General/Random Questions Thread

[goroth]

The thing with fuzzes is that a lot of them are pretty old circuits, or based on pretty old circuits. At the time they were designed bypasses were relatively crap, and people didn't have mammoth chains of effects, so it didn't really matter - the whole signal chain was so radically different to today's boards that the way they performed isn't really comparable. There wasn't that much stuff it could interact with, and there was no need to create circuits with "better" impedance, or with buffers. Getting around that problem means modifying the circuit in some way, or building something new. You could put a small transformer in there, or a buffer where the impedances are tweaked to resemble a typical guitar-cable-pedal situation. Or you could do like what Ryan did at Dr Sci and design a fuzz that's actually new, and buffer it (in and out) so that whatever you put before or after it will still sound the same. Or you get a guy like Tom D who is actively using the interaction with the guitar pickups/pots to create oscillation and stuff, where it is integral to the sound, but that's a conscious design decision to not have a buffered circuit. But I honestly think a lot of boutique builders don't know how to, or just don't care.

You don't often see this with other types of pedals because in many cases they will already be buffered as it is necessary for the functioning of the pedal. There aren't that many pedals you can make with as few components as an OD or a Fuzz. And fuzz is rad, you don't really have to know anything to build a fuzz, and all of the idiosyncrasies of the fuzz sound are what makes a fuzz a fuzz! The same line of thinking can't be applied to a flanger (there's a reason why there aren't that many boutique flangers out there).

And no, it's not cause flangers suck because if you said that you would be wrong. Flange the flange that doesn't flange!

[delaydecay]

Im having pedal grounding issues. Using a onespot with a daisy chain. I dont want to get rid of my onespot, so would a power conditioner fix the problem???

I dont want to use a rack unit, so would a powerstrip work just as well??

[goroth]

What do you mean by grounding issues?

[sonidero]

I've had to throw out a couple One Spots that started being noisy and shitty...

[01010111]

Does anyone else have a myriad of nicks and scratches on their pickups from the strings vibrating against them?

[backwardsvoyager]

Does anyone else have a myriad of nicks and scratches on their pickups from the strings vibrating against them?

Yeah, I get that with plastic covers if the pickup height is raised enough.


Does anyone know somewhere that could make me a PURPLE anodized aluminium jazzmaster pickguard? (if that's even possible)

[rfurtkamp]

I know you can anodize in purple, seen a variety of colors on race gun parts for competition. So it's possible, sure.

[goroth]

Does anyone else have a myriad of nicks and scratches on their pickups from the strings vibrating against them?

Yeah, I get that with plastic covers if the pickup height is raised enough.


Does anyone know somewhere that could make me a PURPLE anodized aluminium jazzmaster pickguard? (if that's even possible)

If you can't find anyone local to do it, and you really, really want to do it, you could try and hit up Bobby on the Nelson Instruments sub forum. He's got a guy who anodizes his pick guards, might be able to help you out. Not likely to be cheap though getting it machined etc.

[DarkAxel]

has anyone of you ever tried to tweak the delay time trim pot on the Ibanez AD9 analog delay for the 500ms delay time? What was the noise after that like etc, any info appreciated, thanks

[rfurtkamp]

I did not on the AD-9 but did on their amp-top AC-powered one of the same era. It got pretty gnarly fast, and not in a great way. Capped out at around 375ms before it was unusable IMO.

[DarkAxel]

Hmm... well i'm gonna try it anyway, 100 bucks locally is a good price around here