Makin’ a little noise
Most will know that I’ve made a Les Paul styled guitar and an electric bass guitar, both from scratch (minus the fretboard on the Les Paul). I’ve been playing for a long time (not that it necessarily shows in my chops) and if anyone out there has ever wanted to play an instrument, I have a sort of running shoe style response in Just do it! It can be such a great relaxing tool, and if the instrument you choose is similar to a guitar or smaller, you can take it with you.
If your child(ren) talks about learning to play music, encourage it, as it can also help with their math skills and reasoning, beyond helping round out their person.
Quite a while ago, I posted a little snippet of me playing the electric guitar, which was some pretty hard rock, which I’ve always loved. I recently had some time available and wanted to see if I might put together some background stuff, that I could play over, hitting a different part of my musical thinking. In advance, I played these licks on the first pass over the backing music, so there are at least a few places I’d do over, if the recording was important. This was really more of an idea, and by recording it, I can come back anytime and see if they are useful at that time.
I’ve had hours of playing where I wished I’d recorded in some manner, as the feel of what I’d played never totally returned. This is where the recording studio in many computers, is such a valuable tool. I use Mac computers, and they come with Garage Band, which is really decent. I also purchased Logic Pro X, which is a much stronger recording studio type software, and it comes with a ton of pre-recorded snippets of different instruments, different genres, different beats… There are also modules that allow you to completely control the “voice” of midi instruments, along with loads of readily known keyboards, synths, and on and on.
I’ve been using a Fractal Audio AxeFXII for a number of years, and if you’ve not ever seen or heard of this unit, it will completely blow your socks off! I was a die-hard tube amp guy for most of my life, and tried a number of modeling units that honestly, never sounded like what they were trying to emulate. The AxeFXII is THE REAL DEAL! I know, you’re probably thinking that my ears must suck, as there isn’t any way to have a solid state unit actually sound, play and feel like a tube amp. Before I heard the AxeFX, I was right there with you. This is amazing stuff.
There are more and more professional acts that are seeing the light, and shifting over to the AxeFX. In tube amps, the tubes are always changing, from the day they are made until they ultimately fail. This slight change can be enough to have THAT vibe one day, and you play the lead of your life, to only just not quite have the same feel the next. The AxeFX has the consistency that instills confidence and with that, you can play your best.
Ok, enough about the AxeFX. Here is a link to one of the quick little things I’ve put together. All of the background stuff, from keys to drums, are sounds from the Logic Pro X library, with the drums the only part I didn’t actually play. The guitar is straight into my AxeFXII, going into the computer on USB, and into Logic. I added nothing to the guitar sounds, in Logic, just in case anyone is interested.
Remember, there are some flubs, but it’s the whole of the feel I was after.
Thanks for checking in and let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Lee Laird
Pot confusion – the electrical type
I tweeted earlier that I’d write an article today, relating to this subject. This is for anyone that might need to replace a potentiometer in a circuit, or is building an electric guitar. I thought about writing this, as I finally finished wiring my bass this morning, and at first I couldn’t recall which of the connectors on the pot went to which wire. After I thought about it for a moment, and had my coffee, it came back. But, what if someone else doesn’t have any prior electronics training or experience?
Most pots have three lugs, to which wires or other components can be attached, and then controlled by rotating the shaft of the pot.
Many times a pot will be used as a volume or tone control, especially when talking about electric guitars and basses. I’ll provide a very basic explanation as to what is going on inside the pot, which allows this to “control” the volume. When the shaft of the pot is rotated, a wiper inside is moved in a section of a circle. The material the wiper rubs against inside is usually a path of carbon, which behaves much like a carbon resistor, and when made a specific amount of carbon is placed in the track. This allows them to create a specific resistance, for certain uses.
The wire from the guitar/bass pickup attaches to the center lug, and one of the end lugs is grounded, while the other end lug connects to the output jack. You can use a multimeter to determine which end lug you should connect to the output, depending on how you use the pot. I’ll walk you through this test.
First, turn the shaft of your pot in the direction you usually turn it, in order to raise the volume, and turn it until it stops. For most audio equipment, and instruments, this would be turning the shaft clockwise. This is what I did in my example.
Now, with your multimeter turned to it’s resistance mode, place one of the probes’ metal tips into (or against) the lug on the right end, and the other probes’ tip into the center lug.
When you look at your meter’s screen, you will see how much resistance is between the two tested lugs. The results from my first test are shown below.
Next, remove the probe from the right end, leaving the center probe in place, and place the moved probes’ tip into the left lug.
The results from my second test are shown below.
If you think about how the wiper would move, inside the pot’s case, you can visualize where it is when you reach the end of the shaft’s travel. Whichever outside lug the wiper is closest to, when the shaft stops turning, will have a very low resistance value. This is because there is very little resistance material between the wiper and that outside lug. Hopefully this makes sense. This is exactly why the results in my above tests, turned out like they did.
While I’m talking about some of the things relating to the bass’s electronics, and basic wiring, I’ll also share a few tools I use that are helpful. Don’t worry, I won’t go into great depth at this point, but may in the future if anyone is interested.
One of the really useful tools I own is a wire stripper, that is somewhat automatic, in the sense that it can handle a range of wire thickness, without the user needing to do anything extra to have it do it’s job. On some strippers, they have small half-circles in the blade section, that only fit a very small range of wires. You have to choose the half-circle that is the right size for whatever wire you need to strip, and hopefully there is one that will work. This may show just how nice the stripper I have can make this work. I might have three or four different wire sizes in a project, and not worrying about anything other than just squeezing the handles, for it to do its job, is great.
This stripper also has a “stop” against which, you hold the end of the wire, so the amount of insulation removed is the same each time. This stop can be moved to a range of distances, that the manufacturer thinks are most useful, when working on electronics. I may have needed a slightly longer uninsulated section once or twice, but it was easy enough to make this work, too. Below you can see the blue wire has the insulation from both ends already removed.
Another useful tool is a third hand. Actually, this is what I call it, but I honestly can’t recall what it was called, when I bought it. Basically its a hefty stand that has two small clamps, with which you can hold a wire or components, when soldering or performing an operation that is difficult with just two hands. The photo below shows one of the clamps grasping a metal lead on the output jack for my bass. The red arrow points to the “hot” lead, or in other terms, the lead that will have the signal carried on it.
Perhaps this will whet some appetites, and hopefully also answer a question or two that may have led some to have others work on their gear, when understanding the basic layout might allow you to do the work yourself.
Thank you for checking out the article and as always, let me know if you have any questions or comments. I’ll be glad to answer or help, if I can.
Lee Laird
Custom control cavity shape and cover materials
Well, it was at least a couple of weeks after I sprayed the top of my Les Paul, before I finally found some material I could use for my cover plates for the two opening on the back of the guitar. I couldn’t just buy a standard cover for a Les Paul, as is almost […]
Its lacquer time!!
Well, I know many won’t believe this, but I finally put some nitrocellulose lacquer in my brand new Earlex HV5500 and sprayed the top of my Les Paul. I went with nitrocellulose lacquer to replicate what Gibson used on their guitars in the late 1950’s, as the 1959 Les Paul is my all time favorite […]
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