curtisa

Based on how your last build came out I'm really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.

Found this picture recently regarding another Paul Vo invention (the guy behind the Moog guitar). If you scroll to the bottom of this page you can see a blurry image of his VO96 acoustic guitar hex sustainer being tested. You can just see that each pickup appears to comprise two coils per string (one driver, one pickup?), each string pair being slightly offset from the next so that they all align properly with the strings. I guess this acounts for the Moog guitars' trapezoid-shaped pickup covers.

I'm quite partial to the Wilkinson VS100 trem and have used it in a couple of builds. Combined with a low-friction nut and locking tuners I've been able to execute trem-arm-all-the-way-down dives and return to pitch without any tuning stability problems. Would also like to give the Hipshot Contour model a go one day too, as both trems seem to get favourable reviews. One thing to be careful of with the two-point non-locking trems is the proximity of the trem post to the bridge pickup route, especially in softer woods like basswood. I've seen pictures of Ibanez's with the posts collapsed forward due to the small amount of soft wood not providing sufficient support against the tension of the strings/springs. The posts usually require a much larger hole drilled than the typical 6-screw Strat bridge, leaving less wood to support the bridge behind the pickup.

Sometimes you just need to apply a couple of coats of filler to completely fill up the pores. Big pored timber like mahogany probably just accentuates the need for multiple coats. In my experience if the filler is pulling out of the pores when squeegie-ing the excess off it's probably dried too much to be manipulated any further, or it's been mixed too viscous to start with. Timbermate dries very quickly and doesn't have an awful lot of working time. Regarding epoxy as a pore filler, I've had luck using a scraper to remove the excess rather than sanding - much less effort and almost no nasty epoxy dust to contend with.

The typical LPF "ladder" Moog filter is offered as a switchable option, along with a resonant filter mode and an active tone control, none of which I particularly liked or really saw the need for - there was no "off" option. Not sure if it was all analogue, can't find any info on the circuitry behind it. There are a couple of shots of the instrument with it's back cover removed floating around on the net. It's definitely a complex beast and relied on external power from the included foot pedal. Based on what I've experienced with sustainers (DIY/Ebow/Moog et al) the biggest hurdle is the driver. Making something that only imparts the excitation signal on the string and nothing else appears to be something that is inherently difficult to overcome given guitarists desires to rely on inductive high-impedance pickups. Moog have obviously done an admirable job on their driver/pickup technology, even if they have been a bit one-eyed in their implementation of the system.

On a related note, I tried a secondhand Moog guitar yesterday just for the hell of it. I suspect that this particular example was badly set up, or had something wrong with it as it didn't work as well as shown in some of the Youtube videos I'd seen of it, but it was a lot of fun to play with nonetheless. Sustain appeared to be weaker, and the "mute" function only just worked. I guess the drivers weren't imparting enough "oomph" on the strings - too far from the strings? Strings were old? Not enough amplification? I notice on the Moog website that they recommend strings with a high steel content, even going as far as saying that the guitar works best with their own "specially formulated" strings. The thing that struck me was how well it could sustain cleanly with any pickup, something that the DIY sustainer and the Ebow always struggled with. With the DIY sustainer and Ebow there is always a degree of background distortion/fuzz superimposed on the raw guitar output. From memory the general concensus during the development of the DIY sustainer was that it was largely due to the driver circuit being horribly overdriven, and the proximity of the driver to the guitar pickup inductively coupled the noisy driver signal back into the pickup. The Moog guitar had none of these artifacts, which made it so much more appealing to me as an example of an instrument fitted with some kind of infinite sustain system. I love using an Ebow, but I hate that I can't use it for clean sounds. There wasn't an awful lot I could gather about the technology behind the pickups/drivers during my brief encounter with the instrument (the sales assistant admitted he didn't know anything much about it either, other than the pickups were based around rare earth magnets), and there doesn't seem to be much revealing information floating around on the net. The eventual deal-breakers for me were the facts that it didn't work quite as well as the videos I'd seen of it, and the that it was fitted with a bunch of on-board filters for synth-type sounds that always seem to be applied to the guitar signal even when wound all the way back, something that I could definitely live without - if I wanted my guitar to sound like a Moog synth from the 70's I would use external processing. Because of the fancy filter/tone controls I never really felt like there was any setting that let me listen the natural sound of the guitar. I guess Moog have included it to add extra credibilty to the brand name. The implication that I need to buy Moog-branded strings to get the best performance out of it was also not encouraging. However if Moog (or some other manufacturer for that matter) could offer the hexaphonic sustain system minus the filter processing as a kit I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

D'oh! Another error that needs to be corrected - the two rear route templates should not align with line A-A on the drawing but be shifted 3mm closer to the neck. That will give you the little overhang as can be seen here, and is necessary to allow the trem arm to be pulled up: Lines B-B and C-C still need to be overlaid as per the drawing.

