Archive for the ‘Electronics’ Category

Pedalboard Rebuild – May 2012

May 8, 2012 by John 6 Comments »

Over the past week I’ve completed another full rebuild of my guitar pedalboard. This seems to be a once-every-18-months activity for me. Like Sisyphus, I have an endless repetitive task, all in the eternal quest for tone. I’ve been planning for this rebuild for a few months, and have been purchasing some new pedals. Given that I had a week without gigs, this seemed like an opportune time to commence the project and it gave me incentive to have it completed before beginning a new week of rehearsals.

Materials
PedalTrain PT-3 pedalboard with flight case. I have been using PedalTrain boards for a number of years. They are well-designed, lighweight and very road-worthy.
VoodooLab PedalPower 2+ power supply. This power supply has eight isolated circuits that provide power to pedals. It is an industry standard. PedalTrain supplies brackets with each of their boards, making it very easy to mount this power supply underneath. I actually needed more than eight power feeds, so I soldered up a little splitter to provide 9v to two pedals from one of the circuits; ordinarily I’d be concerned about interference between the audio circuits. In this case there isn’t audio involved; the split circuit is feeding switch / control boxes with LED indicators.
Mission Engineering VM1 (version 2) volume pedal. I have a few pedals from Mission Engineering. This one is really pretty straight-forward as a volume pedal, but it also includes a tuner output and a switch (in toe-down position) that mutes the primary output for silent tuning. I don’t use the tuner output because this volume pedal is placed last in my signal chain; my tuner is actually at the front of my signal chain so I can tune without having to turn off effects.

    • Sonic Research ST-200 strobe tuner. This was a recommendation from a friend. It’s a small and well-designed strobe tuner pedal that fits nicely on my board. I also have a Peterson StroboStromp2 tuner pedal but it’s quite a bit larger so it now resides in my music room.
    • TC Electronic Trinity reverb pedal. TC Electronic reverb is beautiful and hugely dimensional. This little pedal is based on their “Hall of Fame” reverb, but has 2 additional presets. It is exclusively available via ProGuitarShop in Portland. This is a great store and I recommend you visit them online or in person.
    • Xotic Effects EP booster pedal. This pedal emulates the preamp section of the Echoplex EP-3.
    • Line6 G50 wireless receiver
    • Line6 M9 multi effects pedal
    • Dunlop Crybaby wah pedal – modified by Robert Keeley with the “Mello Wah / all mods” options.
    • Way Huge Pork Loin overdrive pedal. This pedal falls into the same family of overdrives as the Tube Screamer or Sparkle Drive. It adds the right amount of grit and has a very useful blend function that dials in some of the clean tone for balance.
    • Zvez Box of Rock distortion pedal. This pedal is designed to emulate the one of a cranked Marshall stack. It has a separate boost section that can be kicked in, which I rarely use.
    • Keeley 4-knob compressor. This compressor pedal is so clean and transparent that it’s difficult to detect in use. It can be dialed in for a very dramatic “squish” tone if desired, but I use the optical compressor model in the M9 to get that heavy compression setting. The Keeley compressor is something I tap for a little more body in single-note bluesy solos.
    • Switch Doctor channel switch for my Mesa/Boogie Lonestar. This is smaller than the stock Boogie footswitch and fits on my board much more easily. The two-button switch allows channel and boost selection. The Lonestar has two channels and I usually set up the lead channel with a little bit of drive, using the “tweed” option for the channel voice. The amp also has a built-in solo boost that can be remotely activated; I rarely use it, but occasionally it’s helpful to have a little extra wallop.
    • Expression pedal switch box. This is a pedal that I designed and built myself. I purchased the components from Pedal Parts Plus and did the wiring myself. The Line6 M9 and M13 effect processors have two inputs for expression pedals. These inputs accept continuous controller pedals that provide a swept range from infinite resistance to 10K ohms. I wanted to have the functionality of switching between two parameter settings on a single effect, so I designed this simple circuit with a 3PDT footswitch to alternate between a dead short (ground and tip are directly connected) and 10K (provided by a 10K resistor), while turning on an LED for the 10K setting to indicate which position the switch is in. I built two of these circuits side by side in a small pedal enclosure. One of the footswitches is a momentary switch, handy for effects like my Leslie emulator; the rotation speed defaults to the slower setting but when I step down on this switch it speeds up to the higher setting, and releasing the switch spins it back down. Because the switch is momentary it’s much easier to manage effect settings that are frequently changed (I don’t need to click it down, let up, then click it again to reset to the original setting). I also use it for special effects that only are necessary for short phrases.

