JohnnyG

in which case posablly the flatline and the punchline inside it would be the best option. then you could just build simple bass treple EQs for each pickup which again would be fairlly simple. just have a look around on the net again, there'll be loads of them

i think lovekrafts right that its overcomplicated but its not so complicated that you wouldnt be able to do it. if you can get a PCB board layout made up for it (either DIY or ask someone, hell i may do it since i like the idea of the circuit and its tempting to build it) then all youd need to do is get that made up and solder it together and even monkeys can be trained to do that

read my mindwith the P90, thats exactlly what i was thinking of putting in there simple because i havnt got/played a guitar with one and i wanna see what its like

thats what i figured. im gonna wait a couple days since the guy also has an auction going on an old tube hifi amp which i can have a play with. now to order my soldering iron and everything will be peachy

good point alarung, i hadnt noticed that it was quite small, 20 frets but i dont really mind that, would be nice to have something a bit more janglly in my collection lol. deadmike, i asked the seller and he says that apart from the electronics and the nuteverythings fine. the electronics id have no trouble with and the nut would be something to learn. i reckon that restoring it wouldnt be that exoensive, price of a new pickup excluded. dont really think theres much to salvage by parting it up so it seems a better idea just to keep it togetherif i do get it

i realise its gonna be crappy but for the money i can put upwith that. its something to play about with and you can only learn by actually doing something. i need to learn how to do nut jobs (please no puns) so thats something at least. this may bewhat i set up to play slide guitar on in which case a change of pickup and posablle routing out aspace for a new one would all be on the list to do at some point its something i can sink my teeth into untill iver properllysorted out the next project guitar and hey, at that price its cheaper and better for me than crack so i cant complain

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...me=STRK:MEWA:IT for £25 and £10 P+P i reckon that even if it is crappy i can do a fair bit with it and for that price im not gonna loose out too much. add in the fact that its a nifty shape and all im highlly tempted tho i have no idea what make or model it is. ive asked the seller if its all playing fine and he's told me that its all fine, no worping, stays in tune and not bad action. he said he thinks its a jedson tho hes not sure any thoughts people? JG

scott, thats a damn good idea. ill have to have a root around at work when i get a chance. theres got to be loads of bits of steel sheet lieing around. executioner, thats another good point. ill have a look around for something like that. can you give me any other info on it?

good point with the TOM. never thought about having a higher nut. only problem i then have is cutting the nut since atm i dont have a set of nut files. maybe itd be a good idea ot invest

with regards to the electronics (thats about all im good for on here) you may not be able to make an exact replica of the original board thats inside it but it wouldnt be too difficult to put a simple compressor and a simple expander on a single board. there are loads of fairlly simple DIY compressors flying around on the internet. have a look at generalguitargadgets.com or just look in google. with regards to expanders theres only actually one that ive seen (i could be wrong tho so you may still wanna check) and thats actually a moddified compressor origionally made by John Hollis. so imho itd be easier to use those. the compressor is called the Flatline. if you go to John Hollis' page then its got a schem, HERE and if you go to Geofex then it has a parts list and a PCB layout which would be useful. with regards to converting it to an expander then have a look on Mark Hammer's (i think its Mark lol) site then its got everything you need to know. Here. i dunno if you want the controls for these to be on the front of the bass or inside a little routed cavity in the back, thats up to you but neither would be hard. only other thing i can help with is the output jack. if your having internal FX then you'll want a stereo jack, just have it set up so that the negative terminal of the battery connects to the second channel conection on the jack. that way when you plug the signal cable in it will connect the battery terminal to ground and when you take it out it will disconnect the battery so it wont run it down when you're not playing. you could always just have a kill switch mounted somewhere but its alot easier just to do this. hope all thats helpful JG

Yeah i know it seems a bit silly but basically ive just found out how much fun electric slide guitar is (atm im playing with a shot glass, only thing i could find that i could use tho ill be getting a proper slide soon) and im now thinking of sorting myself out a guitar that i can have just to play slide on. Currentlly i have my first project guitar that i made which is tuned to open G (its the nuclear strat for any who remember, a hideous monstrosity that i love like my own child ) but the action on it isnt really that great and because its a trem it cant really get as high as id like to get around the fret board radius. so back to the point of the post, what im asking about is whether there are any bridges people can think of that would make it a bit easier to get higher action. im planning to buy an old guitar from anywhere i can find thats in need of some TLC and set that up. i realise that i could just sand down the fretboard flat but im not really up to doing afull fret job yet. i also realise that a TOM would be good for high action but theres the whole neck angle thing and so retrofitting one could be tricky (i assume that there would still have to be a neck angle with a TOM if i were playing slide, feel free to call me a muppet) anyway, any help would be gratefully recieved cheers guys JG

