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I'm looking at a bass on reverb. It is a Fender American Standard Jazz bass. I was about to pull the trigger on it and suddenly the seller ends the listing. So I sent him a message, and it turns out he had decided he was going to remove the neck and save it for a later project and sell the body only. He had already removed the neck, but he offered to reinstall the neck, or another neck if I desired, and to relist the bass so I could buy it.

I am looking for an all original bass, and he said the neck is original to this bass. When he offered other necks and told me he had removed the neck, I mentioned I was a little dismayed, and he replied:

"Ok, no problem. To be honest not sure why that would bug you, they're made to be taken apart and assembled, hence the bolt-on design. I can't imagine you'd find any Fender bass that hasn't been taken apart. In fact, any good luthier will do that for a setup. At any rate, keep me posted!"

Now I feel uncomfortable with this whole situation. First, that comes across a little bit condescending. Second, I think that most fender basses won't have had the neck removed unless it was damaged or needed major repair. Third, there is no reason to take the neck off for a setup and a luthier will agree.

I really wanted it originally, but this seems dodgy. I understand customizing your gear and I've taken guitars apart, but I don't know anything about this guy or his luthier skill. He just decided to remove a perfectly good neck off a perfectly good bass and sell it separately? Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Am I crazy? If I really like the bass, should I just blow off his BS and buy it? Should all this neck-removing business not bother me?

Let me first say that I've been reading up on this topic for a couple days now, and yes, it is a common problem for fuzz face circuits to hum and play the radio when the guitar volume is down. My problem may be a more extreme symptom of the same problem, but I'm bringing it up here anyway.

A friend asked me to look at his fuzz pedal because he said it recently started making lots of wild noise when he turned his guitar volume off. Knowing that this was common with some fuzz circuits, I said I would look at it.

A bit of history on the pedal itself... It was built in 1997, by a local Austin amp guru named John Bessent. This was long before most of us were building pedals and way before you could have the parts delivered to your door. It was built on perf and appears to have had a jack replaced along the way and some wear and tear. It's not the neatest build I've seen, and until recently it was functioning just fine.

After giving it a good look, I concluded it is a very basic fuzz face clone, and actually has fewer components than any of the
layouts I've seen online. Upon testing the pedal myself... Wow, this really makes some noise. It goes in to full on oscillation, pitch shifting synth like madness when the guitar is off. It makes different sounds depending on pickup selection. Once it starts making noise, you can manipulate the pitch and/or frequency with the fuzz knob. It sounds more like a Machete than a fuzz face.

So, can I tame this thing and if so, how? Have the transistors gone out of spec or something?

Here's a pic and parts list:
Caps: 22uF, 2.2uF, 10n, 4.7nF
Resistors: 330R, 33K, 100K, 8.2k
Transistors: C1815 (NPN)

At full gain, using neck pick up, my klone build is going into oscillation on some notes. Sounds fine on lower gain settings. This is not a setting I regularly use, but I still want to eliminate the problem.

Any thoughts?

I was running through my pedal board into my Marshall combo, all pedals working fine. I unplug my cable from the Marshall, plug it into the input on my Vox, and suddenly no more effect is heard on my signal. It is not a problem with the pedals, or pedalboard, or their power supply. It is not a cable. It's something weird with my Vox.
Anybody know what gives?

Here's a video:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/kpevVWymTRprtQhU8

So, my MF delay stopped delaying. After a conversation with the tech support at Moog, I know what needs to be replaced. It's a common problem, apparently, related to the power supply used. This pedal is very finicky about the power supply, and often craps out if you use a one spot type power supply. I actually sold it on Reverb to a guy who, upon receiving it, contacted me and said it didn't work. I know it worked when I sent it. Anyway, I need a resistor and maybe a capacitor replaced. I just don't have the tools or SMD experience to do it.

If anyone can help me out, shoot me a PM.

Just wanted to hear a member's thoughts on the pedal. I went to order one, but didn't know they stopped production already.
I really want to build one just to check it out. The demos I have seen sound pretty decent, but I doubt the circuit is anything ground breaking or unique.

I've had my MusicomLab EFX MKIII for a while and it works great. I tried to use it to change channels on my amp, but it seems to have the polarity reversed on the function jacks that can be used to switch channels. When the switcher is not engaged, my lead channel is on and I want it the other way, so it switches to lead channel when I activate a pedal loop. Anyone know how to fix this?
If not, can I wire up an adapter to reverse the tip/sleeve configuration?