 

  • Interface box. Another one I designed and built this one myself, using parts purchased from Pedal Parts Plus. The drilling and wiring was a challenge on this one because I wanted to use a small enclosure for it. It has a total of ten holes drilled in it: seven 1/4″ jacks, a DC input jack, a 3PDT footswitch and an LED. More information on this box in a moment…

 

The Build Process

BARE BOARD

The first step was to remove everything from the existing pedalboard. I’m reusing my trusty PT-3 so this project began by pulling off all the effects pedals, clipping the ties that bundled all the cables, and separating everything into little piles. My previous pedalboard configuration was largely dominated by my Line6 M13. In this new setup I’ll be using more individual effects, and it’ll also require a different power supply for all those pedals (see below for more specifics).

I always do a total de-lousing process when the pedalboard is stripped like this, so after some time with the shop vac I wipe down the entire board with alcohol to thoroughly clean it. Remember: pedalboards live on bar stages, which are infested with disgusting infectious things, such as musicians. Also, it seems like about once a year someone leans over onto the stage to tell me something and in the process gives my pedalboard a sip of their drink. Removing the sticky residue helps keep my toys clean.

 

POWER

Step two is mounting the new power supply. There are many choices for a pedal power supply, but I’m partial to the VoodooLab Pedal Power 2+ since it has eight isolated power feeds for stable, regulated 9v output. Mounting the power supply under a PedalTrain board is very easy because the board ships with special brackets for this purpose. Once you mount the brackets on the power supply, it requires drilling four small holes into the pedalboard frame, and using the supplied self-tapping screws to finish the job. On the PT-3 board there isn’t a specific place along the back of the board where you are required to mount the power supply, so I moved it all the way to one side to leave space for the power strip which was necessary because two of my devices (Line6 M9 and Line6 G50 wireless receiver) have their own special transformers. The power strip acts as the main AC supply for the entire pedalboard, so the only thing shown plugged into it here is the Pedal Power 2+. However, it’ll have other things plugged into it once I start mounting pedals.

INTERFACE BOX

I like to have a single interface box where my pedalboard can be patched to the wired guitar input and various connections to the amp. It’s much easier to have these jacks in a box at the edge of the board, and saves wear on the effects jacks from repeated insertion and removal. For the rebuild of this board I had more connection points than before, so I took the opportunity to make a new interface pedal. It started with a blank enclosure and some very careful planning to get the jacks, switches, and LED all in places where they were on the correct sides of the box and still wouldn’t interfere with each other. Once it was all marked up, it took about 20 minutes with the drill press to get the holes drilled. I gave it a quick coat of enamel paint then did the assembly and soldering. It was a very tight fit, but everything works! The footswitch serves a simple purpose: switching between the wired and wireless guitar input signals. The LED is illuminated with the wireless feed is active. This might seem unnecessary, but it’s very helpful to know which signal is being fed downstream in the event something else isn’t working as expected.

SETUP

Attaching the pedals to the board with velcro is pretty easy once you figure out where to put them. I usually start with Pedalboard Planner, a useful free online tool that can help you plan the layout of your board. It’s a handy tool but leaves out two important aspects of your board: the pedal height and the distance between pedals required for connectors. Because I use George L cables and connectors I know how much clearance to provide. When laying out this configuration I knew the two wah-shaped controllers would need slim-profile phone plugs in order to fit, so I soldered up four cables using slim connectors, attaching them to lengths of George L cable that I could trim and terminate once the board was laid out. In my initial plan for the board, I had intended to have the M9 at the front, with the Box of Rock and channel switch above it. But once I started to lay out the pedals I realized those two would be difficult to access given their height relative to the M9. As a result I switched the layout to put the Box of Rock and channel switch in front.

 

UNDERSIDE

Here is a shot of the underside of the board with everything in place and wired. I’m a bit of a neat freak when wiring things up, bundling cables together and using cable ties to keep things tidy. I don’t want any cables to get snagged or nicked, and wherever possible I keep the audio and power connections apart. One important piece of equipment that isn’t shown here is a butane BBQ lighter that I keep handy when using plastic cable ties… when you clip the long tail off a cable tie, it leaves sharp corners that will inevitably find a way to poke your fingers when you pick up the board; I use that BBQ lighter to melt the end of the clipped cable tie.

