Mr.Grumpy

On 2/17/2024 at 11:32 AM, 1001gear said:

I still don't get how a signal has an impedance.

It's hard to explain, but think of your guitar's signal as a fluid going through a straw or pipe. I high impedance circuit has skinny pipes, and over long distances there will be a lost of pressure. Low impedance is like having a "bigger pipe" so signals travel with less loss. A passive pickup can make a decent amount of voltage, up to and even over a thousand millivolts AC, but there's very little current (amps/milli amps) behind it. Sorry this is over simplified and to be honest I don't completely understand it myself, but there you go! 

The culprit that makes passive electronics "high impedance" is the pickup. The very earliest magnetic pickups used fewer coil windings and stronger magnets to get enough signal strength. Leo Fender got to examine and repair many of these early instruments (Rickenbacker lap steels and so forth) and decided he could improve the pickup design by using more coil windings with a smaller, more focused magnetic field. Luckily, the vacuum tube is well-suited to amplifying high impedance signals. 

I've owned a '70s Japanese-made electric 12-string for over 20 years, but don't play it much because it's so miserable. So when I saw the Squier 'paranormal' 12-string Jazzmaster I was interested. Almost ordered one from that mail order place, but at the last minute looked up my local big-box guitar store and they actually had one in stock! I picked it up a week before Christmas and my wife made me promise I wouldn't play it until Christmas day. 

It's nice. Action is low and intonation is very good due to individual bridges for each of the 12 strings. I've never owned or even played a Jazzmaster before and I'm a little underwhelmed by the pickups. They don't sound like strat or tele pickups at all. Chords on the neck pickup are pretty bassy. The bridge pickup is brighter of course but still doesn't have that focused 'zing' of strat or tele bridge pickup. At least it's hum cancelling with both pickups on. 

I'm very happy with my gift but realize a 12 string only "fits" in a few places because it can take up a lot of sonic space. Looking forward to doing some home recording with it now that my adult stepdaughter (27) has moved out of my music room and into her own place. 

Happy New Years, both of you! 

I still own a Music Man HD-212 combo amp, basically a Fender Twin style amp on steroids. This is the oddest type of "hybrid" amp, solid state (op-amp) preamp section with a robust tube power amp section. It runs four 6L6GCs at 700+ volts to put out a very clean one hundred and fifty watts. Luckily, it has a "hi-lo power" switch that runs the power amp with a lower B+ plate voltage which helps both tube life and ears. 

When my Music Man crapped out I replaced it with a used SS Marshall 1x12 combo and that met my needs for a fairly loud two-guitar band. I'm a pedal guy, so I just need a good loud clean tone and maybe some decent spring reverb. 

Loud, heavy amps have pretty much become "white elephants" for most musicians and music genres, except OF COURSE high-gain head/cabinet stacks preferred and metal players. But a clean 100 watt combo amp like a Fender Twin or my Music Man? Worth less used than a smaller lighter amp like a Fender Deluxe or Princeton. "Too heavy, too loud!" 

ZOOM multieffect pedal. Probably this one, based on color; they make several models of multi-effect in "single pedal" format. They are supposed to sound pretty good.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MS50G--zoom-ms-50g-multistomp-multi-effects-pedal

As a boy, my father had the job of working the bellows for the organist at his rural Catholic school in Pennsylvania. If he let the air pressure get too low, the organist would poke my dad in the ribs with his foot as a 'reminder' to get pumping! Imagine hitting a big chord and it dies out after half a second. Although not technically an "amplified" instrument, these early organs were the first musical instruments to use an outside source of power to make sound, in contrast to every other early instrument that used the musicians' energy - their breath, their bowing, their strumming - to make sound, which limited volume.  The volume wars have been going on since forever. 

Smaller organs had footpedal bellows operated by the organist themselves, these are still fairly common at antique sales, usually in non-working condition, they're called "pump organs." 

G&L MFD (magnetic field design) single coils have adjustable pole pieces. G&L also makes standard "F-type" single coils.  

I don't recall ever seeing one of these, but it looks like a modern "modeling" amplifier. Fender's newer series of Mustang amplifiers are also SS modeling amps. 

Other modeling amps are the Vox Valvetronix line and Yamaha's THR amps. 

I used Slemmons Music Service about two years ago to have my Mesa Studio .22 repaired, he did a great job. His shop is located in the Deep Ellum area just east of downtown. 

