Hobbies and pastimes.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The TC pedal came in. It's certainly the quietest analog chorus pedal I've ever heard, very rich and chewy too.

[pattylt]

Can you describe chewy? That’s a new one for me…

[Thumpalumpacus]

Can you describe chewy?  That’s a new one for me…

Rich in frequencies which interplay with each other, and sensitive to touch -- i.e. how hard I pick on the strings has an effect the tonal output. A lighter touch results in less output but also less interplay, digging deeper results in a deeper sense of multiple guitars playing in unison and a thicker sound. Very broadband and responsive. It doesn't sound "slapped on top" of the underlying guitar, it sounds organic to it.

[Fireball]

Can you describe chewy?  That’s a new one for me…

Rich in frequencies which interplay with each other, and sensitive to touch -- i.e. how hard I pick on the strings has an effect the tonal output. A lighter touch results in less output but also less interplay, digging deeper results in a deeper sense of multiple guitars playing in unison and a thicker sound. Very broadband and responsive. It doesn't sound "slapped on top" of the underlying guitar, it sounds organic to it.

Can we get an example? Could be off youtube, if you prefer.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Rich in frequencies which interplay with each other, and sensitive to touch -- i.e. how hard I pick on the strings has an effect the tonal output. A lighter touch results in less output but also less interplay, digging deeper results in a deeper sense of multiple guitars playing in unison and a thicker sound. Very broadband and responsive. It doesn't sound "slapped on top" of the underlying guitar, it sounds organic to it.

Can we get an example? Could be off youtube, if you prefer.

Listen to chorus as used in the 70s vs the 80s, say "Lakeside Park" from Rush vs an 80s guitar track, perhaps "Stand or Fall" by the Fixx? I bet it can do the 80s thing, too, especially with a Strat. On the Rush track you can hear the chorus on both the solo and the outro progression -- on the solo it resonates with the distortion and attack without being obnoxious, on the outro it's much gentler but still very obvious. On the Fixx track, it's more like "look at me, here I am, the chorus pedal" throughout the song. (Bearing in mind that the rest of the rig has a say, of course. It's certainly responsive to my Ibby and Peavey layout, along with my picking.)

Neither is better or worse, it's just preference. I prefer this more-organic sound.

ETA: Also, in the next week or so I'll hopefully put up a video showing this. I don't know if my phone will record this well, so please grant me patience, but I hope to show several different aspects, including the "chewy" thing.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The Morley Power Wah/Volume pedal I ordered came in. All that's left for basic wants is a vintage Digitech digital delay like the one I got in 1990, and maybe a compressor.

[Thumpalumpacus]

After spending an hour or two integrating the new pedals in, here's what my board looks like now:


With my #1 guitar and my amp (Peavey VK50, recabbed into custom wood):



... and a close-up:



Bottom row, R-L, Morley wah/vol, Vox Ice-9 overdrive, TCE chorus/flanger. Top, R-L, power supply, amplifier's footswitch controller.

[Thumpalumpacus]

My wah, digital delay and tuner pedals have all come in, and I've got them more-or-less integrated into my pedalboard, except I'm going to have to fiddle with the delay because right now it's picking up a signal from another pedal that is causing a clanking artifact in the delay's output. I'm planning on buying a reverb pedal soon, and then the shopping spree will be over. But man, this sounds so much better than the old multiFX unit I was using -- much cleaner sounding. And with the Strat it's lovely, somewhere between silky and glassy on clean, solid and girthy when gain is added, while retaining clarity.

Speaking of the Strat, I've got most of the parts in for the overhaul I'm planning for it: loaded black pickguard with alnico V HSS pickups (with chrome covers, I love the look on this sunburst), roller nut, roller trees, and domed metal knobs in black. I'm awaiting a set of Wilkinson locking tuners. With this being a Squier, my main focus is on eliminating the tuning issues it has so I can use the vibrato arm when I want. The pickups should go a long way towards giving me a more useful sonic palette, too. Will post pics when it's all done.

