Brian Setzer - The Guitar Tone Legend

Guy who don't know that time is running :)

Brian Setzer - Rock This Town - This is a reeealy cool performance! Great show in awesome old-school style.

photo by Marcos C.

Links:
briansetzer.com
wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Setzer (something about Brian's equipment here)
gretschguitars.com/whatshot/brian_setzer.html (about Brian's guitars)

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Untypical Telecaster Wiring

This is my new wiring design for Telecaster guitar fanciers.

To make it, you need to change volume potentiometer from 250 to 500K, and put 250K push-pull pot for tone control. Also tone capacitors are not typical.

As you can see, the push-pull pot is used for selecting tone capacitors. With the 0,033uF cap, the tone circuit will work similar (little less drastically) to typical Tele. You can also use the 0,047 cap in this place. The 8,2nF cap will by useful when you will like to make the tone just only a little bit warmer, smoother.

With this wiring, your guitar will be a little brighter sounding than standard Tele, so tone control with selected the 8,2nF cap will be also useful to reach more "vintage" sound.

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Mark Knopfler - The Guitar Tone Legend

Mark Knopfler with the rest of Dire Straits and Eric Clapton - Money for Nothing - live.
BTW, put your attention also on chorus.

Links:
markknopfler.com
ds.mk-guitar.com (about gear)

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10 Great, FREE Software Programs for Musicians and Sound Engineers

This is my selection of programs, that can be really useful for you, if you are composing, recording or editing music. They are/was useful for me. All presenting here software is free (usually GPL license) and mostly cross-platform (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows).

I have been using all of these programs. They are very well made. Some of them just works like a professional, expensive software. It's a helpful stuff for home recording.
Descriptions are short - I think it's better to check out their official pages, or even install some of them for some tests, to know how they are working in practice.

1. Ardour - ardour.org – A really professional (but free), digital audio workstation. Got everything necessary for recording and editing tracks. I really like to work with this software. Works well with Jack \/ .

Gentle Tone Control - Another Guitar Wiring Schematic

This is the cool guitar wiring if you like to warming your guitar tone by a gentle turns of the tone potentiometer's knob. For my taste, it works the best on bright or medium-bright pickups (not very hot humbuckers)

Tone Control for Distortion, Overdrive and Fuzz Pedals

Have you heard about Big Muff Tone Control. It's a very simple, but also very effective tone control circuit, which is an important part of the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff pedals. It is also used in many other stomp-boxes, including DIY constructions.

This circuit can have a great impact on a tone of distortion, overdrive or fuzz stomp-boxes. Important thing about it, is that this tone control is affecting the pedal signal even when the potentiometer knob is at 12 o'clock.

Here, I would like to present my modification of Big Muff Tone Control. I only have changed the values of  parts - to reach different frequency response. (If you want typical BMTC, search online for it - there are a lot of good sources.)

Guitar Wiring With Untypical, Flexible Tone Control

This guitar wiring is for those of you, who like to using a guitar on-board tone control in many ways, even for very subtle differences.

It's based on one volume potentiometer, two tone pots and two capacitors.

Guitar Preamp: Buffer + Booster. V2 - Based on NE5534

The NE5534 is a single version of the NE5532 (which is a double op-amp).

Here is the schematic of my preamp with this thing. All other elements are the same, like in previuos (NE5532) schematic: guitar-preamp-buffer-booster-easy-to, new-guitar-preamp-project-ne5532-based.

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Guitar Peamp: Buffer + Booster (easy to read schematic)

This is the schematic that I wrote about in the post: New guitar preamp project

It shows a construction of a guitar preamp with some untypical switching system and clear, warm tone.

I made it for those of you, who want some more clear and easy plan.

Some Great Effect Unit Case (DIY)

This little tea tin box can be a great housing for a guitar effect unit. It's too thin for a stomp-box, but will work OK as some control-by-hand unit.

rosette on top - good place for potentiometer

nice drawing

New Guitar Preamp Project - NE5532 Based Buffer + Booster

Today I would like to show you my new design. It's a guitar preamp (buffer + booster). It's based on the same technology like MXR MicroAmp or CMOY.

The heart of the circuit is an operational amplifier: NE5532. I was testing also popular TL071, TL072, like in MicroAmp, but it was a little bit colder and less full than the NE5532.

The NE5532 has got much higher power consumption than the TL072/071, so it should work with some stomp-box power supply.

George Harrison - The Guitar Tone Legend

George Harrison (yeah, that guy from The Beatles) was also an great guitarist. When I'm writing this, I'm not thinking only about The Beatles, but also about Harrison in his solo carrier and with Traveling Wilburys. If You don't know him from this side, I really recommend to search online for some music from this part of his life.
I recommend also, to find music video: Traveling Wilburys – Handle With Care, than see George Harrison's guitar and hear his solo. He had really cool peace of wood with really cool tone!

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Links:

georgeharrison.com

travelingwilburys.com

youtube.com/TravelingWilburys – here you can find the music video that I wrote about.

