in the quote comes from the P90. I'm getting some output from it, but only when I have the volume pot AND the amp cranked to ten. Even then it's faint and not at all adequate.

Maybe I need an amp that goes to 11?

We all know about the Chinese guitar scam, looks like an eBay seller bought one to see what it's like.

clicky

Knowing full well that I was going to get scammed with a fake Les Paul even though the seller, again from China, stated it was the real deal, I purchased one to inspect the quality since our company sells guitars as well. Not to our surprise, the guitar was indeed a fake. A low quality fake at that. The finish was cheap, the tuners were student grade at best, the humbuckers were weak, the neck was not set in correctly, the inlays were sketchy, the hardware was junk, and the body was made from plywood! Not exactly a grade A Gibson huh?

A&M Woods (Cambridge) <---- I've never been here

I was there last week, well worth the trip and easy to find too! Provided your girlfriend used to live there it is

The Dot Studio is a lot of guitar for the money, but I have no idea where it's made.

At that price, it's China. Or Indonesia. Or Sri Lanka.

The only valid way to find out for sure if you have a preference is to install both types on a switch, make sure they're fairly closely matched, and listen while somebody else plays the guitar out of your sight, randomly flipping the switch for a few thousand trials. Anything short of that invites self-delusion and conformation bias. Me, I don't have the time, so I reckon those little greenies will have to do, at least until I run out of 'em.

It looks like someone did just that, with a paper in oil capactior thrown in to make it interesting.

Steven Kersting at S.K. Guitars

Ceramic v. Polyester v. Paper in Oil

Differences were noted, but the author notes that "there is NO WAY [he] would be able to discern these differences under any other conditions. They were so minor that [he] often had to compare between two caps several times to be sure I was hearing it. The heavyness of the picking stroke made much more difference than the cap type."

Here is a similar test with the results run through an oscilliscope, linked from the SK tone cap test page.

The Sound of Capacitors - Capacitor Linearity

Could you state that as a question?

No

Yep, hot wire from the P90 will go to the other lug of the 3-way and the other wire is naturally ground. Pretty simple, as you've already done the hard part.

Figures I'd do the hard part but blank on the easy bit d'oh.

So it would look something like this then?

I also ordered some stuff from Jeff Elam (calcustomax) on the same date. I received those items within one week. Shipping from California to Indiana less than one week. Shipping from Alberta Canada to Indiana almost three weeks.

California to Indiana is transit within one country. Alberta to Indiana is transit across international boundaries, things like customs take time. As an example, I placed an order through Stew Mac a few weeks back. The day I realized I ordered the wrong part, called them up and was told the order had already gone out, but they'd ship out the part I needed that same day no problems.

So, I had two packages from Stew Mac, shipped same day, a few hours apart.

The package that was sent second arrived first, the first package sent arrived a week later. The difference? The first package had to go through customs and duty had to be paid.

Sorry guys, but I've been wracking my brains for a few days trying to figure this out.

Here is my non-artist rendering of the wiring diagram, or at least what I have thus far, it is far from a completed diagram.

What I have thus far was derived from the following diagrams.

Instructions included with the SD Stag Mag Humbucker I'm using the set up listed under "Paralell Wiring" What is the chasis of the DPDT switch grounded to? Is the shield ground listed the bare wire I have soldered to the volume pot?

Wiring for 2 Humbuckers 1 vol, 1 tone, 3 way switch

and

P-90

The P90 (it's a GFS P90 which has yet to arrive in the mail) at the bridge in case my Da Vinci like talents didn't shine through. I'm not even sure how this is supposed to hook up. I initially had it just going to the back of the pot as the 2nd humbucker in the 2nd link does, but that just doesn't seem right when looking at the P90 diagram.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks guys.

Thanks for all the responses guys.

As the cap's farad value get's smaller its resistance to frequency change also changes. Different size caps are sugguested between single coil and humbucker setups because of the different frequencies that are rolled off by the cap. So your typical guitar tone control acts like low pass filter, dumping the higher frequencies to ground.

