Building a Circuit into a Guitar

[clarkguitars]

So, this is my first post, and i came here to  see if anyone could help me.
I've been trying to build a simple fuzz effect into my guitar, but am having no luck in getting sound out. My guitar works fine without the fuzz circuit, so i'm clearly doing something wrong. It would be great if someone could suggest how to connect everything for a pedal up inside a guitar.
The circuit takes a 9VDC battery. This circuit can also be found at http://www.aaroncake.net/circuits/fuzz.asp. Thanks, Ryan.

[Perkla]

U need to hook up the signal from the pickups to the circuitboard and the output from the circuitboard will be connected the the Jack on the guitar. Its also important that u connect those input cables where they should be, or else u will not get any sound out of the guitar. It works the same as a floor pedal but with no jack for the input cus that is the cables that normaly goes to your Jack on the guitar..

[Perkla]

Opps.. and u need a ground as well.. try to ground the circuitboard with the rest of the guitar.. it could make a big difference in the end of the day..

[Govmnt_Lacky]

I would recommend replacing one of your guitar pots with another having the same resistance value and taper in addition to a DPDT switch like this:

http://www.stratcat.biz/dpdt250kpot.shtml

This way, you can control whether the fuzz effect is on or off 

As for wiring the effect, you simply need to break the connection between your guitar's electronics (volume/tone pots) and the output jack. The signal FROM the guitar pots will go to the circuit INPUT and the circuit OUTPUT will go to the guitar jack.

Of course, if you decide to use the switching like I mention above, you would do something like this:


                           0----short----0

to guitar jack---- 0                  0----- From guitar electronics

Fuzz output------0                  0----- Fuzz Input


Good Luck 

[clarkguitars]

Thanks guys, i'll see what i can do, then i'll get back to you

[MikeH]

Does the circuit work on it's own outside of the guitar?  Is it one that you built yourself?

Every pedal circuit (ok, almost every one) has an input, output, V+ and ground connection.  Whenever I build a pedal, before I box it up, I hook up those leads on my bread board and test it to make sure it works.  This rules out a lot of possible issues is it doesn't work (like switching, or jack wiring, for instance).  It makes debugging it a lot easier.

If you haven't tested the circuit outside of the guitar, without a switch, etc - I'd try that first.  If it doesn't work, follow the steps in the sticky "DEBUGGING" thread in the main forum.  It's the best way to figure out why.

As far as circuit placement inside a guitar; it can be places in series with the hot signal at pretty much any point it the path.  This means you could have it hooked up to just one pickup and only have the fuzz when that pickup is on, for instance.  Also- placing the fuzz before the guitar's volume control will make for a 'full blast' fuzz that you control with the volume control.  Placing it after the volume control will allow you to use the guitars volume control to change the characteristics of many fuzzes.  It will act as more of a 'dirt' control there.

Good luck - and welcome to the forum!

[clarkguitars]

Yeah, I built it myself and it works perfectly outside the guitar :/ I have given up for now and just closed my guitar up and put the strings on (it's a strat), so I will try next time I need to replace the strings thanks for the help anyway guys

[Renegadrian]

I put a Stratoblaster in one of my guitars, and a simple opamp clean boost in my main bass - it helps to have some kick sometimes!

[jasperoosthoek]

Why bother removing all the strings? I know it makes life easier but you can just unwind them and remove the pick guard by picking it up and sliding it sideways. The strat whammy makes it even more easy.

One of my previous guitar projects had an issue with a short somewhere. I needed to remove the pick guard and put it back for five times before the issue was solved. Of course, you can leave only the bass string to test.

[DavenPaget]

Why bother removing all the strings? I know it makes life easier but you can just unwind them and remove the pick guard by picking it up and sliding it sideways. The strat whammy makes it even more easy.

One of my previous guitar projects had an issue with a short somewhere. I needed to remove the pick guard and put it back for five times before the issue was solved. Of course, you can leave only the bass string to test.

Not unless the sort of wires they use in the factory are extremely short ( ala just nice ) i would go around extending them soon anyway but i have locked up my bridge because the whammy is a pain in the arse to keep tune .
My strat's ... not built very well , so i have to slide , pull , slide , pull yeah the fitting is no good .