I'm considering removing some hand pinstriping from a guitar, but I don't want to damage the finish. I was thinking of just taking some lacquer thinner to it, but was wondering if anyone has tried this on a guitar finish or has any advice? I know this can work quite well on a car finish, but the clear coat on a car is probably much more durable than the clear on a guitar.
Any input is appreciated.

I'm working on a multi-build, a box with 4 different boosts. I want to use a rotary switch to select which boost is active. I also want to give each effect its own LED. I was planning to use a 3p4t to accomplish this, with a pole for input, output, and ground. My question is: Can I use the same ground to activate the effect and LED at the same time? Would this cause any unwanted popping or other ill side effects? If so, can I just use the LED+ pad on the PCB and connect the LED- to the ground pad of the PCB? My thinking is this will activate one boost and one led simultaneously. I'm hoping to have only one effect on at a time, instead of having all 4 on all the time and simply switching which ins/outs and led is active.

During my usual waterslide decal/envirotex application process, I made a mistake I felt I'd share so none of you stumble upon it like I did.

After my decal had dried and I cut out the holes, I had small bits of decal debris on the surface. I was looking around my desk for something to clean it off, and spotted my canned air that I use to clean out my keyboard. I gave my enclosure a spray of air, which penetrated between the decal and enclosure, making my decal explode off the enclosure into tiny bits like a confetti bomb. I was shocked for a moment before the anger kicked in, realizing I had to start completely over with the process. I apologize for not taking pics of the aftermath, but I was so pissed I got right to stripping the remnants off and starting over.

Avoid the canned air in this situation, gents!

Cheers!

Ok, amp techs and aficionados... I'm considering buying this JCM 800 clone. Let me know if you see any red flags on this. It has a clean bill of health from reputable music shop. How much would you pay for it?

My Moog Minifooger delay has given up on me. It no longer has any delay effect. The drive works, and it passes sound and seems to turn on fine. The delay function just seems to have stopped. Moog support has been completely unresponsive to my inquiries. Anyone have any thoughts?

I'm building a vintage phase 90, the six IC version, and I'm not getting full phase out of it. I can get a beautiful phase effect if I manually manipulate the trimpot back and forth, but it won't phase on its own. I have tried all manner of adjustments to the trimmer, but all it does is output the tone created by the trimmer position, with no "wave" to it. I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction based on those symptoms, if possible.

I used a set of 2n5952 trannies that I matched myself, so I know they should be good.

I apologize for not having a schematic. I built this from an etched pcb made from a layout I got from FSB, which did not include a schematic and I don't know what schematic it is based upon. I didn't post voltages because my build doc and layout do not even have IC numbers to relate the voltages to. You can find the doc I used to build the pedal here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13215910/Script%20Phaze%2090.pdf

Anybody got one? I can't seem to find one online anywhere for the Osh Park shared project by Pigeon FX.

I built a panner in a wah box with sends and returns to use it as a clean blend with any pedal. It works great, except the pedal wont turn the pot enough to achieve full clean or effect. There just isnt enough travel in the wah motion. Can I remedy this with a different pot value or pot cycle, or would it require some mechanical modification to the enclosure?

Could I use a higher value pot, like 25k (instead of 10k) and situate it so that it travels from 0 resistance to 10k (or so) by the time the pedal runs out of travel?

I've seen some occasional online discussion on the old Bud Box MXRs and it seems most of it is all a matter of opinion. So, I was just wondering if anyone here has compared schems or circuits for the old Bud Box Phase 90 vs the later models. I am curious if there is any actual physical or schematical difference between them?

Does anyone know if someone makes prelabeled jack washers? I'm looking for something to use to label send/return jacks and would like to do something similar to the Treble/Rhythm switch on a Les Paul, except smaller and for an audio jack. A more typical decal label won't work for my particular application.

Thanks!

My 535Q multi wah is acting like a volume. I checked the solder joints around it and it looks fine. The pcb is all smd, with the exceptions of a few 220uF caps. I researched it a bit and found that the 4.7 cap needs to be checked, also. There are four of them, and I'm not sure which I should check. Looking at the hand drawn schematic, I think it is C3, but could someone help me out with that? Also I want to test the inductor itself, so how would I do that?





With component numbers:

Has anyone attempted to put a clean blend in a wah enclosure and put an effect loop to connect the effect of your choice?

I've been contemplating if this is practical.

If I put a waterslide and envirotex or clear coat on the top of a Theremin, will it affect the enclosure used as an antenna?