***The Official Guitar Thread***

Raymond Lin said:
Not opened the case to my Strat in like 2 years….it somehow aged and more yellowed IN the case without any UV….must be something else in the case giving off some fumes….

jkJVf88.jpeg


This was before

ANHs7Fi.jpeg
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It's nitro isn't it? So could be offgassing IIRC
 
"I Got a Marshall Stack and I play it full at home at the bedroom"
Err no you don't.. this shows what a Marshall Stack sounds like at 1/2 a mile away :D
 
#annoyingchildvoice
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
???????????

The goop, by the way, is to todo two things:
a) stop shocks to the casing from breaking solder joints or dislodging the capacitors etc.
b) stops the caps from vibrating due to the power draw for the audio signal*.

* My solid state hifi amp has audio with the amp output just attached to the silent dummy resistive load. The audio is actually caused by the capacitors that vibrate (and the internal foil spirals vibrate) as the audio amplification draws power from them. It's very clear and reasonably loud at full volume.
 
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NickK said:
#annoyingchildvoice
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
Built it yet?
???????????

The goop, by the way, is to todo two things:
a) stop shocks to the casing from breaking solder joints or dislodging the capacitors etc.
b) stops the caps from vibrating due to the power draw for the audio signal*.

* My solid state hifi amp has audio with the amp output just attached to the silent dummy resistive load. The audio is actually caused by the capacitors that vibrate (and the internal foil spirals vibrate) as the audio amplification draws power from them. It's very clear and reasonably loud at full volume.
Click to expand...

I've not built it yet. As for the goop....that was made famous by Bill Finnegan in his original Klon Centaur pedal. So this goop is paying homage to that in a way. It also comes with the Notaklon kit, or IMO, poking fun at Bill Finnegan. Essentially Bill used it in an attempt to hide his circuit design at the time because Copyright law don't apply to electronic circuitry. But it only took 2 mins before people figured it out anyway.

So the goop has just been a continuation of that gag.
 
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A mate came around last night and we played a bit of guitar.

I showed him Grimstock, a 16th century folksong (i've arranged it in two different keys- G and E). It's your classic i-iv-v and a very catchy tune.

He had big problems with it, despite being a pretty competent metal guitarist. I, on the other hand, cannot play improv lead guitar to save my life. We're stuck all in our little ghettos, aren't we?

Top choon!
 
potatolord said:
on the other hand, cannot play improv lead guitar to save my life. We're stuck all in our little ghettos, aren't we?
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True story.
I've never played lead guitar except in recording studios where I can keep trying over and over.
Around 2021 my band was losing our lead guitarist for 3 gigs so we either cancelled or I put a guitar on.
I was in a pub talking to a guitar teacher and he said "Just learn the pentatonic scale" but I said I'm too old for that nonsense.
The following day I looked it up and realised when I was messing around I was playing in that scale but now had the mathematics for it and I got through the 3 gigs.
About a month later my other band recorded this and as you can see I can play those nice melodies or twin lead melodies no problem but I'd now got the confidence to improvise a lead solo :)
It was different every night but nobody noticed.

 
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Longest day 34deg. I need a distortion pedal :D and I have some bits around - including two 12bh7a which are equivalent to a 12au7 in being non-linear low gain.

Now Merlin (for anyone that doesn't know Merlin Blenkow aka the valve wizard is a very well know tube amp guru):


This offers advice and schematics for creating 12V distortion/preamps, so I think I have the parts needed to make an input buffer and a two stage distortion. This will give a high impedance input so it should keep the sound of the guitar normal. I'll add some more later but this is the idea :)

I have some audio test equipment and bench power supplies so this should work.
 
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NickK said:
Ahh, understood. In the audio world the goop has a purpose other than hide :)
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I’m sure it has a purpose but I’m sure in this instance it is purely poking fun at Bill Finnegan.

I won’t be using it though, it seems to have a better purpose than doing a gag that I won’t see. It’s a bit like plastic cement isn’t it? I’m sure I will have better use for it some other time for some other purpose.
 
Raymond Lin said:
I’m sure it has a purpose but I’m sure in this instance it is purely poking fun at Bill Finnegan.