Simple Electric Guitar Idea - Bo Diddley Style

This time, I would like to present my idea on how to make a simple electric guitar, from a simple piece of wood, in a simple way :)

Jim Hall - The Guitar Tone Legend

Jim Hall is a living jazz legend. He's influencing a lot of jazz guitarists. His tone is well balanced, warm and reeeaaally smooth. It is that kind of tone, that everybody connecting with jazz music, but it's also an original tone, typical for Jim Hall.
If you are interesting in guitar design or tonewoods, you should check out Hall's guitars. His hollow-bodies are always beautiful and high-grade.

Links:

jimhallmusic.com
ejn.it/mus/hall.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Hall_(musician)

to listen:

Jim Hall Trio - Umbria Jazz Winter

The Brian May's Guitar Wiring Modification

The Red Special (May's guitar) is a great example of completely custom made guitar with an original design and wiring. My favourite thing in this wiring is a separate control for every pickup. You can find some schematic of this thing easily, by searching online. Here, I would like to present my modification of the Brian May's wiring:

Good Guitar for Modifications and Experiments

I was reading somewhere in the Internet an article about Fender Stratocaster made in Mexico, as a great guitar for making some mods and experimenting with many ways of wiring. It's true.

It's a good peace of wood for a good price, with three pickups, three pots and a plastic pick-guard, which is easy to drill in some next holes, for next elements.

From my side, I would like to recommend the Epiphone G-400, which is also good value for it's price. It can be a good choice for those of you, who like mahogany guitars. This axe has got two humbuckers and four pots (it's just a copy of Gibson SG). The in-body space for electronics is quite big, so it's possible to mount in some active electronics with battery, like on-board preamp or buffer.

This is the guitar that I'm using for playing with electronics. As a mahogany fan, I'm pretty happy with this stuff.

Mike Stern - The Guitar Tone Legend

Mike Stern is a jazz / fusion guitarist with very interesting tone and gear. His music has got a lot of really groovy-bluesy-jazzy lines with a dynamic rhythm. I can hear in his work a mix of many techniques of guitar playing.

He's got his signature guitar, made by Yamaha. Stern is an often user of chorus, delay, distortion and few other types of effects. He like to play on solid state amps, Yamaha G100 (yeah, no tube).

Bob Berg / Mike Stern Band - Chromazone

Links:
Mike Stern's official site: mikestern.org
MySpace: myspace.com/mikesternjazz


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Having a Lot from Only One Pickup - Wiring Schematic

How to have a lot of tones, from just only one pickup and two potentiometers, like in some jazz, hollow-body guitars, Gibson Melody Maker or Fender Esquire?

It's easy when you mount in some push-pull potentiometers, instead of standard pots. With that stuff, you have two DPDT on-on switches. This schematic will show you what they can do:

The switch beside the tone pot, is used to be able to switch off all tone control (the potentiometer, caps and their grounding). It will give a guitar tone with less impact of these electronics.

The switch beside the volume pot, can be used to select one of two tone capacitors, which are parts of tone control circuit, so we can select a signal frequency cutoff level. It's good to use some typical and some lower value capacitors (for example: 0,022uF and 0,01uF).

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Charlie Christian - The Guitar Tone Legend

Charlie Christian was an awesome jazz guitarist. His music is still influencing a lot of jazz guitar players.

He has been playing in 30. but his tone is really timeless. It's really jazzy, with cool, dynamic, jumping notes. The rhythm is a big thing in his lines.

A famous thing, connected to Christian, is the Charlie Christian's guitar pickup. It's a really old school construction, with a big, ceramic magnet and a blade pole piece.

It's easy to find Charlie Christian's music on YouTube, Grooveshark and similar sites.

listen: Swing to Bop

Links:

classicjazzguitar.com
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Christian_pickup (pickup)

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Single Potentiometer Wiring With an Useful Tone Control and a Treble Bleed Capacitor

Probably you have been seen guitars with only one potentiometer - volume. The reason of using this kind of wiring is need for minimal impact on tone from potentiometers, when a tone control is not really necessary. But what we can do, if we want some tone control and we want also a natural guitar tone (no big impact from pots)?

We can make this kind of compromise:

Robert Cray - The Guitar Tone Legend

Robert Cray is one of my favourite guitarists (I have many of them). He's not too fast, not too aggressive and he has got amazing feeling of his guitar. His tone, as guitarist, is really interesting, very clean and selective (he is also a great vocalist).

Robert Cray is well known as a Stratocaster user (signature model), but sometimes he like to use other guitars also - I sow him somewhere with some custom Tele. He's using Matchless and Fender Vibro-King amps.

If you don't know Cray's music, here is his website: robertcray.com

Lets listen to some live gig

Avoiding a Tone Control Circuit for a More Natural Tone

In this schematic you can see, apart from standard elements, a DPDT on-on switch, wich can be an external element or a part of a push-pull potentiometer. It's used to switch off the capacitor and tone potentiometer together with their grounding. In effect of thi operation, the sound will be more natural (no impact from the tone cap. and the tone pot.).

It can be done in all types of wiring (3x single coil pickup, 2x humbucker; two pots, four pots etc.)

Start of The Blog - Welcome!

Hi,

This is my first post on this blog. I hope, it will be useful for you. I will try to put some new post systematically.

You will be able to find here some electric guitar wiring schematics, tips about changing the tone of a guitar and some other knowledge about these beautiful instruments.

PS

I know, my English is not brilliant :), but I hope, it's good enough to give you some useful tips.

Greetings,
Jazzonman