[Rizen]

I finished my latest piece of concept art. You can see the steps I took:




I'm quite pleased with this one. It's a demon from my book Rainbows Wane.
https://www.stirts.com/oth
https://www.amazon.com/author/stirts

[Thumpalumpacus]

Started upgrading my guitar today. The is what it looked like before any work:



I'll start by loosening the strings, and removing the inner four. I will leave the high and low E strings on so that I can ensure the new roller nut will be sitting at the right height.



Taking an Xacto knife to cut the finish between the nut and the neck.



Now I'll take a block of wood and a mallet and knock the glue loose:



Not pictured: I then took a flathead screwdriver and knocked the nut loose from the side.

Here's the headstock, done and dusted. I put a little CA glue to hold the nut in place. The two roller trees are set, and the Wilkinson tuners are in place. Be warned: Though I'd posted that I would be installing locking tuners, these aren't locking. They are sold as "Wilkinson EZ Lok" tuners, but when they arrived I saw immediately they weren't locking. Checking the small print of the Amazon posting, it says "these are not locking tuners" -- buried near the end of the specs. They're still better than the stock tuners, with a better gear ratio (21:1 as opposed to 15:1) and a much smoother feel, so I installed them anyway.



Moving along, I did a light sand and polish on the frets, and conditioned the rosewood fretboard with "lemon oil" -- which is actually just scented mineral oil. You could use baby oil or butcher-block oil, but this bottle cost me $6 fifteen years ago and you can see how long it lasts. Anyway, it both moisturizes the wood, and inhibits the uptake of water vapor, which makes the fretboard more resistant to changes in humidity and thus reduces fret-sprout etc.

For the frets, I took a few swipes with 600-grit WoD (used dry), and then followed up with the Novus #2 scratch remover/polish. Aside from auto-body scratches etc, it cleans frets great. It will also removes mild to moderate scratches on CDs, for those of you who still use that medium.

Before fret-polishing and fretboard treatment:





... and after:



Next up, tomorrow: swapping out the electronics, restringing, and testing the work.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It took a little longer than I planned, but got everything put back together and guitar restrung. Here's how it looks now:



The best news out of it is that the intended effects of adding roller-bearings to the string-contact surfaces on the headstock came to fruition. I put new strings on, stretched them until they held tune, and stress-tested the rollers with a series of big blues overbends and deep whammy dive bombs, then checked the tuning again. Perfectly in tune.

Now all I have to do is get my pedal-board back together and go to town.

[Mathilda]

Nice! What pickups are they?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Nice! What pickups are they?

Thanks -- the pickups and harness are branded "Alnico V", though I'm not sure that's the type of magnet on them or just a marketing ploy. They are well-resistant to hum, even the single-coils are quieter than the old Squier pickups. The wiring harness is well-done with clean solders and short wire-runs.

I paid about 75 USD for the pre-wired pickguard on Amazon. I never used the single-coil bridge pickup, and this seemed the best way to get a humbucker in -- three solders and done ... plus no more red tortoise-shell.

[Mathilda]

When Aklot dropped their version of a Strat in blaze orange, the official orange of those 80's Broncos, I knew I had to build this:


The pickup covers and control knobs need to be swapped out for white. That orange is nowhere near advertised, and while it looks better than I'd feared, it still needs to go. Make that switch and add a D-logo decal, and it'll be damned near perfect.

I've just realised that this is the colour scheme of the car in Dukes of Hazzard!

[Thumpalumpacus]

So I finished up the pedal-board upgrade for the time being today. Long story short, for years my pedal layout was simple -- Vox Ice-9 OD, ancient Digitech GNX2 multi FX in the amp's loop, and then the amp's channel & gain footswitch. This layout became annoying to me once I stopped playing out, about 8 years ago, but it was serviceable. In this photo from 2017 you can see the GNX2 and the VOX, along with other  pedals I had but wasn't using (plus the mess of cabling):