Also visible in this picture are the two power supplies for the Line6 devices. I had to leave space along the power strip for the inline transformer that powers the M9, which is attached next to the power strip with a couple of cable ties.

BOARD FROM ABOVE

This is a shot showing the top of the board with everything in place. This shot is very nearly top-down so it’s difficult to discern the relative heights of the objects on the board.

Note how the wires are neatly bundled and out of harm’s way. I also make sure to leave a little extra space near the edges so the plugs are somewhat protected. When the board is inside its flight case, I don’t want any of the connectors to be damaged in transit. Troubleshooting a problematic pedalboard onstage is a nightmarish proposition, so I always put a lot of effort into testing every cable, plug and connection before assembly. Once the board is wired up, I do some jostle-testing on each connector to ensure everything is really solid and noise-free.

On first power-up I was rewarded with something beautiful: silence. The amp wasn’t producing any buzzing or humming of any kind. Once I started playing and stomping on pedals it was plenty louder in my music room 🙂 But it’s very satisfying to have the board generating zero background noise of its own.

ID GUIDE

Here’s a handy guide to the items on top of the board:
(1) Interface box (2) Sonic Research ST-200 (3) Xotic Effects EP Booster (4) Line6 G50 receiver (5) Mission Engineering VM1 (6) Dunlop Crybaby (7) Line6 M9 (8) Way Huge Pork Loin (9) Zvex Box of Rock (10) Switch Doctor amp channel switch (11) Expression pedal (12) Keeley compressor (13) TC Electronic Trinity.

The signal chain goes thusly: guitar (either via wired or wireless input) -> interface box -> Sonic Research ST-200 -> Xotic Effects EP booster -> Keeley Compressor -> Dunlop Crybaby -> Way Huge Pork Loin -> Zvex Box of Rock  -> Line6 M9 -> TC Electronic Trinity -> interface box ->amp

Update: Once I had a chance to run the board through its paces at rehearsals and a gig, I realized that the placement of the Line6 M9 was problematic in the sense that the pedals in front of it were taller than the front of the M9. It meant for some awkward gymnastics to access that device. The solution was pretty simple. My pedalboard is manufactured by PedalTrain, and they have an accessory called a “pedal booster” that adds a little extra height to make pedals easier to access. The M9 fits perfectly on the large version of the pedal booster, and neatly solved the problem.



 

iPad Integration With Line6 M13

July 27, 2011 by John No Comments »

I am interested in using my iPad (and iPhone) as a controller surface for music applications and hardware. Most of my equipment can be controlled via either MIDI or USB. My preference is always USB over MIDI, and for live use I prefer bluetooth. Some equipment manufacturers do not provide USB for music equipment at all, defaulting to MIDI as the standard. I’m especially baffled by the omission of USB from my Line6 M13 and M9 processors; my Line6 XTLive is several years older and has full USB implementation *plus* a great GUI editor. I hope there will be a update to these devices eventually.

I’d like to be able to use the iPad with my M13 in the following ways:

  • Connected via bluetooth (USB would be a good for home, but live, I want fewer cables).
  • As an editor / librarian.
  • As an external secondary display for live use. It should show patch configuration and be usable as a teleprompter for notes, a lead sheet or set list.
  • As a control surface for live use. I frequently wish I could make a quick tweak to my settings without having to get down on my hands and knees, and twiddle dials on the dark stage.
In addition, the M13 should have some way of powering other Line6 gear like my Relay G50, plus regulated 9v outputs for outboard pedals. One more request: make the wireless receiver for the G50 into some kind of snap-in physical gizmo in order to conserve pedalboard space (the M13 is downright huge).

As a company that seems to be most “in the lead” on music / computer interfaces for this kind of gear, I’m surprised Line6 hasn’t already done this.  I had hoped some kind of announcement would be made at summer NAMM, but alas. Hey Line6, you should pay me as a consultant! Make this stuff happen please.

