bartbrown

Thanks for all the info! Bart

Yes -- If you go to GFS' Neovin page [http://store.guitarfetish.com/coju20nepino.html] there are sound samples for most of the "Neovin" pickups. According to GFS, ALL the Neovins are humbuckers, even though they're in single-coil-sized form factors. Here's GFS' blurb, which I'm including NOT because I'm a salesman or cheerleader for GFS, but because I'd like to hear some of the forum's electromagnetic experts' opinions of what GFS says here: "Neovins are dual coil humbuckers that are encapsulated in a unique ground shield array. The exposed polepieces are not magnets, but rather part of this array. With high tech, high efficiency Neodymium magnets, the neovins produce all of the explosive power, tone and sparkle of vintage pickups, with virtually ZERO hum and noise." "Look- lots of noise free and hum canceling Strat pickups claim to be “vintage”- why are ours different?? It’s the approach. From our years of pickup design we know the pitfalls of hum canceling pickup design. Stacked humbuckers lose bottom end, side by side humbuckers lose treble response, shielded pickups lose feel and dynamics, active pickups hiss and lose that “human” flex and sag that make passive, analog pickups so musically significant. "We started with a very narrow aperture side by side humbucker, then build a grounded “Shield” array that works to acoustically and magnetically “tune” the pickup. It’s a remarkable thing really, NAILING the tone, the feel, the rich, firm PIANO-like bottom end…. The sweet, not-too-harsh and very vintage midrange response…. The chimey, sparkly golden high end….It’s all there, with plenty to spare. "The bridge pickup is a bit hotter than vintage pickups in term of tone and output level. You may need to slightly lower the bass side of the mid and neck to balance. Since we suggest you jack the pickups up AS CLOSE to the strings as possible- tuning is a simple task." What IS a "ground shield array," as it pertains to encapsulated (potted) pickups? GFS offers Strat 3-pickup sets: "Pure Vintage, " "Mega Texas, ""Fat Vintage," "Overwound," and "Power Rock." Individual single-pups: NEO9 "Our Hottest Neovin," NEO7 "Hotter than Vintage," and NEO5 "True Vintage Sparkle." There are no sound files yet for the Strat pups. For the Tele, there are Pure Vintage Bridge & Neck, Hard Vintage Bridge and "Overwound" neck, and Power Rock (Bridge-only); then there are Pure Vintage, Hard Vintage, and Power Rock matched sets (don't know why they don't offer the "Power Rock" neck pup separately ). There are sound files for ALL the Tele pups. I'd say it's pretty iffy to accurately judge pickups from sound clips, but these -- like many of GFS' pickups -- sound very good to my tin ear (I especially like -- and am buying -- their Alnico 2 Memphis "Retrotron" Filtertron-style humbucker for a project) I don't know jack about electronic theory, especially the mystical world of magnetism, with its gauss, hysteresis, and the differing characteristics of ceramic vs AlNiCo vs rare earth, but I found a really interesting page (everyone here probably knows about it, but I just stumbled across it a minute ago): http://www.guitartechcraig.com/techpckp/pickups.htm that has some great info (haven't checked out the whole site yet), but I especially liked this list of pickup design rules. I'm not going to take up space with the explanations of the rules -- go check out the page -- but the rules themselves sound pretty convincing (especially when you read the explanations): RULE 1: Tall thin coils generally have a brighter sound than short fat ones. RULE 2: The more windings, the louder the pickup will be and the less treble response it will have. RULE 3: Alnico magnets sound smooth and warm and distort smoothly, ceramic magnets sound brighter and distort cleaner but a bit less full. RULE 4: Magnet pole pieces are not adjustable but increase power and sensitivity. Steel pole pieces are adjustable and enable a variety of magnet structures to be placed below the coils, but are less sensitive to string vibrations. RULE 5: The more length of the string which a pickup is sensing, the more midrange, sensitivity, and power it will have. RULE 6: The stronger the magnetic field sensing the strings, the more treble you will hear from the pickup. RULE 7: Standard humbuckers cancel hum and some treble response. Air coil and stacked humbuckers cancel hum and preserve the single coil tone at the cost of a bit of power. Are these rules accurate? Let the theorists have at 'em! Bartr