But I hated programming the GNX2, because getting unity gain and output was a real pain in the ass. I also hated the "amp-warping" thing that I had to turn off for every patch. The worst bit was that the modulation effects were noisy even in the amp's loop. So I decided to simplify. I don't need preset patches any more, so I just decided to break it into the effects I use most often. Here's the start, with a Morley Power Wah/Vol, Ice-9, and TCE Stereo Chorus/Flanger, along with power supply and amp's switching



But two things I immediately disliked -- messy cables everywhere, and the power supply taking useful space. (If you notice, the board sits directly on the floor). So I put 1" risers on the bottom, drilled holes for routing, moved the power supply, and routed the power underneath:



Meanwhile, I picked up a Polytune Mini and an old Digitech PDS-1002 digital delay and worked them into the board:



The space between the Vox and the Digitech is reserved for another drive or boost, probably a Butler Tube Driver. The space after the SC/F will let me check out other pedals so that I can decide over time ... perhaps a noise gate?

Anyway, sorry for the crummy cell-phone pics.

Probably going to try selling the GNX2 on Craigslist, but I'm not optimistic, pedal listings in our local area seem to lie dormant for weeks if not months.

[Fireball]

So I finished up the pedal-board upgrade for the time being today. Long story short, for years my pedal layout was simple -- Vox Ice-9 OD, ancient Digitech GNX2 multi FX in the amp's loop, and then the amp's channel & gain footswitch. This layout became annoying to me once I stopped playing out, about 8 years ago, but it was serviceable. In this photo from 2017 you can see the GNX2 and the VOX, along with other  pedals I had but wasn't using (plus the mess of cabling):



But I hated programming the GNX2, because getting unity gain and output was a real pain in the ass. I also hated the "amp-warping" thing that I had to turn off for every patch. The worst bit was that the modulation effects were noisy even in the amp's loop. So I decided to simplify. I don't need preset patches any more, so I just decided to break it into the effects I use most often. Here's the start, with a Morley Power Wah/Vol, Ice-9, and TCE Stereo Chorus/Flanger, along with power supply and amp's switching



But two things I immediately disliked -- messy cables everywhere, and the power supply taking useful space. (If you notice, the board sits directly on the floor). So I put 1" risers on the bottom, drilled holes for routing, moved the power supply, and routed the power underneath:



Meanwhile, I picked up a Polytune Mini and an old Digitech PDS-1002 digital delay and worked them into the board:



The space between the Vox and the Digitech is reserved for another drive or boost, probably a Butler Tube Driver. The space after the SC/F will let me check out other pedals so that I can decide over time ... perhaps a noise gate?

Anyway, sorry for the crummy cell-phone pics.

Probably going to try selling the GNX2 on Craigslist, but I'm not optimistic, pedal listings in our local area seem to lie dormant for weeks if not months.

Looks like you're getting it where you want it. I know jack about all these effects, though- in terms of the electronics.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Looks like you're getting it where you want it. I know jack about all these effects, though- in terms of the electronics.

The tuner tunes, of course.

The vol/wah does two things: when the wah is on, it takes a narrow frequency-band and adds 5-10 dB of boost to that band. The foot treadle allows the player to move that bandwidth around in real time, allowing the guitar to get an almost-vocal quality. You can best hear it on tracks like "Sweet Child o' Mine" by GnR or "White Room" by Cream. When the wah is off, the treadle on this model acts as an outboard volume control, allowing you to change volume without taking any fingers off of the strings. Not all wahs have that volume-control function.

The Ice-9 is an overdrive/distortion. It adds power to the signal to either force your amp into distortion, or you can raise the gain so that the pedal itself produces the dirt. I use mine with low gain and high volume output, so that it doesn't color the sound so much as it pushes my amp into its own distortion -- the sound I prefer.

The Stereo Chorus+Flanger has 3 modes: chorus, flanger, and phase modulation. All three effects rely upon splitting the guitar signal into 2-3 copies. The chorus uses the original signal and two copies, puts each of the three about 5-10ms apart, and then recombines them. The result is a lush sound that doesn't really sound like multiple guitars, but is nice and rich.

