JohnnyG

ah drak you are right. you will only need the quad. you still got 7 dual triodes to watch tho lol. man you'll be able to fry eggs on that thing wont you

eerr drak man i think you mean an octuplet. have a look around in the manual i linked you to and it has a diagram showing the tube layout in all those amps. the version you're getting has 6 12AX7s and 8 EL34s i think it was. man after a few years you will have spent more on new tubes than on the amp in the first place

drak no worries tho i think youd be better off asking ansil or paul, one of the guys in the US to do it for you. i could make a good job of it but i know they could make it look alot neater than me lol and shipping wouldnt be such a fag. ill have a look see what else i can dig up on it tho. streamline, i dont think im gonna have the cash for the whammy for a little bit. i need to sort out a computer soon and after ive got that and a decent mic or two im gonna be totally skint untill the end of january. if you can hang around untill then then great lol but otherwise im not gonna be able to get it off you. pity, would be cool to see how much mayhem i could cause with 2 whammys

drak, after about a 30 second google i found this http://www.rivera.com/rivera.tbrmanual.html which is the manual for it. scrolling down it has a quick bit of info about the foot switch and a diagram thus so it seems that the foot switch only has 3 switches on it. Channel selection, FX loop and Reverb. by the looks of it cooking up a new pedal controller for it would be pretty easy EDIT: looking through that manual some more they've even been kind enough to give some suggested settings, actualy a fair few lol. man ur gonna be having so much fun with this i am green Sugested Settings

Drak if you can find us a schem or at least some info on the FootSwitch then i reckon we can have a damn good go at building one for ya. hell we can probablly make it even more sturdy and stylish than the origional lol

streamline man dont sell the whammy. trust me you will regret it in about a year when you want one again and the price is even higher. id keep it and just work extra hours etc if you really do go to sell it.....how much you looking for lol.

ok after a bit of a hiatus from anything guitar building-wise (i know it begs the question why i was hanging around here but stfu ) i have bought myself off of ebay for the princeley sum of £80 a battered les paul copy. no Pups, about half the needed electronics tho it does have the origional jackplate and humbucker mounting rings. its drilled for a TOM bridge and it has a bolt on neck. so the current plan is to refinish it and have a play about with it lol. get some big fat humbucker for the bridge and have a sustainiac sustainer in the neck position only this is i think im gonna have to do some major work on it to the extent of stripping off current grimey finish, redoing binding around body and fret board and headstock as well as probablly redoing inlays since they look hella grubby. heres a few pics to give you some idea so any opinions would be welcomed incidentlly its a "carved" top lol in that the body is some sort of ply wood and the top is sort of steamed into shape so the inside seems to be sort of chambered. you'll see what i mean in the pics of the Pup routs. you can see the gap between the top and the middle of the body LP Side here you can see how the nasty ply wood actually gives quite a nice pattern on the outside lol. LP Neack Inlay here's the inlay up by the headstock. you can see what i mean by grubby, its also not very well done. i dunno if you can also see but the binding is grubby and cracked and also not very good. LP Front here's the front of the beast. you can see where its been drilled for everything. the pillars for the TOM bridge are still there but nothing for the tail piece. LP Top and here's one showing the Pup routs and where youcan see the gap between the body etc cheers for anything you guys have to say JG

Drak (see i got it right ) mainden 69 actually has a good point. a Rack Power amp will add very little colour to the signal whereas the power amp section from a vintage amp probablly will in truth i cant really see how it would make things more difficult tho but its just something to bear in mind. however imho i dont think that the colouring would be a bad thing and hell just save urself some cash atm. maybe once you've got the whole thing up and running with one or two vinatge amps set up as power amps with the FX loop used then see if you can borrow a rackmounted amp from somewhere to try out. it could all of a sudden add clarity and prescision to your sound or maybe its too clinical and crisp. probablly worth seeing before you drop the greenies. oh and ampage is a good place to ask about the whole FX loop thing. usual noob posting rules apply, dont be too much of a muppet or they'll eat you alive lol

nice one my man. hope that you have happiness and love and that the nagging isnt too bad

jesus sorry guys. i dunno why i do it lol. nehu the point. personally i dont think that stereo is so great. you can get perfectlly good mono power amps and unless ur planning to do funky stuff with stereo effects then it just seems like a bit of a waste of cash. i mean if you're playing somewhere large and you want to do funky things then would it not probablly be easier to go through the PA imho a mono amp would be fine and then just have both the pre-amps set up so you can choose which one to run into the power amp and just usethem both for different distortion sounds. have one set up in a loop with a mid scooped EQ and the other set up with a differnt distortion tone and different EQing for leads. then having different distortion sounds on each combined with the different EQing on channels would give you a pretty huge variety of sounds