Anybody know of anyone using neodymium magnets for pickups? Thanks! Bart

Thanks for the URL -- I'm having a hard enough time with Toe-Jamorama, but when I work my way successfully through THAT (I figure I'll be about 103), I may try the guitar academy product. Meanwhile, to ease my painful fingertips, I was fortunate enough to win another eBay auction, this time for a Zager (Martin) ZAD50 acoustic dreadnaught with a K&K Sound Systems Pure Western Mini 3-transducer pickup. Denny Zager (of one-hit wonders Zager & Evans) personally modifies each guitar with his EZ-Play™ "String Science" setup. Here's the site blurb: << Guitars are modified by Master Guitar Luthier Denny Zager to play easier than any other guitars made. The EZ-Play modification process involves: * Lowering the strings closer to the fret board so you no longer have to press hard to form chords. * Widening the stance of the strings so there is more space for your fingers, while keeping the neck shallow so its easy for all hand sizes. * Modifying the saddle, bridge, neck, nut and bracing in harmony to amplify the tone and resonance. The result is a guitar that is 50% easier to play with a sound that competes with guitars costing 5 times the price.>> I don't know about 50%, but it is certainly a lot easier to fret for a tender-fingered novice, so I can make mistakes for a longer time on this guitar than any other I've tried! Better than that, though, is that this thing -- which IS actually a modified Martin -- has the most beautiful tone, plugged or unplugged, stays in tune like a rock, has yet to produce a single instance of fret buzz, and is a beautiful piece of work. Plus, I got an autographed picture of Zager & Evans! Well, it's only signed by Denny Zager, but that';s who REALLY made the big hits for Z&E. Let's see... there was "In the Year 2525," and... uh... hmmmm... I hope I don't get my bowels split open for posting a pic of a hollow-body guitar here, but at LEAST it plugs right into my thunderous Crate MX15R -- another eBay deal, which arrived totally dry, clean, and not yet waterlogged. I was shocked at how much volume you can get out of the little bugger, and when you shift it into overdrive, it's grunge-thrash Armageddon! When I can master the licks on The Replacements' cover of "Black Diamond," I will have reached Nirvana! Bart

Just an idle opinion, but I doubt anything like this would ever be more than some dot.com millionaire's shelf-queen, and never played in a million years. They're definitely clever, the guy has amazing technical talents, but I have to agree with GregP that they're ugly as sin. Danny Ferrington he AIN'T! Bart

Well, first off, "Jamorama" is pretty good, though I've only made it to about lesson three. It's kept me practicing, though! It has a lot of resources for such a modestly-priced package, and almost everything's downloadable, for much less than the physical materials. My fingertips are beginning to callus, but boy, I still have a VERY hard time getting three of my fat digits within the same fret without muting at least one string. If anyone can give me a hot tip, I still haven't quite figured where the rest of my tuning (left) hand is supposed to be -- sometimes it's hung over the topside of the neck, sometimes it's pushing straight into the neck. Sometimes my hand is all cramped up, as I try to occupy seemingly impossible spaces with my fingertips, sometimes it's quite relaxed. I have to say that the neck on the Squier '51 is remarkably shallow, which helps a LOT, as do the light-gauge strings and easy action. So far, all I've heard is very soft strumming, as I haven't found my groovy powered headphones with 1/4" guitar plug. I have a clean, used Crate practice amp -- 15W -- on the way; again, thanks to eBay, where I also picked up a Floyd Rose (probably copy) locking trem for my Cort project. Please indulge me again with your advice regarding this tremolo and some associated hardware, first for the Cort: the machine heads on the Cort are pretty crappy and corroded, so I'm going to replace them. One of the only things I'm not totally happy with on the Squier '51 are the tuners, which feel "soft" on tuning, and don't seem to stay put all that well, even with the solidly-mounted bridge. That got me thinking about locking tuners and/or locking nuts for the Cort, and probably for the Squier as well. First dumb question: if I use locking tuners on my Cort with the locking trem, is it worthwhile to chew up the neck with a locking nut,, or is that just overkill? Of the locking tuners available, I find the Planet Waves Auto-Trims the most interesting. What would be my best choice among a list including the Planet Waves, Grovers, Schallers, Sperzels, you-name-its? Now, I know I probably seem pretty whacked-out on this Cort project, but I'm an information-vacuum (because so much enters my brain, and so little of it stays in there). If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, then more must be worse, as I've strayed all over the Web, picking up bits and pieces that probably don't fit together all that well, but here goes: As the pots and switch are crudded-up beyond use, the pickguard got torn up trying to remove a recalcitrant screw, and the pickups are all wired up with Joan Crawford's wire coat hangers, my cruises around the web have led me to a couple discoveries: Mighty Mite pickups and "loaded," pre-wired pickguards. Stop me if I've gone too far, but I'm thinking about an HSS configuration (on a BWB pickguard), with a Mighty Mite Motherbucker at the bridge (and a push-pull "coil tap"), and the same company's Alnico 5 single-coils in the other two? Would a Motherbucker and two "hot rails" be too goofy for words? After the Cort, I'd like to build -- as in make everything but the neck -- a bass. Tomorrow the world! Thanks for your patient indulgence... Bart