Hey Chris, I tried to PM this info to save cluttering up the thread but it failed. Here's the lowdown on the measurements: I've made some measurements of the Wilkinson VS100 templates I've used successfully a couple of times. I'd still recommend doing a trial run before committing to the actual workpiece. I use a 1/2" diameter template bit for all the routes. Hopefully all my handwriting is clear enough. String clearance over the body with my suggested 1/8" raising of the bridge is about 1/2". The VS100 also works best on bodies with a thickness of around 44mm - understandable given that it was originally designed as a Strat trem upgrade. I've noticed that I've missed off one measurement in the diagram - the distance between line A-A and the trem stud drill centres on the Top Route drawing should be 13mm. http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s222/ac1176/VS100routes_zps8464656e.jpg

Wow. President Obama looks pretty sharp in those aviators!

I'll get back to you with some more concrete measurements soon, but off the top of my head I set the underside of the baseplate to 1/8" above the top of the body to allow a little bit of upwards pull on the arm, and the gap at the rear of the block cavity is bigger so that the block has room to swing backwards when the arm is depressed. The lip at the top is only to minimise the size of the route on the body top where the block passes through, otherwise you'd see a big hole all the way through the body at the back of the trem when viewed front-on. Any Strat-style trem will be similar.

Thanks Scott. Really digging the stacked pickup. Probably won't satisfy a diehard Strat purist, but pretty damn close nonetheless. Having a lot of fun with it at the moment. And no more hum than a regular humbucker.

Thanks chaps. Measurements are available from the Floyd Rose website. Should also mention that the templates I've made up are for a FR Original. The only differences between the official template measurements and mine are that I've made the sustain block cutout slightly shorter to put more wood around the bass side stud, and a bit wider to allow the trem to dive lower.

Afterimage Guitars - TSC6 "Blackflow" Body - Tasmanian blackwood with tiger myrtle carved top Neck - Tas blackwood/Tas myrtle with figured gidgee fretboard Inlays - Celery top pine rings with gidgee centres Scale length - 25.5" Radius - 16" Trussrod - Allparts Tuners - Hipshot Griplock Nut - Graphtech black Tusq Frets - Jumbo stainless steel Pickups - Seymour Duncan JB bridge, STK-S4 stacked humbucker neck Bridge - Wilkinson VS100 trem Electronics - 1x vol, 1 x 3-way toggle More photos and build thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/topic/47114-build-5-singlecuttele-style-tsc6/

Over and out.

The stud hole depths can now be finalised to a depth of 20mm with a 10mm bit on the drill press. Posts can then go in: Test fit time. All looks tickety-boo: And check to make sure the trem can go all the way up and down without rubbing against any of the routes:

Hog out some more waste for the next route, and follow up with a 3/8" pattern bit to a depth of 1/4". This sets the first depth for the Floyd Rose recess around the studs: Next step is to route the back of the cavity to allow the trem to be pulled up. A little stop bar is fitted to the second template to limit the routers' movement to within 5/8" of the front of the last route. Change the router depth to 11mm and have at it: The master indexing plate and all the templates can now be removed completely. There's a slight nick behind the treble-side stud hole where the crappy pine splintered, but otherwise it's looking pretty good: A hole is drilled to help locate the route on the back of the body for the spring cavity. Doesn't matter where this hole is placed, just as long as it's as close to the front edge of the sustain block route as possible. As it happenned my hole was pretty much on the centreline anyway. Where the hole emerges on the other side is where a reference line perpendicular to the centre of the body is drawn. This line is drawn on the neck-side tangent of the hole and is used for aligning the final template: Last template goes down, and routed to a depth of 16mm: The back of the spring cavity is routed to an extra 12mm depth to allow the sustain block to swing backwards when the arm is divebombed:

...or "how I learnt to stop worrying and love the perspex". Following on from my slightly exasperated post regarding the creation of my Floyd Rose routing templates, thought I'd give a quick test of the new templates for you chaps. The willing victim, a couple of pieces of radiata pine laminated together to make up a body-ish sized hunk of wood. A centreline has been added to line everything up: Master indexing plate. Everything is referenced to this piece. Can't see it in the photo but there is a line etched underneath that is placed over the centreline of the body: First template is fitted temporarily just to mark the location of the stud holes. The rectangular cutout is for the sustain block route. If I were routing a real body the timber would be wide enough to leave the master indexing plate clamped to it throughout the whole process, but because my test piece is only 240mm wide I have to remove the clamps when I take it over to the drill press to make it fit on the table. The depth of the stud holes isn't critical at this stage, just need to get the holes started and fine tune them once the routing is completed. Drilled to a depth of 20mm for now: Index plate and first template lined up again on the body, ready to start making a proper mess. The screws that hold the first template in are only threaded into the indexing plate and are countersunk so that they don't interfere with the router base. Wide washers on the screws clamp the template in place when the screws are tightened: Get rid of some of the waste with a 20mm forstner bit and route sustain block cutout to a depth of 29mm: First template gets removed and next template gets installed on the indexing plate. The extra height is necessary because the routes for the next stage are much shallower, and the bearing on the router bit would otherwise ride above the edge of the template:

