butting
2010 guitar rig
Squier Brownie strat, Jansen 50 Bassman (probably built between 1966 and 1968), two 2x10" bins kitted with Wharfedales, a two-speed single-rotor Leslie, and a multieffects design that shamelessly rips off Pete Cornish and puts an aging Digitech RP7 to honest use.
And which still needs a ton of work internally, but is proving pretty useful for straight blues (clean right through to saturated) through to Clapton/Gilmore/Knopfler.
Earlier version of the effects at:
homepages.ihug.co.nz/~butting/music/guitar.html
Footswitches L-R are:
1. Marshall Guv'nor boost (not yet wired)
2. Marshall Guv'nor.
3. Tubescreamer TS-10 (controls currently disabled)
4. Leslie/clean
5. Leslie fast/slow
Power supplies were the bane of the whole affair until I built this unit; the RP7 had a 240V-110V transformer and a 110V-12V transformer (which -- lies! -- claimed to be 110V-9V), and the other pedals ran off a 240VAC-9VDC adapter. Painful.
Internally, a 240V-12V transformer feeds the RP7 directly (it takes 12VAC, even though its back panel claims 9VAC), and a 12VAC-9VDC supply to power everything else.
There's just four leads: mains, signal in, signal out, and a custom control lead for the Leslie. Beyond that, there's a speaker lead from the amp to the Leslie, and a second lead from the Leslie to the speakers. (Previous attempts to switch the Leslie had all the three speaker leads and a switched mains three-core to power the Leslie's motors all running through a footswitch. Learn from my mistakes, and DON'T DO THAT!)
The multiboard internals are:
a) signal in -> TS10 -> CryBaby -> Guv'nor -> RP7 -> signal out.
b) control lines for Leslie: 12V switching current, F/S relay driver, Leslie/clean relay driver.
The wah has a single cable going in to it: ground shield, +9V, signal in, signal out. The earlier version had plugs everywhere, which just got in the way; going inside its body to fix that's made life lots easier.
The RP7 is programmed with a bunch of (currently) simple patches; chorus, vibrato, etc, one per bank. The four patches within each bank have increasing preamp saturation going left (gentle breakup) to right (full meltdown), and switchable delay for each patch (the expression pedal's configured as delay mix, which is excellent for Floyd-ish and U2-ish stuff). This sounds *great* through the Jansen.
The Leslie/clean relay inside the Leslie throws the amp output between the Leslie's speaker and the Wharedales.
The Wharfedales are woefully inefficient (I metered them at 12dB lower than a Mesa-Boogie), but have a *great* tone.
As of course the Jansen does... interested parties might want to check:
www.jansen.co.nz/news.php?display=4&show=146
These are *damn* fine amps, and John Veldwijk can feel right proud.
Recordings to come (if I get around to it).
To do:
1. Properly shield the Guv'nor and TS10 circuits. There's some buzz, and that's probably 75% of the reason. (The other 25% is that I'm too lazy to do a Cornish and fit buffers between each effect.)
2. *Fix* the TS10; this means replacing the (long lost) control panel board, and figuring out a toggle circuit so I can use the same (on/off) switch as the others instead of the (momentary) it's designed for. (It's in the signal chain for now but is off; this is a Good Thing to have, since it acts as a buffer circuit for the [unbuffered] CryBaby, which would otherwise bring the legendary Tone Sucking Pixies into the picture.)
3. Put some more work into programming the RP7. (The chorus in particular takes a lot of work to get good sounds out of, unless you like cheesy 80s chorus.)
4. Wire up the extra controls I've fitted as boost for the Guv'nor. The problem? Guv'nors sound great at both low gain and heavy gain, but mucking about onstage with that is performance death. Having two pots each for gain and volume, with a 3PDT to select which are active, solves that nicely.
5. Replace the CryBaby's pot.
6. Add a volume pedal.
Blue sky stuff:
1. Modify the wah to act as a volume pedal when switched off.
2. Lessons from Pete Cornish: buffer, buffer, and buffer some more. Buffer stages between each effect would very likely bring hum and hiss right down to zip. This is *tempting*.
3. The Leslie is quieter than the clean speakers. The RP7 has a *lot* of headroom on its output vol dial; I'm giving serious thought to adding a pot in line to boost the output when the Leslie's selected.
4a. Separate amps for the Leslie and the clean speakers. Means an extra cable from floor to stack, and an extra amp in the stack. Ouchie.
4b. Rig a volume pedal as a fader between the two outputs; this would let me mix between full Leslie and full clean. SHINY.
5. Add a switchable loop. (I've still got a Korg AX1G, which while generally naff has very good autowahs and talk boxes. Kinda miss them in the RP7.)
6. Replace the RP7 with something fancier.
At which stage I'd *probably* rebuild, and having learned my lesson, lose an inch or two in each direction. Which'd also make it lighter, which would be GOOD.