 

Guitar Pedalboard : Rebuilding And Rewiring

June 13, 2011 by John 1 Comment »
This weekend I completed the layout and wiring for the latest incarnation of my guitar pedalboard. This project was brought to you by the letters PT and the number 3. As in PT-3. I’ve been using PedalTrain boards for years, and despite my best efforts to cram my pedals onto them, they’ve always had sizes that were a little too big or a little too small. The PT-3 is their latest release (I actually ordered mine a few weeks before they even showed up in dealer stock!) and it’s a good size for my needs. Laying out the pedals is always a tricky thing. I spent a few hours playing with the online pedalboard planner tool to get a basic idea of how to make things work. Once I had the board on the workbench I discovered that I could move some of the pedals around to minimize interference among the connectors. I generally use George L cable and connectors which are solderless,  but a few of the pedals are such a tight fit that I had to solder Switchcraft right-angle connectors onto the cables. It took about six hours of work to build the custom switch interface, place all the pedals, and wire up the harnesses for the entire board. Of course, it didn’t work when I first plugged it in! I had one Switchcraft connector that seemed to have a bad internal connection for the tip, so I just threw out the cable and made another. Now that it’s completed and ready for action, I have some programming ahead of me in advance of this weekend’s DMQ gig. I’m looking forward to hitting the stage and putting this board through its paces!
Here’s a list of the ingredients on this latest board:
Platform
  • PedalTrain PT-3. PedalTrain makes very sturdy welded aluminum pedalboards, available in several sizes. This one is 16 x 24 and fits perfectly into the hard case that came with my PT-2. The extra real estate on this board allowed me to put several favorite pedals back into play.
Gizmo Inventory
  • Custom switch interface. This box has two primary functions (1) it switches between the wired and wireless guitar inputs (2) it moves the wired guitar input and signal output to the back left corner of the pedalboard for ease of patching onstage. This is a gizmo I built from a pedal-sized aluminum box and some quality time with the drill press and soldering iron.
  • Line6 G50 Wireless System. I’ve used several wireless systems over the years. The Line6 Relay wireless systems are the best I’ve ever tried.
  • Road Rage dual channel buffer. Road Rage sells prebuilt and kit versions of several useful pedals including custom loop switchers. Their signal buffers are very clean and allow me to run a long cable back to my amp with minimal signal loss.
  • Keeley 4-knob Compressor. Anyone looking into boutique effect pedals knows about Keeley. They make amazing equipment. This compressor is astonishingly transparent. I also have a fantastic Keeley-modded wah pedal, but it doesn’t fit on this board.
  • Way Huge Pork Loin. Of the countless “tube screamer” clones out there, this one is my current favorite. Being able to dial in the original clean signal is very nice.
  • ZVex Box of Rock. This box advertises itself as a “Marshall Stack in a box”. It’s certainly lighter than a Marshall Stack.
  • Line6 M13. This is the backbone of my effects matrix onstage. The M13 is a great-sounding all-around pedalboard. I have a number of wish list modifications for Line6 (USB, editor GUI, size concerns) but at the moment it’s the best overall multi-effect unit I have found.
  • Mission Control EP1-L6 Controller. Mission Control makes great controllers. This one looks and feels like a Crybaby wah, but it’s actually a continuous controller for the Line6 M13. I can use it as a wah, or to sweep between points on the effects processors.
  • Morley Mini Volume Pedal. This is an optical volume pedal and happens to be the smallest good-quality volume pedal that I can find.
  • Power Strip
  • 1 Spot power supply.
  • George L cables and connectors
  • Switchcraft right-angle plugs

Signal Chain
Input (wired / wireless) -> buffer -> Keeley compressor -> Pork Loin -> Box Of Rock -> M13 -> Morley Volume Pedal -> buffer -> amp

Inside the custom switch interface

Inside the custom switch interface

The Line6 M13 occupies a substantial area on the pedalboard

The Line6 M13 occupies a substantial area on the pedalboard

Fully loaded and wired

Fully loaded and wired

 


The (recent) history of my pedalboard
This is the third (!) complete teardown and reconfiguration of my pedalboard in the past  year, but I think this one is going to stick around for while. My “big” board was based on the PedalTrain PT-Pro. At 16 x 32 inches it had more than enough room for all my pedals but was too big and too heavy – especially in its flight case. The “small” board was based on the PedalTrain PT-2 which 16 x 12.5 inches. I’ve been using this one for most of the past year. It has just enough room for the Line6 M13, the Mission Control pedal, Morley Mini Volume pedal, and the Line6 G50 receiver. I’ve been wanting to add a few boutique pedals to layout but didn’t have the room on the previous board. The PT-3 accommodates these extra pedals and still fits inside the flight case that came with my PT-2. This leaves me with a PT-2 and the soft carry bag that came with the PT-3, which should be easy to sell.

