boomerlu

About all three Here's the reason all of this is so confusing - the tone of an instrument is essentially a mathematical problem that can't be solved analytically. The tone of a piece of wood all by itself is a problem that can't be solved analytically. When you add multiple pieces of wood (body, neck fretboard), other materials like plastics etc....you get something that's even more of a mess. Finally you add the electrical component which is also imperfect. The biggest factor in the sound of the guitar is of course the electronics. This is the signal that's going directly in the amp, the zeroth order. Next are the main mechanical components, body, neck, bridge etc, first order effects. These indirectly affect the sound (by how they feedback with the string). Now the effect of the finish is essentially a second or third order effect (as in unimportant if the finish is a small fraction of the mass/thickness of the guitar). This is because the main change is in the acoustic sound of the instrument. The acoustic sound then has to travel through air affect the strings, which is a very weak feedback given the loudness of the instrument (as opposed to the direct mechanical coupling of a bridge or the electrical effect of pickups). So as long as the finish's thickness is a small fraction of the thickness of the instrument, the effect will be negligible. The degree to which it is negligible will of course depend on the thickness. For what it's worth, the imperfection of wood is what makes it tonally interesting. A very homogeneous material (think a piece of metal) has a very sharp frequency response centered at its resonant frequency. What happens when you tap a piece of metal? It rings at one pitch right? In mathematics, that tap closely approximates a signal with evenly distributed frequency spectrum (that is it has the same amplitude across all frequencies), so what you hear after the tap is the "response" of the material - you are hearing its EQ curve. So the metal is strong in a very small frequency band. Wood is very much different - it is organic and chaotic. There are knots of higher and lower densities, pores, etc, that each contribute to give a much more complex frequency response. Now you know why luthiers and builders "tap" pieces of wood - it's a quick way to approximately determine the frequency response of a material whose frequency response is very hard to predict. This is also the reason different instruments of the same make/model/year/color sound different.

I have a basic idea of the painting process... Seal Prime Color coats Clear coats with a lot of sanding in between to make sure everything is nice and flat when desirable (for sealer and primer). Now my question is - would you do anything different for painting over a figured (flame maple/quilt maple for example) top? I'm talking about putting on a graphic, not just staining. What would you do to preserve the figure but have it colored differently in different areas? Also, how would one remove the color from a pre-existing figured top that has been stained? How much thickness would you need to do this without totally destroying the veneer? Thanks guys Yike

How?

Hey, it sounds interesting, but I'll echo Robert's sentiment. A working link would be nice?

I could have sworn I wrote in this topic, but guess not. Anyways, something that might be of interest is to trace the contour of your hand as a starting point. Ultimate customization!

Well hey, it may be expensive, but at least it's POSSIBLE now. And maybe by the time you save up enough, the price may have dropped. Anyways, I'm going to be doing this mod in the FAR future, like a year or two from now.

GR-33 Meaning Midi synth? Well I think you could do it. First off, many people have transplanted Variax electronics into guitars. Secondly, I think graphtech makes an interface which takes the hexaphonic pickup signal and turns it into midi. Install both and you have exactly that.

Everything is accessible right on the guitar. And with the custom banks, you can basically have whatever you want at the flick of a 5 way switch. And that's the beauty of the Variax. Well, besides the fact that Line6 used a ridiculous approach and modeled EVERY aspect of the instrument rather than sample it, and put out the Workbench which is even more ridiculous. Outboard synths are a great idea if you want to be playing with like.....violins and french horns and weird synths. Not so much if you want vintage guitar tones.

(off the top of my head) A push-pull will work for coil splitting two humbuckers, but parallel/series requires (2) DPDT switches... or (1) 4PDT switch, which you probably won't find in a push-pull.

Hmm... I just bumped into this thread and was interested in how the Kahlers are engineered. From what I can see, the only thing that actually pivots is the cam. What balances out the tension of the strings? Ie are there springs somewhere? Are they just below the bridge?

Along the same lines: Anybody have a schematic for 2 humbuckers, 3 way switch, 1 volume, 1 push/pull pot so that the push pull pot is a parallel/series switch for both humbuckers? I know the theory of how to achieve this, but I can't find a schematic on the internet, and I also realize that with only 1 push/pull you might run into some problems. So, anybody more clever than I am and come up with a way to do it? Thanks

I believe it wouldn't be very hard to design a contour that is matched to your own hand, ie put it down on paper in playing position and trace it. I'd bet that the natural shape is asymmetrical.

Now winding your pickups with different wire might actually have a noticeable difference. But that's because we're talking like 8000 turns of coil.

From what I've seen it seems as if the electronics are the same. Except that the cheaper one is apparently larger? I'm not certain. I'll have to ask, but it does indeed same that the processing is the same.

Update: I actually heard back from Jeff, he's a real nice guy. Anyhow, he informed me that practically ANY piezo would work. Man am I stoked for when I actually do this.