wes, in my opinion the whole stereo thing is a bit pointless. you could maybe have some fun with panning delays or stereo chorus/flange but would you be doing alot of that. with the preamps you could just dothe whole stephen carpenter thing i mentioned and A/B between the two for different sounds

drak (and alexander i a suppose lol) it is quite easy to get an FX loop out into an amp however you have to take a few things into consideration. the major thing is what kind of FX loop you want. the simplest is just 2 switched jacks that mean you can just insert stuff between the preamp and the power amp. the other would be a parralel loop where you can mix the FX loop into the main signal. then there's the whole thing about whether you want to buffer it, have an FX loop send volume control etc etc. in truth you only need to think seriouslly about that stuff if you are wanting to use the amp with the preamp and the FX loop. for what you want you could probablly just get away with having a single input jack that goes straight to the power amp. when you plug into it you disconnect everything fromthe preamp. you may need ti have another gain stage before the signal hits the phase splitter tho it depends entirelly on the size opf the signal from the rack mounted stuff. if its line level then i think itd be ok tho id really recomend looking into it. in short, the actual process of adding an FX loop is pretty simple. HOWEVER, deciding exactlly what you want it to do first is impoirtant. whether you just want to use the amp as a power amp or normal or whether you actually want to have a working FX loop that can be used with the amp as ordinary. hope all thats helpful. heres a link to a page that explains alot more about FX loops. its from london power amps and they build the things so i think they know what they're doing http://www.londonpower.com/FX-faq.htm also with regards to the computer set up. mac vs pc hardware wise i dont really know anything about since ive never used macs. im going PC but only because it'll be easier to build for me etc. basically as long as you have a powerful enough processor with a good amount of RAM and a good soundcard for recording then you'll be fine. like erikbojerik said, the majority of time recording will be playing with the software so just sio long as the hardwares up to scratch you'll be fine.

a friend of mine got a set of XL-500s, a bridge and a neck. he swore by them, said they were some of the best Pups he'd ever heard. he didnt actually pay too much for them, only problem is that you have to wait a fair while for them. i think it was about 2 months for him.

wes and drak (and anybody else interested in home recording) im planning to drop the bucks for a nicey nice computer fairlly soon and its going to be set up for home recording on a proper level (which really means that im just gonna spend £100 on the GFX card and £300 on the sound card lol) seems that if we're all wanting to learn then we can all learn together to some extent. atm im in the position where i know alot about computers but sweet F.A. about actually recording lol

streamline. onthe black manson matt has a midi strip built into the upper horn that controls a whammy reissue on his rack and also he has a copper pad which is the theremin control built into the lower horn of the same guitar. he has the midi sontroller on another guitar as well. have a look on google, theres a site with full rig info etc alexander. ask steve vai how much it kills his tone . hell, my tone is already dirty, broken and distorted. a bit more non true bypass stuff doesnt hurt lol

drak, the new version of the whammy the reissue is midi compatable yes. and it doesnt cost $400. at musicians friend theyre $200 Digitech Whammy Reissue midiwise they it works like this the settings are all midi selectable by sending certain vlaues to whatever port. i think its 24 different modes you can have it on. the actualy pitch bending can be controlled via midi instead of using the pedal. feed it a midi value from 1 to 255 and it coresponds to moving the pedal up however much. matt bellamy of muse fame has a midi strip on 2 of his guitars and then has a digitech in his rack. uses the midistrip to control the pitch bending etc the origionals arent midi compatable, do cost about twice the price and havethe whole vintage mojo coolness factor going (which there is actually something to but tbh its not that big) EDIT: just to say quicklly. dont get the XP whammy Wah or any of the other whammy series except the origional or the reissue. the tracking on them is pretty shocking. tracking on the origional is barelly noticable and the reissue is almost as good

streamline, the origional whammy chip was made by another company for digitech. that company then went bust and copyright laws mean that digitech cant use the same design or summat. in truth the reissue of the WH-1 is meant to be almost as good and it has the whole midi control thing. whether its worth the extra £150 is up to the player really.