Bluetooth has a noticeable latency so it's not really usable for multi-tracking, or so I hear. Few people performing or recording music use bluetooth for this reason. 

I did a google search and there are dozens of devices from about $10 (Walmart) up to $70 for a nice unit from well-regarded mic and headphone manufacturer Sennheiser. 

On 12/17/2022 at 9:04 AM, Mike47 said:

A small turn gives no volume, a slight further increase in the turn brings the volume to near full. Further rotating the pot does nothing to the volume. So most of the pot's resistance has no affect on volume.

 

Sounds like you may have used the wrong resistance pots. Typically single coil pickups use 250 k Ohm pots, guitars with humbucking pickups use 500 k Ohm pots.  From what you're describing, it sounds like you used a pot with a much lower resistance than normal. 

On 12/17/2022 at 9:04 AM, Mike47 said:

Any other ideas as to testing

Buy a multimeter. They are cheap to buy and simple to use. 

Phil is long gone, sorry. I'm sure there's an announcement somewhere...I'm pretty sure all the old HC crew is gone and has moved on... Craig Anderton, I believe, went to work for Gibson, and then Gibson sold Harmony Central and I believe music e-tailer Sweetwater owns it now, but seems to have little involvement other than placing ads on the site. Forum admin Dendy Jarrett is gone too. There are a few forum moderators and I've learned they're not even paid, they're volunteers. 

Really sorry to sound so negative, but that's the reality here today. Some of the sub-forums have a small dedicated group of regular posters, the HC Political Party is probably the most active. 

I did not know there were generic Jazzmaster copies available. I've always kind of wanted one because they look comfortable to play and the springy easy action vibrato tailpiece. Even the Squier versions seem to command a premium versus a typical Strat or Tele. 

12 hours ago, daddymack said:

google: digitech jamman looper schematic

This was actually helpful, because I stumbled across this... I took a screen shot and added a big green arrow where the "fuse" is....

It's almost certainly soldered in place, and probably doesn't even look like a fuse, but probably looks like a resistor. If the circuit board is marked (most are) look for the 'F1' near the power jack. A local electronic, audio, amplifier or pedal tech maybe able to replace this for you. 

I see that this pedal is AC powered, it's critical that you always use the correct power supply with AC powered pedals. 

On 9/30/2022 at 5:28 PM, Larry Franklin said:

 Any ideas?

Call or email Digitech and see if they can do anything, I've read they have good customer service for stuff like this, but if it's no longer made, they may not be able to fix it. Maybe a local music electronics/amplifier tech could take a look, but that'll cost you a bench fee. 

I wouldn't attempt any DIY repair without some detailed information, namely a schematic and board layout. A looper pedal is very complex compared to most pedals so the circuit board is most likely crammed with tiny SMT components. 

On 9/23/2022 at 8:29 PM, ksl said:

Greetings~ Could you by any chance steer me towards a 4-way schematic 3-SC Strat scheme to yield me 1 thru 4: Bridge, Brdg & Mid, Brdg & Neck, then solo Neck..?
& I want to avoid any push/pull or Blender,,, Just a straight up 1 Vol, 1 Tone & the above 4way sounds.. thnx!!"

Sure, I'll get right on that... 

Yeah, pretty cool because it still has the original pickup apparently. Is that a real Gibson 'mudbucker'?   The body mods probably make it neck heavy but not a deal breaker, I think it's well worth cleaning up and fixing up,  and getting some kind of pickguard to cover the wire trench. Assuming the neck is halfway straight and playable. 

That bridge though, looks like someone removed the adjustable saddles and stuck a piece of wood on there, no way that thing can intonate. I'm sure you can get replacement bits (or a whole bridge) somewhere. Pretty sure the original Epi headstocks were painted black, that would look better than the raw wood that's there now, IMO. Looks like the headstock may have been repaired? 

Appears to be an Epiphone Newport Bass, alas "heavily modified"  but it's a thin-bodied set neck bass with mahogany body and 4 on the side headstock. 

https://www.chicagomusicexchange.com/products/epiphone-newport-bass-cherry-1970-1052458

On 9/21/2022 at 12:24 AM, ksl said:

does that control to amount of overall effect w/o altering the volume of the incoming guitar signal?

