I've done a bit more work on my squire strat now. it's got the SDs from an old razorback in it and a alnicov single in the middle. gotta get some strings now lol. second pic is when I first bought the guitar for £30.
So I bought this weirdo spectrum 5 lookin’ 1 off guitar because it just looked too cool. I plug it in and it works just fine with the top circuit turned off. The 3 bottom (high E side) switches seem to just be normal pickup on/off switches, and the 2 pots in standard location are just volume and tone. Then I clicked on a pot that seems to be a beautiful sounding built in pre-amp.
That’s about where my understanding of these electronics ends. So the top (low E side) switches are a mystery. 1 seems to do nothing, 2 seems to toggle between pre-amp on/off when the pot for the preamp is enabled, and 3 just seems to be a killswitch for when preamp is enabled.
Now pots 1 and 2 seem to never do anything, and pot 3 seems to be an on/off switch with unnecessary extra travel.
This is the first guitar I’ve ever owned with this many switches and pots so maybe I’m just doing it wrong but if anyone could shed some light that would be amazing.
Wondering if I should just set everything where it works and leave it, get it checked out by a pro, or maybe tackle it, if it even needs tackling, myself. I have built electrics from parts before so soldering and troubleshooting isn’t out of my wheelhouse, but figuring out what (if anything) is wrong, definitely is.
TL;DR
Any clue what all these switches should be doing? Should I just get this looked at by a professional smart person?
Or should I just close it back up and enjoy what switch configs work (and sound amazing)?
A few years ago I bought an Ibanez AS73 and it blew my mind. For the type of music I make, it does it all (from clean Jazzy to rabid dense distortion with lovely feedback when wanted). I did make a few changes:
I absolutely love how it sounds, feels, looks and plays. Anyways, I thought I would share to encourage others to give some love to their inexpensive guitars. These days, inexpensive is not the same as cheap anymore.
I just bought this guitar and I was wondering what kind of pickups you guys would install on it?
I'm playing post metal / Black gaze/ shoegaze on a Orange TH30, loads of overdrives, reverb and delay. (Bad Monkey, Earthquaker Monarch, Big Muff OP, Neunaber Illumine, Walrus Mako DS1.
I'm curious about your propositions!
Thanks in advance!
I’ve seen several things like this on YouTube and I know the brand that makes Bellamy from Muse guitar even sells one with a fuzz in it.
I just saw a vid Oliver from Death by Audio shared and I fell in love with it. Any tips on how to do anything similar to this would be greatly appreciated!!
Here’s the link to Oliver’s modded out jag
So I have a Warwick $$ Rock bass 5 string. It has (2) Musicman style humbuckers. Each pickup has a 3-way mini toggle for series / parallel / single coil. Other controls are; Volume, Blend, and Tone.
I’m looking to replace both pickups with the Nordstrand Quad Coil MM5.4 pickups so I can have hum canceling in single coil modes. I’d like to have all 4 modes available for each pickup (series / parallel / Neck single coil / bridge single coil). I’m considering using (2) 5 way rotary switches for mode selections. These would replace the current blend and tone knobs. I don’t know what I’d do with the 5th selection.
My thought was then to use one of the current 3 way mini toggles for the pickup selector (bridge / both / neck) in lieu of the blend.
Concerning the tone, I don’t know if the other mini toggle could be a 3 way tone switch? Like 100%, 70%, 30% or something. Or maybe a concentric volume / tone is a better idea?
And the one last thing if it’s possible: So these two pickups would be parallel to each other. But is there a way to install a switch (or push pull on volume) to make them toggle between parallel and series? So like for example if I had each pickup in one of the single coil modes (like coils 1 and 4 like a jazz bass mode), I could have them be series or parallel to each other? Or is that just asking too much?
I'm trying to make the most versatile bass ever, lol.
So I bought this weirdo spectrum 5 lookin’ 1 off guitar because it just looked too cool. I plug it in and it works just fine with the top circuit turned off. The 3 bottom (high E side) switches seem to just be normal pickup on/off switches, and the 2 pots in standard location are just volume and tone. Then I clicked on a pot that seems to be a beautiful sounding built in pre-amp.
That’s about where my understanding of these electronics ends. So the top (low E side) switches are a mystery. 1 seems to do nothing, 2 seems to toggle between pre-amp on/off when the pot for the preamp is enabled, and 3 just seems to be a killswitch for when preamp is enabled.
Now pots 1 and 2 seem to never do anything, and pot 3 seems to be an on/off switch with unnecessary extra travel.
This is the first guitar I’ve ever owned with this many switches and pots so maybe I’m just doing it wrong but if anyone could shed some light that would be amazing.
Wondering if I should just set everything where it works and leave it, get it checked out by a pro, or maybe tackle it, if it even needs tackling, myself. I have built electrics from parts before so soldering and troubleshooting isn’t out of my wheelhouse, but figuring out what (if anything) is wrong, definitely is.
TL;DR
Any clue what all these switches should be doing? Should I just get this looked at by a professional smart person?
Or should I just close it back up and enjoy what switch configs work (and sound amazing)?
Can you guys suggest some good YouTube channels that explain how electric guitars work and how each of there components work ? I want to learn so please teach me
I’m using DIY layout creator to help understand how guitar electronics work but I can figure out why my 1st tone control works also I don’t know how to read the little diagrams that pop up when you hit “analyze”