A Little TubeScreamer Repair

Well, I had to break out the soldering iron and solder a couple of nights ago. My Ibanez TubeScreamer TS7 had been gradually getting worse and worse in not switching on when I stepped on the footswitch.

If you haven't seen one, this thing has a tiny little switch. Here's a pic of the switch:



This is where it is located in the pedal itself:




Taking the pedal apart wasn't that hard. There are a couple of boards with connectors and then there are the input and output jack assemblies to remove. The difficult part was trying to solder that tiny little switch onto tiny little traces without bridging any of those traces with excess solder. However with a bit of patience and a really bright light, I got the job done and the pedal works beautifully now!

Clear Blue Sky

I wrote and recorded a new song last night. Except for the drums which are from a drum track program all parts are using my Peavey Generation EXP recorded straight into my PC with a Guitar Rig for effects.



Check this out on Chirbit

RiffWorks Recording Software

Recently, I started using RiffWorks to record my guitar through my PC. Previously I used a program called Audacity with my Marshall Amplifier mic'd into the microphone input on my PC. With RiffWorks, I plug straight into the line-in port with a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter.

RiffWorks is easy to get started with but also has some in-depth features that take a bit to get acquainted with to fully use the program. It allows you to record into a looped measure that you can define as far as time, length and beats per minute.

Let's say you have a guitar rhythm part that is 8 bars long, is in 4/4 time and has a tempo of 120 bpm, you just set RiffWorks to record with an included Instant Drummer playing and you've got the beginning of a song. This little segment is called a 'Riff'. You can build on these Riffs by adding a bass part and a lead guitar part and also make new riffs for the different parts of the song such as lead in, intro, bridge, chorus, etc.

Once you have all the parts of the song, the Riffs, made, then you can drag them into the Song Timeline in the correct order and you have a complete song. You can then save the song as a wave file for conversion to MP3 as I do, or for any other use you have for it.

RiffWorks also has a lot of built in effects such as auto-wah, multiband compression, modulation, delay, and reverb and can also access VST plugins from other programs such as AmpliTube or Guitar Rig. This is another really nice aspect of this program because it allows you use many different simulated amps, effects, and cabinets. Whether you want to get a Blues Crunch, a Texas Twang, or EVH 5150 sound, tweak the settings enough and you can get these and more.

I'm sure there are many more aspects to RiffWorks that I haven't discovered yet but so far this software is head and shoulders above using Audacity for recording guitar into a PC.

Reprinted from The Single Coil

Truss Rod Troubles

After changing the strings on my Peavey Generation Triple Single EXP, I decided the truss rod needed a small adjustment. With the action down about where I wanted it, I was getting a little string buzz and when checking the the neck found a little less relief was needed.

Well , after getting out my usual assortment of wrenches for truss rod adjustment, I realized either I didn't have the correct size or else the nut was stripped. Since I hadn't adjusted the truss rod since I recently bought the guitar, a stripped nut would mean it came from the store already stripped.

So I throw it in the gig bag and head off to the local music store to ask Todd, the resident luthier, about it.

After a bit of trial and error, he finds it takes a 4.5 mm wrench which is an odd size size, at least compared to my Squier and the Ibanez I used to own.

After getting the proper wrench from Todd and heading home, I adjust the truss rod as needed, set the action as I like, and no more fret buzz!

I like it when a story has a happy ending and I'm really glad my Peavey didn't have a stripped truss rod nut. This thing has a great neck!

Blues Jam

Here's a new jam I just did using a backing track off the web from Robert Renman. Recorded with my newest guitar, the Peavey Generation Triple Single Exp through a Tubescreamer into a Marshall MG15CDR using Audacity.



Check this out on Chirbit

Guitar Pics

Here's a few pics of my guitars.

Demystifying the 5-way Strat Switch

The 5-way Strat switch can be a confusing thing. While a wiring diagram that tells you which wire to solder to which terminal can get your guitar sounding as it should with all the pickups working in proper order, it doesn’t go a long way in explaining just exactly what the heck is going on inside that mysterious mechanical device. Hopefully this article will shed some light on what goes on inside this switch and exactly what it does mechanically and electrically.