The flanger does the same thing with longer delay times, but then each copy of the guitar sound varies that time-differential rhythmically. You can hear it on Eric Johnson's solo on "High Landrons", or the end of "Bold as Love" from Jimi Hendrix -- that whooshy thing. Adrian Belew from King Crimson also used it to create amazing textures like steel drums and stuff.

Phasing creates a copy of the guitar part, puts the copy out of phase with the original, and then recombines them. You can hear it all over Van Halen's first two albums, it's a key part of Eddie's early tone.

The SC/F is great because it is so quiet -- no hum, very low noise-floor, high signal-to-noise ratio.

I plan on adding another overdrive and perhaps a reverb pedal as well, but there's the long and short of it for ya.

[Fireball]

Looks like you're getting it where you want it. I know jack about all these effects, though- in terms of the electronics.

The tuner tunes, of course.

The vol/wah does two things: when the wah is on, it takes a narrow frequency-band and adds 5-10 dB of boost to that band. The foot treadle allows the player to move that bandwidth around in real time, allowing the guitar to get an almost-vocal quality. You can best hear it on tracks like "Sweet Child o' Mine" by GnR or "White Room" by Cream. When the wah is off, the treadle on this model acts as an outboard volume control, allowing you to change volume without taking any fingers off of the strings. Not all wahs have that volume-control function.

The Ice-9 is an overdrive/distortion. It adds power to the signal to either force your amp into distortion, or you can raise the gain so that the pedal itself produces the dirt. I use mine with low gain and high volume output, so that it doesn't color the sound so much as it pushes my amp into its own distortion -- the sound I prefer.

The Stereo Chorus+Flanger has 3 modes: chorus, flanger, and phase modulation. All three effects rely upon splitting the guitar signal into 2-3 copies. The chorus uses the original signal and two copies, puts each of the three about 5-10ms apart, and then recombines them. The result is a lush sound that doesn't really sound like multiple guitars, but is nice and rich.

The flanger does the same thing with longer delay times, but then each copy of the guitar sound varies that time-differential rhythmically. You can hear it on Eric Johnson's solo on "High Landrons", or the end of "Bold as Love" from Jimi Hendrix -- that whooshy thing. Adrian Belew from King Crimson also used it to create amazing textures like steel drums and stuff.

Phasing creates a copy of the guitar part, puts the copy out of phase with the original, and then recombines them. You can hear it all over Van Halen's first two albums, it's a key part of Eddie's early tone.

The SC/F is great because it is so quiet -- no hum, very low noise-floor, high signal-to-noise ratio.

I plan on adding another overdrive and perhaps a reverb pedal as well, but there's the long and short of it for ya.

I used to have a good ear for music, but tinnitus is killing a lot of it. I'll go listen to the tunes you mentioned to see if I can get what you mean. Thanks for the education!

[Thumpalumpacus]

I used to have a good ear for music, but tinnitus is killing a lot of it. I'll go listen to the tunes you mentioned to see if I can get what you mean. Thanks for the education!

I've got tinnitus too, I feel ya. I can still hear these effects myself, but I've been wearing earplugs the last 15 years of playing electric so it at least is not getting worse. Between the USAF flight-line and gigs and loud practices, I guess I'm pretty lucky.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

I've been playing the Bronco-Strat and my electric,acoustic almost exclusively for the last few weeks. The Sathurator pedal has been loads of fun (many thanks, Thump), but I found a flaw in my signal chain. I can play clean, but even with all the pedals in bypass it really flattens my tone. I first started playing the Bronco-Strat through the signal chain, and I loved the way it sounded, but the tonal variation between pickups was minimal and fiddling with the tone knobs was nearly pointless. So, I decided to pug into the amp directly and the difference was freakin' night and day. Each position on the selector switch is clearly and substantially different, and the tone knobs will now move smoothly from thick, almost muffled tones through twangy to almost glassy. It's by far the most vocally diverse guitar I have. I don't know if the issue with my signal chain is because of low quality pedals, the location (ahead of the amp) or maybe a combination... I'm gonna have to play with the pedal order, try moving individual pedals in and out of the chain, and try moving it to the signal loop on my amp and see how it goes. Worse comes to worse, I can always physically bypass, as I do now for stuff I want to play clean.