That's a confusing question to me, but what you're describing sounds like a clean blend control, and I'm pretty sure the volume control on the Fulltone wah pedal isn't that, it's just a volume control that's only active when the wah is turned on. This is something I wish regular wah pedals had. 

In case you didn't know the, wah-wah pedal is a mid-range booster, and the treadle changes the frequency of the boost, not the amount of boost nor it's sharpness. 

It's possible to mod a standard Vox/Crybaby wah circuit  to make the midrange boost less (or more) "peaky"  and the upper and lower ranges of boosted frequencies can be adjusted by changing capacitors. 

MXR makes a 'super duper' wah pedal* with selectable frequency caps, adjustable "Q" (filter width/sharpness) and a switchable boost. Price isn't too bad! 

Fulltone wahs come with Mike Fuller's custom shielded inductor, I'm sure they sound great, but at the same time it's probably a tweaked version of the classic Vox/Crybaby circuit. 

*Gotta throw a PLUG in every once and a while to acknowledge our benevolent benefactors of beforum-ing. 

I once got to play a friend's ridiculous Mesa "rack rig" - this was mid to late 90s if I recall correctly... I think he dropped about $5 grand on this setup. 

Mesa 2/90 tube power amp

Mesa TriAxis programmable preamp

Two Mesa 2x12 closed back guitar cabinets

Rocktron rackmount multi-effect unit

MIDI footcontroller for the whole mess. 

The problem with a rig like this is there's an overwhelming number or choices to make. I only got to spend maybe an hour or so messing around with it, programmed a couple of sounds I liked. It could be programmed for almost any sound, from sterile hi-fi cleans to dual rectifier type wheedly meedlies. Be a nice piece of kit to have if you're in a really really high paid cover band. 

Dude that bought was basically an adult beginner with too much money to spend! He really liked Carlos Santana so he bought a PRS and a Mesa guitar rig. I'm not friends with this guy anymore (my now ex-GF worked for his little company) so I don't know whatever happened to that fabulous rig of if he even learned how to play decently. 

As for an amp I've gotten to play regularly, when our band moved rehearsals to our drummer's house, the bass player brought his LOVELY brownface Fender Concert Pro amplifier for me to play through.  Open back combo with four ten inch speakers. So I'll say that's the best amp I've ever played. Sounded GREAT, but sadly after about a year of playing it, it developed a loud hiss and seem to lose some volume, so I quit playing it and bought a solid-state Marshall combo. 

I have an older (late 70s I think) Japanese-made semi-hollow that has lived on a wall rack for the past 10 years, and I haven't noticed any warping or cracking.  House in Texas with central heat and air conditioning. My other ES copy is a little newer (80s) and nicer so I store it in it's case. 

Expect STUPID HIGH prices on FullTone stuff shortly while the market seeks it's level. 😄

I read his statement in the linked article and he blames "the four year climate" on the fact he can't make money building pedals in SoCal. So this is all Biden's fault!  He's retiring from the business and moving to a spread in the hills of Tennessee. 

Oh, noes! Is Mike Fuller claiming to be a victim of cancel culture??? He apparently posted something online that was interpreted as racist, so some outlet, Reverb I think, decided they wouldn't sell his products on their site. That may have spread to other retailers too, but don't know. G.C. had new Fulltone pedals for sale, so apparently  they were a dealer.

Never owned a Fulltone pedal, but I've come close a couple of times. I think it's pretty amazing that he could sell a made-in-USA pedal for just over a hundred bucks (pre-COVID of course). The FullDrive is probably the pedal I'd most like to buy...it is completely a Tube Screamer derivative, there are some tweaks like the "boost" setting but the heart of FullDrive is lifted straight outta the TS-9.  I think the FullTone OCD is a fairly original circuit, similar to the RAT and DS-1 types, and it seems to have been very popular with guitarists since it came out. 

Mike Fuller  was one of the original "boutique" pedal guys, and probably one of the first to be "exposed" for circuit copying, which was somewhat of a scandal in the pedal world in the early to mid '00s, when I first landed here. He supposedly was the first to have the now-ubiquitous 3PDT footswitches that allowed pedals to have mechanical/true bypass and still have an LED indicator. 

I wish him well... 

No, NOT Mary Wilson. If you thought "Brand New Key" was the worst female pop/folk song of the late 60s, early 70s, guess again! 

Nothing improves a track like the "slap bass" patch on a Yamaha home keyboard. Amazing production on this one!