That is exactly what SPDT is. SPDT = Single Pole, Double Throw. Single Pole - the switch has one switching mechanism inside. Double Throw - the switch has two states it can toggle between.

I like your idea of using a bunch of bench vises to spread the pressure while clamping! I was at a secondhand store recently and they had a bunch of old cast-iron book presses for sale that would have been big enough to serve as clamps for gluing tops onto bodies. Sadly they wanted in excess of $400 for each of them.

Presactly. Last weekend was just one of those times you wish you'd planned things better. Two steps forward, one step back.

,,,where you spend all day Saturday making some new templates out of clear acrylic for a Floyd Rose trem for your next build, and everything is measured up and square and it all looks perfect, and you make a test run of your new templates on a piece of scrap timber to make sure the templates you've just spent 5 hours sweating over will work, because you know it would be sensible to do a dry run before hacking away at that nice piece of figured wood you'd spent a large chunk of cash on, and the test run comes out pretty nicely, and the Floyd Rose appears to fit, except you think the cavity the sustain block passes through could be a bit wider because the block hits it when you divebomb? And so you take your new beautiful templates and draw new cutting marks, and line up a new straightedge with the router fitted with a pattern-following bit, and turn on the router and ease it into the cut and the damn thing grabs and destroys your templates you'd just spent all day perfecting? And then you say a few (or several dozen) choice words and pack everything up and go and have a drink (or four), and come back the next day to survey the damage, and then look at your mutilated templates and suddenly think, "hey, I reckon I can salvage some of this - maybe all is not lost", so you spend all of Sunday cutting off the damaged sections, routing up new templates to replace the ruined ones and devise a new way to make that Floyd Rose route, but without wasting so much acrylic, and in such a way that everything is self-aligning on a master indexing plate, and then discovering at the end of it all you don't have any more scrap timber to try your handiwork out on? Or maybe it's just me.

First go at using an arbor press to do frets. Much prefer this over hammering, easier to get a nice consistent result on each fret: Haven't been happy with the ends of the fret tangs being visible after dressing on my last couple of necks, so tried undercutting each fret so that only the fret end itself will be visible. Takes a little bit longer than to prep each fret before pressing, but will be neater looking in the end: Getting down to the minor/cosmetic stuff now:

Indeed. I wish my DSP knowledge were advanced enough to participate in this more. While I have built a 24bit 96KHz ADC in the past, it was really nothing more than joining a bunch of IC datasheets/application notes together, and it has been a long time since I've done any serious electronics work at this level.

USB was going to be my other suggestion, although it would limit you to only being able to use the instrument with a PC/Mac. Then again, maybe this shouldn't be considered a limiting factor? Have you seen miniDSP products? Check these out, only just found them today, looks really promising for your application. I could imagine pairing one them up with some kind of multichannel ADC and straight away solving the hardest part of the signal chain - getting the signal into the host. Not too expensive either.

OK, I understand better what your game plan is now. Well, if what you're proposing is something far more radical and unique than simply a hexaphonic pickup driving independant analogue signal paths, why limit yourself to "standard" guitar components? No need to constrain yourself to 1/4" plugs and sockets - how about ADAT lightpipe over opticfibre? Dante over ethernet? Raw serial bitstream from your onboard ADC via multicore cable? Whatever system you decide to employ will also dictate how the data can be transmitted from A to B. As interesting as wireless sounds, I'd personally prefer to use something more mechanically robust, especially over a "public" radio method such as Bluetooth. Dante sounds promising as the cables can be picked up just about anywhere, even rugged-ised versions aren't that hard to find. Serial bitstream direct from the ADC is another option, using whatever connectors fit the bill (multi core XLR, Sub-D) - the limiting thing here will be trying to sucessfully transmit the data through potentially long lengths of cable, something that proprietry systems are designed to avoid Maybe three channel pairs of SPDIF over multicore is a possibilty here? Using a cable also allows power to be delivered from the host to the guitar. Wireless dictates the use of batteries. Installing so much processing devices into the instrument that requires multiple sets of batteries, or short run times before recharging will make the instrument more annoying than inspiring to end users.