 

Blu-Ray Blues

January 4, 2010 by john No Comments »

Blu-RayOur DVD player died last November and we’ve been using the XBOX360 to watch movies. That’s been a pretty decent movie machine but we started to think it might be time to get a blu-ray player to take advantage of our TV’s HD resolution. So this past weekend we did a bit of comparison shopping and based on consumer / professional review, we decided to go with a Samsung BD-P1600. The player was on sale at a good price, and I had it hooked up and running in a matter of a few minutes. I successfully connected the player to the internet and all seemed good.

That evening we invited some friends over and watched the blu-ray version of  “Cars”, which looked great. At some point during the evening the player went online and downloaded a firmware update. Once the update was applied, things went very wrong. First, the player would not connect to the network or play a movie normally. After powering down and back up again, the player was stuck in “LOAD” mode and no longer responded to either the remote or front-panel buttons.

I spent about four hours online researching this issue and discovered entire forum threads dedicated to consumers complaining about this issue with the player. Samsung recommends that consumers download a firmware update to a USB storage device and then apply it twice to the player in order to fix the issue. I couldn’t get the player to recognize my USB device for the first several attempts. When it finally did, and applied the update, the machine auto-restarted. Then I had to do it again. Finally, I restarted the player and discovered after all that work it still was unresponsive. Fortunately, I could return it to the dealer and get a different unit.

So this evening I took it back and purchased a Sony BDP-N460, which seems to be working just fine. It receives a pretty solid review from users and technology pros, and the picture looks very good. And yes, this time I went and searched the user forums to ensure it didn’t have a history of behavior issues. This player also downloaded a firmware update; after downloading, installing restarting, all is good. Hopefully it’ll be less problematic than the Samsung. My biggest disappointment with the Samsung player was that it needlessly died after applying a manufacturer-supplied update, that for OVER SIX MONTHS has been known to cause the player to catastrophically fail! Bad software patches occur, but it’s appropriate to pull them down or update them once consumers report a problem. I can’t understand why Samsung would continue to allow this firmware update to be accessed by users.

If you’re on the hunt for a solid basic blu-ray player, you might consider the Sony BDP-N460. It seems to get positive reviews and is a good value for the money spent.

 

An iPod For Dad

October 29, 2009 by john No Comments »

new-ipod-shuffleMy dad likes to stay up late and read. I know he’s often bored at night and that he enjoys listening to music, but with everyone else trying to sleep he needs something with headphones. For a few years he’s been using a portable CD player and carrying around some discs. It’s not terribly practical.

One of the benefits to having a geeky son is that you may find some kind of technology foisted upon you. So as an experiment I put some dad-friendly music on my iPod nano and let him use it for a few days. It was a definite hit. He loves the idea of having a big collection of music to listen to, but the nested menu system in the nano was confusing for him. My concern was that he would spend his time trying to get it to work rather than enjoying music.  I looked at the Apple web site and it seemed like the iPod shuffle would be a better choice for him.

So this week I ordered a custom-engraved iPod for him, and will fill it up with some of his favorite music to get him started. It’s going to be fun to see how this goes. I know the music will be a bit hit, and it’s possible he’ll develop an interest in podcast content as well.

 

Number Garage : Awesome

June 25, 2009 by john No Comments »

number_garageToday I completed the process of porting my cell number to Number Garage. Throughout this effort I’ve been receiving excellent communication from Number Garage, and they succeeded in making the transition very smooth for me. My previous cellular carrier was a little slow in releasing my number, and I spent a long time on hold with them waiting to verify my account had been closed. Telecommunications companies seem to have mastered the art of preventing customer satisfaction, and this was a classic example of last-minute customer retention tactics… if they “valued my business as a customer of good standing for over 8 years” perhaps they shouldn’t wait until I close my account before offering any flexibility. Their cellular service is very good but with success comes the peril of becoming too large to manage customers as individuals. The good news is that I’ve successfully freed myself from an unneccessary monthly bill. And I’ve found a valuable service with Number Garage. If you haven’t checked them out, I’d recommend them. My previous cellular carrier could learn a lot from them: excellent value, great communications, solid customer support. SCORECARD : Number Garage = awesome. Previous cellular carrier = buh-bye.