I'll let you know ... looks pretty good so far! Bart

If the internet is the greatest time-waster in the history of mankind, eBay has to be about 87.335% of the time wasted (if you don't count porn, without which the internet wiouldn't exist)! But I *wlll* practice, really! Uhhh... just as soon as I'm done here... really! Bart

The damascening (also called "engine-turning") doesn't look bad at all, but what gauge aluminum are you using, and what are you cutting the shape with? For what it's worth (I'm an ex-experimental machinist), I used to do engine turning using a hardwood dowel chucked into a drill press at pretty slow speed, using either valve-seating compound (for a rough finish) or Simichrome polish for a fine swirl. I'd cut the final shape after engine-turning with a very fine-tooth bandsaw with lots of Kool-Tool, then finish the edges with a small drum sander (about 120-grit) on a router table. After it was all done, I'd wash the whole piece with acetone, and clear-coat with Future acrylic floor wax... Bart

Please, no worries about ANY kind of input -- I LIVE to learn, and the more I hear, the more I know! I'm deeply grateful for everyone's efforts to help out a stranger. The amount of talent and knowledge in this forum is obvious and staggering, so please, no reticence or concerns about putting me off -- at my age I'm happy when ANYBODY talks to me! Just to show how fate often steps in to make decisions for us, I happened to be noodling around on eBay last night, and saw a slightly used Squier '51 up for auction. I'd read a bunch of mostly highly-complementary reviews about it in the last few days, had downloaded some very impressive video of somebody playing one, and the one on eBay was the color *I* would have chosen. The auction ended unusually early in the morning, so I thought "what the hell," and put a fairly lowball bid on it. When I checked "My eBay" this morning, danged if I hadn't won the thing, by a BUCK, for $79 (plus $24 shipping from GA, so I really saved only about $50, but what the hey...). So I'm not sure where I picked up the advice to start with a nylon-stringed guitar to save my sausages, but that's off the table for now, as my wife says I can only buy one guitar a week (I was looking at those "Esteban" git-boxes, but all I REALLY wanted was the hat and black silk shirt). Anyway, I'm now the proud owner (Lord willin' and my 9-year string of good luck dealing on eBay doesn't go down the crapper on this deal) of what looks and sounds like a very interesting guitar. I gotta say, since tearing the old hoss apart, I'm more impressed with it than ever. I actually bought it 20 years ago on the advice of my guitar teacher, with whom I suffered nowt but performance anxiety -- I HATED going to lessons, as I never practiced, and I was always embarrassed to fumblefinger in front of him. That's the second reason I decided to try learning with a non-traditional computer-based system (the first reason being time), and I DL'd a relatively inexpensive proposition called "Jamorama" by Ben Edwards. I'd been reading some reviews (I'm a sucker for reviews!) of guitar-teaching programs and methods, and while "Learning and Mastering the Guitar" was certainly very highly rated by many experienced folks, it was more than I was willing to fork over, and "Jamorama" had also received a great deal of praise and cost a LOT less, so I thought I might give Jamorama a go, and if by some miracle I could actually stick with it long enough to feel I was actually getting somewhere, I might give the Big Daddy program a go. Or cut the soles of my shoes, learn to play the flute, and hang out on the beach for the rest of my life. So far, that's my retirement plan. At any rate, I like the idea of learning more about the hardware, and gradually building my "Vintage Cort" into a push-pull coriolis-effect roll-rate-sensing coil-tap humbuckin' hammer! Mr. Irizarry -- I have to say I'm VERY interested in your ergonomic guitar designs. I've always been a huge fan of Ovation Deacons and the like, and the Klein is just a knockout. I found this amazing (to me!) design while roaming the web -- it's a travel guitar by Aria with a detachable foam-rubber-cushioned aluminum bar frame and some kind of Super Unobtanium pickup in the body that you can plug headphones or ear buds into. It's called the Aria Sinsonido AS-100S: Well, sorry, everybody -- I DO have a tendency to ramble on and on and on and on and... Thanks again for all your kindnesses. I'm *very* excited about the guitar all over again, and you've all helped. Bart