drak, the digitech wh-1 is awesome. yes it does the high squealy thing but its great for so many other things. if you can get hold of my iron lung by radiohead then listen to the intro, great use of a whammy but not overlly much here's a post where i gave a full run down of what it can do and my opinion on the whole origional vs reissue argument. URL=http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=12892&hl=wh-1]HERE as for the midi stuff, ive seen the rocktron patchmate cropping up in a fair few rigs. i dunno anything about prices or whatnot but i know that as well as stephen carpenter, rob flynn of machine head uses one and quite a few others. have a look also it may be worth looking into some of the new line 6 modelling pedals. from what ive heard they're pretty nifty and with an expression pedal you could have loads of sounds covered really easilly

wayhay, im not the only person who dropped a wad of cash for an origional whammy loland drak, now that i see what ur trying to do with all the midi stuff then ill point you to stephen carpenters rig on guitar geek RIG its completelly different now, this is from 99 but it uses midi controlled stuff quite nicelly i reckon. i also think he has a really good pallet of tones and sounds that he uses so it gives an idea of whats possible. if u notice he actually has 2 deperate midi preamps and then has an AB box at the front of his rig. that may be a good way for you to use both of yours. he does still have 2 seperate power amp heads in that rig and the majority of it is rack mounted tho it could be a good place to start

drak, first things first id just like to point you to guitargeek.com. not because im not gonna give u any advice but (if you havnt already looked) then its a great place to see not only what some people have in their rigs but also how they have them set up with regards to FX order etc. with regards to the sound if you wanted a good heavy overdrive type sound that was natural and crisp sounding then best thing to do would be to just chuck a booster pedal before one of your tube amps. for heavy slayer esque grind i wouldnt have thought that those amps have enough gain (anybody who knows differentlly please kick me) so it may be a case of running them a bit cleaner and then haveing a distortion stomp somewhere. you could splash out the cash for a mesa of some sort tho i dunno if you want to do that or infact need to. FX pedal wise its a matter of what you want it to do. i have no idea what the POD will do but alot of people swear by them so it may be worth spending a wek or 6 just playing with that the GE-7 could be useful for going between a good lead sound and then stomped in to scoop the mids for a heavy riffing sound. maybe playing with some other xtomp boxes to see if theres anything you like. Boss DS-1 or a metalzone. maybe an EH Big Muff Pi. as for moddingthe amps to go straight to the power amp section, yeah it is possible but tbh if i had nice vintage amps id rather leave them as they were and just plug into the front. theres probablly alot more useful advice i can give thn that but i only just got up so im not firing on all cylinders yet lol hope its helpful and go check out guitar geek. if ur gonna start becoming a gear slut then its your best friend

fuzz factory has 5 controls. volume and drive are obvious. stability is simulation of a dieing battery compression and gate alter biasing levels for the transistors which gives wierd effects. explaining exactlly what they do would require really knowing what ur doing electronics wise

ooohhh ok i get it. its actually fairlly easy to explain. circuit draws a certain amount of current from battery. when you introduce resistance inbetween the battery and the circuit the current being drawn through the resitance causes a voltage across it. thats all easy. nowwhat i reckon happens with it is that when the resistance is large enough, the voltage drop across it will be so great that the biasing on the transistors goes funny and there isnt enough voltage at the base to turnthem on. this means they turn off. now when they're off, they wont be drawing any current. so there wont be a voltage drop across the power supply series resistence. hence there will be enough voltage to turn the transistors back on. but hang on, when they turn on the whole thing happens all over again, and again, and again. and so you will get the oscillation. wow i amaze myself sometimes lol

i always asumed that the resistance inthe battery line that simulates the dieing battery cased funny things because biasing and clipping went funkeh. and where is the positive feedback in a FF circuit? im fairlly sure the 100k resistor from emitter of Q2 to base of Q1 was negative feedback?

i had a quick scout for a schem of the ultra fuxx but didnt turn anything up. if you come up with anything id love to know. im looking for a really versatile noise fuzz and am trying to build my own but there are only so many ways to arrange transistors before you have to get really creative. transistor in paralel with the emiter resistor controlled by the origional signal being sent through a flip flop octave down . hellz yeah i need a breadboard

hhhmmm, a cheaper fuzz factory you say. ill look into this tho partof thereason for wanting a fuzz factory is the damn cool paint design lol. as for not building it its partly because i respect since he really knows his shiznit and also my miniscule stock of NOS germanium transistors isnt up to scratch in the slightest. in truth ive built meself an SHO and used it for a bit but untill ive got my tube amp sorted there aint really much use for me in it. and even then im gonna buy one, the bee is damn cool lol