One of the most confusing things about the switch to most people is the fact that a five way switch has eight terminals; four on one side and four on the other side. How does four and four relate to five different positions? Then to make it even more confusing all the terminals aren’t used in the typical Strat wiring scheme.

The first thing to know about the Strat switch is that it is actually two switches in one. The four terminals on one side are one switch and the four terminals on the other side are the other switch. Each side is called a ‘bank’. Each side also has a single common terminal that connects in turn to one or more of the other three terminals on its side as the switch is pushed through its five positions. For naming convention, I’ll call the terminals on a side ‘common’, ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’.

In the first position, common connects to terminal 1. In the second position common connects to terminals 1 and 2. In the third position, common connects to terminal 2. In the fourth position, common connects to terminals 2 and 3. And in the fifth position, common connects to terminal 3.

This means that on the pickup side of the switch, the first position is selecting the neck pickup, the second position is selecting the neck and middle pickups, the third position is selecting the middle pickup, the fourth position is selecting the middle and bridge pickups, and the fifth position is selecting the bridge pickup. So on each position, one or more of the pickups gets connected to the common terminal on the pickup side of the switch.

This becomes relevant a bit later.

Now on the other side or bank of the switch, each position of the switch is connecting a tone control to the common terminal. However as we only have two tone controls on a standard Strat, the terminal that would go to the bridge tone control is left unconnected and connections are only made to the neck and middle tone controls.

Now here is the part I mentioned earlier that would become relevant. The common terminals on each bank are connected together. What this does is to connect a particular pickup or combination of pickups determined by the switch position as described earlier to its appropriate tone control. The exception is the absence of a bridge tone control as noted above.

While there are other components involved in the overall wiring schematic such as the volume control and the output jack, this article explains the main role of the 5-way Strat switch.

The following diagrams should also help clarify exactly what is happening mechanically inside the switch as it is set through each of its five positions.








The following diagrams show which terminals are connected for each switch position. Bear in mind that the terminals on the left side of the switch are not connected to the terminals on the right side of the switch until the left and right commons are wired together.
     


Position 1




Position 2




Position 3




Position 4




Position 5

Tale of Two Teles

I had an opportunity to play a couple of Telecasters this past weekend in between shopping for shoes and lunch.

The first one I played was a Fender Deluxe Nashville Tele. A Tex-Mex™ Strat® pickup between two Tex-Mex Tele pickups and a five-way switch gave a lot of tonal possibilities. Oddly enough, the pickups weren't quite as hot as I expected but had a nice twangy sound with a good amount of sensitivity to pick attack and harmonics induced by light finger touches to the strings after picking.

The second Tele I tried was a Peavey Generation Triple/Single Ex Tele. Also sporting 3 single coil pickups and a five-way switch, this guitar played and sounded pretty good in its own right; especially for a sub $200.00 guitar. The bridge pickup didn't seem as hot as I would expect a bridge pickup to normally be but the neck pickup had a nice Tele twang.

Even though the Fender was used, it still had a price tag of about double the Peavey. I'm not sure it sounded twice as good or had hardware worth twice as much.

Here's a short vid on the Peavey Generation models:

Shielding My Strat

I had been planning this for a while and finally shielded my SE. I used metal tape that is normally used for duct work, etc. It's a bit tricky to work with but you get the hang of it.

The tricky part was in making sure adjacent pieces of tape had contact on the top metal portion and not just the sticky side since I don't know if the sticky side is conductive ... probably not.

The bottom of the pickguard had foil already and with the pots having tabs touching that foil which touches the little bit of overlap from my foil job in the cavity, I believe I've got ground throughout.

Guitarnuts is where I got the information and the idea about using the aluminum tape. The trick is to fold an edge over on the next adjacent piece so the conductive sides make contact with enough of the adhesive side available to hold it down well. You can put an extra bit on top of that to get a really firm contact.

I had considered using a screw, lug, and star washer into the bottom of the cavity and soldering a wire from one of my ground points to it, but as I've still got the stock pots and switch, I may do that next go round when I replace those units.