I won’t be using it though, it seems to have a better purpose than doing a gag that I won’t see. It’s a bit like plastic cement isn’t it? I’m sure I will have better use for it some other time for some other purpose.
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Yes.

In the old days they used to use silicon, however that degrades over time and becomes acidic which literally eats the circuit board and components. The effect was shortened life time.
 
NickK said:
Yes.

In the old days they used to use silicon, however that degrades over time and becomes acidic which literally eats the circuit board and components. The effect was shortened life time.
Click to expand...
Silicone* (not silicon) sealant gives off acetic acid as it cures, not when it breaks down. Never heard of issues beyond during assembly when it attacks metal components :confused:
 
It’s the stuff that they use on the caps, transformers etc that provides structural support, stops them vibrating but in legacy things like amps etc it’s been found to eat the traces away, dissolve IC legs and generally trash the PCB.
I’ve heard it termed generically as silicone but it could be anything.
 
So
NickK said:
It’s the stuff that they use on the caps, transformers etc that provides structural support, stops them vibrating but in legacy things like amps etc it’s been found to eat the traces away, dissolve IC legs and generally trash the PCB.
I’ve heard it termed generically as silicone but it could be anything.
Click to expand...
I think that's electrolyte or oil not silicone. Can damage old circuits
 
Pedal built :D I'm using a 12au7 substitute - the 12bh7a.

Sound is clean, it has a decent single low gain stage sound - warm, tube etc. However (a) I found it reduces the signal out to the amp and (b) needs more gain :D I think that's because the JCM800 likes a high input.

So I will add a second tube tomorrow.. that will be 3x low gain stages.

Frequency response is flat but the output can cause high frequency roll off when the output level is turned down.
 
Video uploading..

Edit update:
I've added the second tube giving 3 gain stages, and I'm now modifying the cabling, and capacitors used to larger values to prevent some of the distortion and roll off. I'll then record some sound :)
 
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I've been eyeing up some tone city mini pedals, given they're 1/2 the price of Boss. Simply put for a couple of hundred quid (the cost of one boss pedal) you can get a lot of bang per buck.

So my hit list of pedals is growing. Specifically I want these to form a "stranger in a strange land" style chain, for police etc.

The stranger in a strange land pipeline (and also police etc):
* £50 - Tube Screamer Mini ( then later add / MXR Distortion+ / DS-1)
* £45 - Comp Engine - compressor
* £49 - Angel Wing - chorus (basically has the sound of a Boss CE-2 but not the CE-1, the Boss CE-2 Waza which can do both is £209!)
* £45 - Tape Machine - delay (Boss DDS-3 equivalent)
* £45 - Tiny Spring - reverb (Boss Reverb equivalent)
* £40 - Power supply.. although I could make my own it's going to be more expensive overall, so I could mod one for better performance.
+ patch leads
~ £300

Someone did an 'inexpensive pedal equivalent' page: https://spartanmusic.co.uk/blogs/smblog/15841084-inexpensive-pedal-clones-a-list

Also this is a neat comparison of the old school distortions:

I can probably build the distortion/fuzz pedals, the MXR D+ and others are relatively simple. The Boss pedals tend to have more in them to buffer input and output. In fact it could be possible to put all of the distortion pedals into a single box (especially with surface mounted components) and a PCB made up in china for peanuts.

The mrs is away for a week and temptation to eat toast and buy some pedals may get too much!

Edit, my current thinking - I will buy some tomorrow:
* StroboStomp HD - already got
* Distortion - steering away from the MXR D+ which is softer, and towards a harder clipping. The DS-1 is scooped and aggressive but the TS9 is the opposite way around with mid focus.
* Comp Engine
* Angel Wing
* Heavenly Lake (combo reverb+echo)
* Power supply
 
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Just need to wait until they open to go and collect but I have on the way:

* Tube Screamer Mini
* Comp Engine
* Angel Wing
* Heavenly Lake (reverb+echo)
* 5 pedal PSU

I'm also going to get a breadboard for some low voltage experimentation. It should be good up to 50V or so, so plenty good enough for most pedals :)
 
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