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Saber

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Posts posted by Saber

  1. Plenty of guitars have 1 piezo per string. But none of them DO anything with that extra feature besides the Variax. The parker fly mixes all the signals together equally, just like it was one big piezo.

    Well, I have an Ibanez RG1520GK and I assume the piezo separation is pretty good to be able to drive Roland guitar synth circuitry. And if I remember correctly, Ibanez had another RG model that used the same bridge just for its analog output so I assume the signal quality must have been at least half-decent.

  2. Besides feel, what does fretwire size (hieght and width) affect?

    Chris

    Higher frets will make it easier to grab onto a string to bend it since the fingertip won't rub as hard on the fretboard wood. That's where the idea of scalloped fretboards comes in. But just like a scalloped fretboard, with higher frets, pressing too hard on the string will make the note go sharp.

  3. I played a scalloped fretboard for a year. I had a .009 set of strings and had to press pretty hard on a string to bend a note, enough that it was a completely impractical way to play. And it gets worse as you move up the fretboard because the smaller space between frets requires much more pressure.

    You know how good guitar teachers teach you not to squeeze your guitar neck to avoid hand injuries. Well, this looks like a great way to develop tendonitis. I'm not trying to discourage you from trying it but I want to tell you to be very cautious. The purpose of a scalloped fretboard is usually to get a better grip on the strings to bend them sideways.

  4. Check the City of Montreal website. Here's a link to their Répertoire des Sports et Loisirs. I had a quick look in the Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve PDF document and they have Ébinisterie (french for Woodworking). Some of the other regions might have it, too. I've never been to any of these activities so I don't know if they have specific curriculum or if you can have total freedom. But I think it's worth checking out and would probably be very inexpensive since these activities are subsidized by the city.

  5. Hi, I just purchassed a used gsp-2101 from digitech, everything works fine exept for one thing, it's SO NOISY! :D sounds like if there was a train behind. It has 2x 12ax7... I was wondering if it could be those who were getting old....If not, what else could it be ?? I verified, it's not my guitar, my cables, my amp...nothing, it's realy in the processor. I noticed...there's a wet-dry fader, the more wet it is, the more it's makes noise.

    Thanks

    Hugo Latour

    Check if you have the same noise on the solid-state distortions like the Overdrive, Heavy Sustain, or Grunge. If you don't, then it's probably the tubes.

  6. The main difference between this circuit and the Tillman is that this circuit configuration is a source follower. Notice how the output signal is taken at the source instead of at the drain like in the Tillman. As a result, there is no voltage gain. It's purely a unity gain impedance buffer... it has high input impedance and low output impedance and Vout=Vin. It's probably a lot more stable and less reliant on the individual FET characteristics than the Tillman circuit. So if all you need is a buffer to prevent the loss of highs or the loss of signal level, this is a better solution than the Tillman.

  7. Nice one Paul

    You could even put a gain control in the feedback loop to control the gain rather than the front end....i think.

    I had heard somewhere that people didn't like this circuit...not sure why...try searching out Aron's if you haven't already to see if others have suggested anything.

    psw

    The gain control is in the negative feedback circuit.

    Maybe what turned people off was the input impedance. The input ac signal sees R1 and R2 as being in parallel giving it a 235K-Ohm input impedance. I think they could be replaced with 1M resistors to give it a 500K-Ohm input imp.

  8. If C4 is leaking some dc, it can wreak havoc with the input of the amp that this pre-amp is driving. A similar problem could occur if R6 is open or badly connected.

    Disconnect the pre-amp from your amp and check the pre-amp output with a digital voltmeter. It should read a constant 0vdc even when you're switching it from BYPASS to PREAMP and vice versa.

    BTW, if it's driving a guitar amp which would typically have an input impedance above 470k, 10uF for C4 is overkill since it would give you a low cutoff frequency of around 0.2Hz. You could easily get away with a 1uF and have a 2Hz low cutoff frequency which is well below the 20Hz needed to stay within the full audio spectrum (20Hz - 20KHz). Then you wouldn't be limited to using electrolytics or tantalums. In fact, I just noticed that with the values of C1, R1, R2, the circuit's low cutoff is 30Hz which can still be acceptable for a guitar circuit.

  9. Using the 10uF source bypass cap will boost pretty much the whole audio spectrum. The lower you make that capacitor, the higher your cutoff frequency will be so it will end up boosting the higher frequencies only, just like you read on Till's page.

    You can put a resistor in series with that 10uF source bypass cap to reduce the boost but maintain the flat response.

  10. It depends how much of a purist you are. A "real" tube can mean that there are absolutely no semiconductors (including op-amps) in it. But then, if you're such a purist as to not want any semiconductors in the signal path, forget about using any pedals or signal processors of any kind in your rig or else there will be no point in being **** about using a "real" tube amp.

    Anyways, onelastgoodbye, when you refer to "gain" I assume you mean "distortion". Usually, the op-amps in these programmable tube pre-amps are just used to buffer, sometimes equalize (for voicing), and adjust the signal to optimal levels for the tubes to use. So the op-amps don't clip the signal or directly contribute to the distortion; the tubes provide all the distortion or soft clipping. So, unless you're really **** about it, you can say that the MP-1 is a "real" tube pre-amp if all the distortion is actually supplied by the tubes even though the signal goes through a few op-amps.

    On the other hand:

    The op-amps are usually used to replace the first few tube stages of a pre-amp where very little distortion occurs, but those early tube stages can add a certain warmth to the signal, nevertheless. And many tube amp experts will say that the pre-amp tubes in these first stages are the most important.

    So decide yourselves what you consider as a "real" tube pre-amp. To me all this is only semantics.

  11. Back to my issue with the need for one, protection is very nice and could save some real money in the case of a real bad voltage spike. You can get protection from a good power strip.

    Like I said, the typical power strip will blow its surge suppressor on a power surge and will have to be repaired or replaced (whatever's cheaper). The new Furmans have an electronic protection circuit that will not destruct on a power surge.

    The other reason I got one is because I needed the integrated lights to light up my rack.

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