2010 guitar rig
Squier Brownie strat, Jansen 50 Bassman (probably built between 1966 and 1968), two 2x10" bins kitted with Wharfedales, a two-speed single-rotor Leslie, and a multieffects design that shamelessly rips off Pete Cornish and puts an aging Digitech RP7 to honest use.
And which still needs a ton of work internally, but is proving pretty useful for straight blues (clean right through to saturated) through to Clapton/Gilmore/Knopfler.
Earlier version of the effects at:
homepages.ihug.co.nz/~butting/music/guitar.html
Footswitches L-R are:
1. Marshall Guv'nor boost (not yet wired)
2. Marshall Guv'nor.
3. Tubescreamer TS-10 (controls currently disabled)
4. Leslie/clean
5. Leslie fast/slow
Power supplies were the bane of the whole affair until I built this unit; the RP7 had a 240V-110V transformer and a 110V-12V transformer (which -- lies! -- claimed to be 110V-9V), and the other pedals ran off a 240VAC-9VDC adapter. Painful.
Internally, a 240V-12V transformer feeds the RP7 directly (it takes 12VAC, even though its back panel claims 9VAC), and a 12VAC-9VDC supply to power everything else.
There's just four leads: mains, signal in, signal out, and a custom control lead for the Leslie. Beyond that, there's a speaker lead from the amp to the Leslie, and a second lead from the Leslie to the speakers. (Previous attempts to switch the Leslie had all the three speaker leads and a switched mains three-core to power the Leslie's motors all running through a footswitch. Learn from my mistakes, and DON'T DO THAT!)
The multiboard internals are:
a) signal in -> TS10 -> CryBaby -> Guv'nor -> RP7 -> signal out.
b) control lines for Leslie: 12V switching current, F/S relay driver, Leslie/clean relay driver.
The wah has a single cable going in to it: ground shield, +9V, signal in, signal out. The earlier version had plugs everywhere, which just got in the way; going inside its body to fix that's made life lots easier.
The RP7 is programmed with a bunch of (currently) simple patches; chorus, vibrato, etc, one per bank. The four patches within each bank have increasing preamp saturation going left (gentle breakup) to right (full meltdown), and switchable delay for each patch (the expression pedal's configured as delay mix, which is excellent for Floyd-ish and U2-ish stuff). This sounds *great* through the Jansen.
The Leslie/clean relay inside the Leslie throws the amp output between the Leslie's speaker and the Wharedales.
The Wharfedales are woefully inefficient (I metered them at 12dB lower than a Mesa-Boogie), but have a *great* tone.
As of course the Jansen does... interested parties might want to check:
www.jansen.co.nz/news.php?display=4&show=146
These are *damn* fine amps, and John Veldwijk can feel right proud.
Recordings to come (if I get around to it).
To do:
1. Properly shield the Guv'nor and TS10 circuits. There's some buzz, and that's probably 75% of the reason. (The other 25% is that I'm too lazy to do a Cornish and fit buffers between each effect.)
2. *Fix* the TS10; this means replacing the (long lost) control panel board, and figuring out a toggle circuit so I can use the same (on/off) switch as the others instead of the (momentary) it's designed for. (It's in the signal chain for now but is off; this is a Good Thing to have, since it acts as a buffer circuit for the [unbuffered] CryBaby, which would otherwise bring the legendary Tone Sucking Pixies into the picture.)
3. Put some more work into programming the RP7. (The chorus in particular takes a lot of work to get good sounds out of, unless you like cheesy 80s chorus.)
4. Wire up the extra controls I've fitted as boost for the Guv'nor. The problem? Guv'nors sound great at both low gain and heavy gain, but mucking about onstage with that is performance death. Having two pots each for gain and volume, with a 3PDT to select which are active, solves that nicely.
5. Replace the CryBaby's pot.
6. Add a volume pedal.
Blue sky stuff:
1. Modify the wah to act as a volume pedal when switched off.
2. Lessons from Pete Cornish: buffer, buffer, and buffer some more. Buffer stages between each effect would very likely bring hum and hiss right down to zip. This is *tempting*.
3. The Leslie is quieter than the clean speakers. The RP7 has a *lot* of headroom on its output vol dial; I'm giving serious thought to adding a pot in line to boost the output when the Leslie's selected.
4a. Separate amps for the Leslie and the clean speakers. Means an extra cable from floor to stack, and an extra amp in the stack. Ouchie.
4b. Rig a volume pedal as a fader between the two outputs; this would let me mix between full Leslie and full clean. SHINY.
5. Add a switchable loop. (I've still got a Korg AX1G, which while generally naff has very good autowahs and talk boxes. Kinda miss them in the RP7.)
6. Replace the RP7 with something fancier.
At which stage I'd *probably* rebuild, and having learned my lesson, lose an inch or two in each direction. Which'd also make it lighter, which would be GOOD.