Fidge man its a pity you didnt ask this a week or two ago otherwise i would have seen if you could bring it into the Eton Woodshops. we've got a thickness planer here which could handle a body blank. unfortunatelly im leaving for good tomorrow so fraid its not possaiible now

i personally think that the fabric is the best (penguins kick ass) but out of the two designs id go with the current one

if you design the circuit board yourself you should be able to get it fairlly small, problem with doing that is that not everybody can get their own PCBs printed

good point, forgot about that thread lol.cheers for reminding me

OK here's the problem. im quite happy with my soloing now, i used to suck but i can now reel off some pretty good licks and solos and i can put them in which ever key i feel like etc the problem is that everytime i do a lick or solo it just sounds like another blues based rock lick. notthattheres a problem with it but i dont always want to play that. id quite like to learn how to solo in a few other musical styles (speed metal sweep picking and shredding aside lol) i realise that the major reason for this is that all my solos are based on the pentatonic scale shapes so maybe if somebody could recomend a set of scales that can be used in the same way thatd be useful many thanks people, now im gonna go play another blues riff, maybe it'll sound different lol Johnny G

i had to go vote for the spalted strat as well. Damn you TSL, you kill my dreams rofl incidentlly, should i feel cheap because nobody has voted for me yet lol

pure genius man. lol, i may have to start having a look around when im on my gap year for unloved electronics.

if you have a stranded wire and you strip the plastic coat off then you end up with the wires all poking in different directions. if you twist them up, put a bit of flux on them and then coat them in solder then they stick together and its alot easier to attatch them to things. its not really so important forguitar wiring as it is for when your putting things in a PCB but it does make life a bit easier

personally i would say that if you're tinning wires, soldering ground connections to the backs of pots, attatching wires to pot lugs then a bit of extra flux is very useful. normally if you're trying to solder a wire to the backof the pot you gotta heat the sucker up a fair bit, with the flux the solder will flow more easilly so you end up melting the solder onto the back of the pot more quicklly hence you actually heat the innards of the pot up less, therefore less chance of any damage being done. i think that when it comes down to it its not so much a must have, but it does make life alot easier. i use it whenever itinwire since otherwise the solder just forms a nasty blob

lol fair play. i should probablly get myself a copy, just never really got round to it lol

one thing that you may find very useful if your doing alot of soldering thats not on circuit boards is a can of flux. for tinning wires and a whole host of other things it makes life so much easier, your also less likelly to fry things if you dont have to heat them up loads to get the solder to flow

from what ive seen, Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvin Hiscock is a book thats very worth reading

yy point lovekraft, i wasn't telling him to try and clone the nono head, not only do i respect Zach for being smart guy and making some of the sweetest effects around but i thinkthat he's probablly the only one who could understand whats going on inside it. the DCtoDC convertor uses a negistor oscillator which is a completelly origional design. god knows how he makes it work but it does lol the stack in the box looks interesting, i may have to have a look at that, talking about this is al of a sudden making me really want to design a tube amp that will run off a car battery lol, i might have to research this a bit

Lovekraft, you forgot one more mini amp, the ZVex Nano Head. very impressive amp, runs off a 12 volt adaptor. it uses a solid state DC to DC convertor inside it to turn the 12 volts into about 200. its got two sub miniature tubes, both dual triodes. it has 3 as the preamp andthen one that operates in class A and powers the amp through what i believe is an old fender reverb output tranny. there are pictures of the inside of it on the site tho there's no point in trying to work out a schematic from that, the board is a 4 layer PCB lol. monkey, if you want an amp thats tiny and sounds amazing then i cannot recomend this more, it can actually run of a 12 volt car battery and would have a decent enough battery life like that (the amp draws about 1.5 amps at startup and then 0.5 for the rest of the time that its on. if you were gonna build a tiny tube amp then id try to get hold of some sub miniature tubes and investigate the whole DCtoDC convertor (since thats the only way youd be able to run it off a car battery, and i should probablly mention that the electronics for them can be a bit mind boggling lol) like lovekraft said, id start on something a bit simpler before you start trying to contend with the multiple problems of making tiny tube amps