 

Number Garage : Parking And Forwarding My Cell Number

June 5, 2009 by john 10 Comments »

For the past 10+ years I’ve had the same mobile number. Originally it was my pager number, then I had it ported to be my cell phone number. Over the years I’ve switched carriers a few times and moved around a bit. But this cell number is my digital identity and it’s been a reliable means of reaching me wherever I might be. Currently it’s tied to a personal cell phone that I don’t use. My employer provides a cell phone which has a different number. So for the past nine months I’ve simply had my carrier forward all calls from my personal cell to my work cell, allowing me to carry one phone. But all this time I’ve been paying a full monthly account fee with my personal cell provider even though I haven’t powered up that cell phone in nine months! Fortunately I’m no longer under a contract with them and can leave at any time. In order to avoid paying an unnecessary monthly bill I started to explore my options:

  1. I could keep my personal number on some kind of less expensive “parking and forwarding” option but apparently none of the major cell carriers offer this. I’ve pleaded with my current provider for a better deal than the $40 monthly package they inform is the best available deal. They want to keep my business, but only on their terms.
  2. I could just close my account and tell everyone to take note of my new number. But there are a lot of people in the music industry who have my number; I hear from some of them infrequently and I’m not interested in trying to reach out to all of them with a “please update your records” email.

As of today I’ve ported the number to an independent “park and forward” service called Number Garage. There are other options out there for this service, some of which are a little less expensive. But quality and support are really important to me. After exchanging a few emails with Jeff Heeren – the company’s “Chief Mechanic” – I made the decision to go with them based on his quick replies and complete answers. Within ten minutes of completing the online setup as a new customer, I received (1) an email confirming that the account was set up, (2) an electronic invoice for my payment and (3) notification that my current carrier has been notified to initiate the porting request. My expectation is that it will take several days to complete the porting process. This service will cost me less than $10 per month. I’ll continue to provide updates on the account setup process and the quality of the service. Stay tuned!

 

Music Gear Health Check

March 3, 2009 by john No Comments »

MR YUKLast night during 1 Uppers rehearsal my trusty Fender Hot Rod Deluxe amp started behaving strangely. It was randomly switching channels, the reverb was cutting in / out, and it was making profoundly unmusical sounds. I tried to switch out the cables, the guitar, and so on. Eventually I unhooked the footswitch and unplugged the guitar, and STILL it was doing all that crazy stuff. For the balance of rehearsal I was horribly distracted by how thin and crummy my amp sounded.
This morning I spent some time looking around on the usenet forums and deduced that either (1) my amp is haunted or (2) I’ve developed a cold solder joint at the +/-16V power resistors that control the op-amp switching. I’ve watched “Ghost Hunters” on the Sci Fi channel and since there weren’t any disembodied voices during the EVP session, I’m guessing it’s the resistors. Apparently this is a very common issue with this amp model and there are numerous postings to this effect. Fortunately it’s a pretty minor repair and I hope to have my amp back in time for Sunday’s gig with the 1 Uppers.

So, back to last night. As I was driving home from rehearsal I started making a mental list of my music gear, noting which items are need of repair. The list of fixes is bigger than I realized and it seems some gear maintenance is in order. Welcome to the world of a working musician! So here is my list, in order of severity:

Bring Out Your Dead

  • Behringer 300XLA : This amp actually caught on fire while I was playing with The Preons. We all noticed it was increasingly stinky and it began to smoke. I made no attempt to save it – in fact, I turned up and let it die a truly rock-and-roll death. It’s probably unfixable at this point. But it was worth it.