There seems to be as much to learn about pedals and as as there is to learn about guitars.

525 consecutive days of practicing/playing and still loving every second of it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm headed out Friday to Bryan to pick up a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic dirt box I scored on Reverb for a great price. It may replace the Vox, or supplement it, we'll know when we get it in the chain.

[Deesse23]

Looks to me like you need an engineering degree to become a guitar player. Unfortunately, while I got the degree, I got 0,00% art skills.

[Mathilda]

I've been playing the Bronco-Strat and my electric,acoustic almost exclusively for the last few weeks. The Sathurator pedal has been loads of fun (many thanks, Thump), but I found a flaw in my signal chain. I can play clean, but even with all the pedals in bypass it really flattens my tone. I first started playing the Bronco-Strat through the signal chain, and I loved the way it sounded, but the tonal variation between pickups was minimal and fiddling with the tone knobs was nearly pointless. So, I decided to pug into the amp directly  and the difference was freakin' night and day. Each position on the selector switch is clearly and substantially different, and the tone knobs will now move smoothly from thick, almost muffled tones through twangy to almost glassy. It's by far the most vocally diverse guitar I have. I don't know if the issue with my signal chain is because of low quality pedals, the location (ahead of the amp) or maybe a combination... I'm gonna have to play with the pedal order, try moving individual pedals in and out of the chain, and try moving it to the signal loop on my amp and see how it goes. Worse comes to worse, I can always physically bypass, as I do now for stuff I want to play clean.

There seems to be as much to learn about pedals and as as there is to learn about guitars.

525 consecutive days of practicing/playing and still loving every second of it.

I used to notice the difference in the high end when I plugged into any pedal. I once wired a humbucker straight to the  volume control and bypassed the tone control and it was surprising just how much better the tone was. I think the signal does get continually sapped the more pedals and tone controls you have to go through. It's why I like to plug straight into a handwired amp.

I used to use a boost pedal to overdrive the pre-amp valves (DOD FX10 Bi-fet pre-amp which was meant for electro-acoustic guitars). I had never heard of people doing that when I did it but boost pedals are quite common now. I've heard a lot of people use them when their signal chain gets quite long.


I'm actually getting interested in building my own pedals though. I have a few ideas for entirely new pedals that will adapt to the player in real time using my own AI.

I've been buying equipment myself recently. I ordered a replacement Kahler Spyder bridge and nut for my Fender HM Strat and it should be coming today. I always worried about how I'll maintain my main guitar since they discontinued making the bridge. No matter how many other guitars I buy, I always feel most comfortable and happiest playing the one I spent hours every day playing as a teenager.

Last time it went to the guitar tech, he said that the bridge was getting difficult to maintain. But I saw a youtube video recently from Kahler where they were talking about a limited run of NOS bridges from the '80s. And some of the parts that wore away originally have been since improved. I managed to order the very last black nut in that size. Not that I intend to replace it in my guitar any time soon but it's nice to know that I can continue fully using the current bridge without having to worry about being careful with it now I have a replacement.

Cost a lot to ship it over from America though, especially with import taxes and tariffs. And all it will do is sit on my shelf but I know that I'll be really glad to have it some time in the distant future.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

Looks to me like you need an engineering degree to become a guitar player. Unfortunately, while I got the degree, I got 0,00% art skills.

Nah. You just need a strong "what happens if I do this" mentality. 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Low-quality pedals can definitely suck tone, because when mfrs cut corners, one of the first things they skimp on is the buffer, which is what brings the signal back up to unity gain as it leaves the pedal. This is why I've never liked the old Dunlop wah pedals, amongst other stomps.

Parking your pedals in your FX loop can help, but even so, without good buffering a dull tone will still be an issue. If you have a graphic EQ pedal, put it at the end of your chain with a mid-boost, that might help.