Thanks again for the findly replies and valuable info. Over the weekend I took the whole guitar apart, and discovered that yes, there IS a truss rod in the neck: It wasn't visible until the neck was completely out of the body. Live and learn! I'm also taking the sound advice of starting out with a nylon-stringed classical guitar, a Yamaha C40-C. I'm hoping I can avoid the bloody blistered finger syndrome that always interrupted my previous attempts at learning. Meanwhile, I'm going to put this more-impressive-than-I-first-thought Cort Strat copy back together with some better machine heads (suggestions welcome!), pickups (ditto), and a new, unrusted, bridge/trem (double ditto). Thanks again to all who replied. If anyone's interested, I have pix of the guitar whole, and in pieces. Bart

Thanks for a couple of great replies, I really appreciate the advice. Let me clarify a couple things: 1. I screwed up with those pics -- I didn't even notice (old eyes) that the Cort I put up the pix of had a truss rod. Mine definitely doesn't, and I have a feeling it's not something that's easy to achieve, and would certainly require a new neck. 2. I'm a small-time (I mean SMALL-time!) retailer, and the only free time I really have is late at night and Sunday, which is why I was asking about "electronic" courses. I just don't have any other choice... 3. I love to tinker -- for me, that's at least half the joy... I've been considering building my own git-box. I'm an ex-experimental machinist, wood shop manager, and NASA-certified solderer, so I'm not without the necessary skills. 4. However, should I choose to give myself a break, I may either just string up this old trussless-neck box and start banging away on it (never had a problem with fret buzz or anything like that), or get something like a Squier '51, which I just love the look and sound of. Thanks again! Bart

Hi -- I'm absolutely new here, and I can't play guitar (God knows I've tried!) so please bear with me if I'm not familiar with terms and practices. I have a ca 1986 Cort Strat copy (It's NOT a Cort Stat II, with the truss rod neck). For whatever cosmic reasons, I could never wrap my brain around even the rudiments of playing (though I DID work out how to do the intros to REM's "Letter Never Sent" and The Replacements' cover of "Black Diamond"!). Anyway, I used to noodle around with this thing, but haven't in many years. At the ditzoid age of 58, I've decided I want to learn to play guitar before I die, which could be any minute. I have a couple questions for the forum: 1. Is there a REALLY good DVD/PC (Mac, actually)/book/whatever learning tool for the rank beginner? 2. This Cort I have seems to me (and you already know *my* knowledge level!) to be relatively well made, though I recognize at least a few of its possible inadequacies (like the switches are cheeeep, and the neck is a bolt-in with no truss rod -- though I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing). I've enclosed what I hope is a viewable image montage of the exact type of Cort I have, the only difference being that, having done a little more research, it is probable that the body of my Cort is basswood, rather than the maple I assumed it was because of the matching finish of neck and body -- it's truly a beautiful guitar. What I want to know is how one would go about making it a little better mechanically and sonically without breaking the bank. 3. I'm told the Cort has a fairly narrow neck, but my stubby sausages still have a tough time wrapping around it -- is there a thinner neck that will still be stable? In the photomontage, I *should* have said "maple *color*," as I'm pretty sure the body is really basswood. The headstock is maple on its front face, too -- there's no paint at all anywhere on the guitar, just clearcoat. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks Bart Brown