It’s Just A Flesh Wound

  • Fender Hot Rod Deluxe : Bad power resistors in the +/- 16V supply. Headed to the shop this week.
  • White Strat #1 : Needs a new five-way switch, new output jack, new screws and springs to stabilize the middle pickup. I think I have most of those parts at home, and should be able to fix this easily. This guitar also really needs a setup. Once I’ve gotten my parts installed I might drop it off with a tech.
  • White Strat #2 : Needs new bridge saddles. I’ll need to order these.
  • Warr Guitar : Needs all potentiometers and switches replaced. They’re all the original components and are becoming intermittent. I definitely don’t have these parts on hand. I’ll need to order them. Or I might just drop it off with a tech.
  • Ashdown 410T Bass Cabinet : Needs a new 1/4″ input jack. The Neutrik jack still works fine. I haven’t bothered fixing it yet, but as long as I’m making solder fumes I might as well.
  • Telecaster : Needs a new output jack and the bridge hex screws ground down. Pretty minor. The new pickups, jack cup, bridge/saddles and 4 way switch are TOTALLY AWESOME! Thanks Kris!
  • Fretless Bass #2 : My fender P-bass needs new pickups and a new wiring harness. Feh. This might be one that I have a shop do. Although I’m pretty handy and might take it on.

Looks like I’ll need to do some work on this gear sometime. With the ongoing projects at home I don’t know how I’ll find the time. Perhaps I’ll call up my musician buddies and host a solderfest in the garage…

 

Wirefest

January 26, 2009 by john No Comments »

I’m not a professional network technician, but over the last decade I seem to have acquired a lot of the necessary skills and tools associated with that trade. Yesterday I spent the better part of 2 hours trying to diagnose an intermittent telephone signal, only to discover the source of the problem was the initial wiring performed by the installer. Our telephone signal is delivered via the digital cable that carries our television and broadband connection. The incoming line is routed to a digital telephone adaptor which provides the analog lines for residential use, and these lines are tied to our internal phone system using snap “gel connectors”. I have never considered these types of connectors to be reliable, and they continue to prove my theory correct. So part of the problem was the 3-way connections originally installed by the cable technician.

When we bought the house, one of the internal wiring problems I immediately noticed was the outmoded daisy-chain telephone lines. I found that the telephone lines ran all over the house in a haphazard fashion and were frequently spliced via scotch tape (!) with the red / green wires occasionally reversed. Obviously this was not going to work for me, so I spent several days pulling all of the existing 4-conductor wire out of the walls and pulling new Cat5E home runs from each phone location back to my new network panel. This ensured that each phone line would be correctly installed and would have all 8 conductors wired. While I was at it, I also pulled runs of Cat5E for the internal data network which terminate at a gigabit switch, also at the network panel. With all new voice and data lines going back to a single network termination point, I had reason to assume my internal wiring was not the source of the issue.

Last summer the digital phone technician who came to install our voice lines couldn’t get a decent connection via the punchdown block I installed on the wall. Looking back on the problems he had, I can see that the issue actually stemmed from the gel connectors he used to patch into the voice/data adaptor. His solution was to bypass my punchdown block and wire the whole thing up using gel connectors. It was a mess and I knew it would fly apart at the slightest provocation. Eventually one or more of the connections became intermittent, which resulted in yesterday’s wiring festival. Once I isolated the telephone issue I spent about twenty minutes rewiring the primary feed such that it cleanly terminated at an otherwise unused network patch panel in my rack. I clipped each of the poorly-connected phone lines and re-terminated the lines with RJ-45 connectors, then plugged them into the patch panel. All of the old gel connectors are gone, with each line correctly wired and labeled. Everything is working again and it’s going to be a lot more reliable and easy to service. But how many people happen to have an extra network patch panel in their residence? Or a bag full of RJ-45 connectors and a crimp tool? Or the special tool that installs compression fittings on digital cable? I’m a wire geek with just enough knowledge to be annoying to real network technicians…

 

Elder Scrolls : Oblivion

November 7, 2008 by john No Comments »

Crikey. I’m hooked on Elder Scrolls : Oblivion for my XBOX 360. I’ve been playing just long enough to realize how big this game actually is… my sad little character is frequently pincushioned with arrows, but I’m learning how to run away (Monty Python style). So far I’ve scratched the surface. This is the “game of the year” edition, so it comes with additional stuff to do once you’ve completed the main quest in the game arc. There are several (probably hundreds) of little side quests that you can get sucked into, and being a generally nice guy, I always tell people “sure, I’ll go fetch / kill / stop / undo whatever you need”. And then it takes me a few hours to do that task and return to the activity I was originally engaged with.

This game seems to have a massive environment and I’m going to spend far too much time working my way through the fabulous detail. Sheesh. What a time vortex this game is… good thing it’s autumn and there’s no yard work to do…