Okay, My Project Guitar... I need Set-Up Help.

[Belva]

 

some things should be left to the pros!

 

How do you think the pros learned? They weren't born with the ability to set up/repair a stringed instrument. When I first started here, I had lots of questions and didn't know much at all. Now I have a side bidness fixing guitars & basses. There are some knowledgeable people here.

[katillac]

some things should be left to the pros!

 

{looks at your statement}

 

{looks at the forum name}

 

[stratotak]

Maybe they need to start a separate forum. Take it to the Pro's

Learning to adjust your own guitar theres really nothing you can do to it that will destroy it.Maybe crank on the truss rod to far and snap it. Wiring,finishing,setup,etc..it wont blow up on you If you make a mistake.

I just recently got into the Xbox 360 mod bug and Im leery of doing any soldering on the Xbox.I want to add another fan and best way from what i read requires a bit of soldering.Nothing to complicated. But still..Soldering a guitar pot and few wires is different then soldering on a mother board with fancy micro chips and what nots..lol.

[WRGKMC]

Surely theres differences in competencies needed to perform different acts. I been a certified electronic tech since 1976 and an amature tech with vast experience going back to when i was about 9 building radios and kits from scratch. Theres certain things, in fact alot of things I walk away from because i know the circuits are proprietary and theres no means to tackle them, or its just not worth the cost and effort. I quickly learned that when I did repairs and the most new stuff coming out was just so complex you couldnt repair it without in depth understanding of what going on, good schematics and parts availability.

 

You get Engineers who design the stuff with cad programs, robots to build and no support material to service anything because thay arent meant to be repaired. Technicians were removed from the whole process because the circuits are too complex, the boards are so cheap to manufacture, and theres no profit having a techs brain troubbleshoot to component level when it can be done in seconds plugged into a computer to be diagnosed. (if its even a repairable board).

 

Most technicians looked at movies like 2001 in the 70s where they used a logic probe on a broken transmitter to trace circuits and show it on a computer screen and thought that it was something that wouldnt happen for a century. They didnt even have portable computers at that point and the smallest computers were used in space and you had to have an engineering degree to run them. Nearly All that stuff came true. It just lagged in different industries more than others. Analog Audio is incredibly primative and simple in comparison to other digital electronics and their associated software used to drive them. At one time you would have one man design entire products and their circuits.

 

Now you have a company with thousands of engineers who design a single chip, and that chip isnt even a new design, its built off of a hundered earlier designs so its not built from the ground up, its knowlege layered upon knowlege. It is daunting for anyone new to electronics. Noone knows it all. They may only be a small spoke in a huge wheel and become an expert at only a small portion of a larger project, and when that project is complete they may have to reeducate themselves to learn another small portion from the ground up.

 

My teacher told me when I got into electronics to expect to spend the rest of your life in constand education mode keeping up with the constant changes and improvements, and dont expect to work for a company for longer than 5 years or you'll loose pace and never get it back. How utterly true those words were. The stuff I'm into now may be used in another 50 years in audio. much of it will require instruments to go to using light vs magnetics to capture the sound. some realize this and there are some primative led pickup systems available now but converting a guitar signal to to digital is still in its infancy.

 

I see guitars instead of having onboard analog effects as having complete digital effects on board. You can plug the instrument in and program the effects and perameters you want to use from a PC. In fact all the musicians can plug into a PC and use a database to have their effects interact with each other much like DAW mixing might be now.

 

Even the latest music technology is at least 20 years behind other industries, much of it leftovers from movie and computer indistries that find a market nitche. So yes the technology path will improve their performance abilities over time. Truth is as a performer, once you get past obtaing a good functional rig, the technology route is a big dead end. Its a capitol driven market and everyones trying to sell you something like the latest toothpaste or male enhancement gizmo. If you want to be a performer, forget about the technology and learn to play well. If you want to become a tech or engineer, go to school then find a company one the cutting edge. The two industries intersect of course but decide on what path will earn a living. Use the other industry when its needed but dont expect it to be a secret weapon that will give you an edge over others. Life is too short and noone can learn it all.