I'm planning on dropping in a couple new pick ups into my Epiphone Dot in the next few weeks. I'm going to split a humbucker at the neck (SD Stag Mag with an on/on/on switch) and a Humbucker sized P90 from guitar fetish. It is only a single tone, single volume. What value would you recommend for the capacitor? As it stands now I was just thinking of leaving it with the stock cap on it. A wise choice?

A question for all you electronics gurus:

The other day I was looking at the instructions for shielding a strat on the Guitar Nuts website. In the Flash slideshow showing the pictorial of the process, they show a "film-type tone capactior" which they claim are "far more stable, accurate, and quiet than the ceramic discs..."

The second slide shows a better picture of the capacitor in question, referring to it as the "Chiclet" type. Then providing an axiom of "Looks like it should go in the mouth=good, looks like a squished booger=bad"

So my question is two fold: i.) what are the fundamental differences between the two types of capacitors, and ii.) is it worth the extra few cents per capacitor for a film v. ceramic?

Lemme throw another vote in there for going with this design and wood choices.

And while I like the idea of going with his design as mentioned, is there a way that we as PG can make this our bass as much as his? By this I mean, can we inject an element into it that he might not have thought of or otherwise attempted? Maybe we can put in a unique wiring set up or something along those lines. A cool little inlay along the neck perhaps, setting up a scene of some sort.

These are just ideas I'm tossing around off the top of my head in the wee hours of the morning.

From what I read, I don't see anything there about if it's under 200 bucks you're free from duty and taxes. Remember, Canada Post is being runned by the government and they are going to want to make money for that service, hence why they raised the stamp by 1 bloody penny.

Technically it's a Crown Corporation, it operates an arms length from the government. It's a subtle but very important difference.

Since their parts are made in the US, you'll only pay little to no duty tax. Since you're in town for 2 weeks, remember to ship express, because sometimes when shipped as a regular parcell it could take a week to a month before you get it.

And not being from Canada, you can also get back your GST. Remember to save your recepits as you can claim back your GST on most items i.e. hotel

This is where you'll be vulnerable I think. The Custom Brokerage Fees, I had some goods I ordered at about $300 value via UPS and they charged me $60.. Ouch..

And I've had them ding for about $90 for a similar price.

If you can, get the item shipped through Canada Post, or if it's coming from the US, the United States Postal Service. You'll save yourself some coin there.

Probably best to go with the long shiny ones.

Those are the same one's Paul McCartney uses... he said so himself

What a neat little trick. Do you have links to those patents handy by chance?

The pawn shop just down the road has these for sale for cheap, $89CDN. They don't have a cab for me to try it out on, and I don't want to drop $90 for a preamp that doesn't work. Anyone know the reliability/sound quality of Traynor solid states from the 70s?

The other day I bought a Washburn Rover travel guitar off the Bay for a decent price, I figured it'd be fun to take out in the backseat for when I'm not driving on road trips, and to take down to my cabin this summer, where space in the car is always at a premium and a full sized guitar is always too bulky. It came in today (fastest international shipping I've ever seen) and I played it with the strings that were on it and it plays not too bad. Definately needs new strings and a cleaning. However, it has an over powering stench of cheap cigarettes... I'm talking the kind of cigarettes you would smoke as a teenage because you couldn't afford a pack of Players. I've got it up with me in my room now, and the stench is so bad that it now has permeated every corner of my room.

I've spread the inside and outside of the case with Febreeze to air out its nasty stank, but what can I do about the guitar itself?

Metal Matt was really gungho about getting the project going. That is just the kind of enthusiasm I think we could use on this project.

Edited to Add: Not to say that no one else here has been gung ho, Matt just seemed really really excited about the idea.

I dont have much but any thing I have that can be of use I offer up

I too am lacking in the way of talent and finances at the moment. But I'm definately willing to put some cash towards helping fund this project.