DIY Parker Fly Buffered Signal Splitter Box, Need Some Help

[Paul Marossy]

OK, here's the deal - I built this little box that consists of three jacks, three switches and a piezo buffer circuit. Basically, it's a stereo breakout box with a bypassable buffer circuit in one of the outputs. The weird thing is that the output with the buffer circuit cuts out almost completely when it's switched to bypass mode, but it works great thru the buffer circuit! That bypass switch is wired for true bypass and I have double triple checked my wiring, went thru it with my multi-meter with the continuity checker and can't find any reason why it shouldn't work in bypass mode. I know that my guitar cords are all good and that the switch is making a contact internally. Any ideas?!? I'm kind of baffled on this one... 

For those unfamiliar with the Parker Fly, it has magnetic and peizo pickups. When a stereo cord is plugged into the "smart jack", it will send one signal from the piezos and one signal from the magnetic pickups. The pickup selector switch will allow you to have only the magnetic pickups, the piezos and the magnetic pickups or the piezos only. It has a pair of coil tapped humbuckers with a three way selector for the mag pickups. You can get a wide variety of sounds with this guitar. Now, if you use a mono cord, it will just send the signals from both types of pickups down the same cable.

Anyhow, here's a few pictures of my box:

[Paul Marossy]

Well, I can't figure out why it doesn't work in bypass mode other than it must be something with the way that the guitar's "smart jack" is wired or something. That's OK, though, it works fine when the buffer is engaged, and that's what really counts...

[Sambo]

I built a similar thing for all my guitars (which are piezo equipped)

Mine has a buffer to the electric side of the circuit which is non bypassable. It also has a switch that mutes the two signals and switches the output to a jack to the tuner (useful).

Could the problem be with your grounding? Just a thought.

S

[Paul Marossy]

Could the problem be with your grounding? Just a thought.

Apparently not. Here's the weird thing - when I plug my Mojo Nitefly into two amplifiers, it works just as you would expect it to with a stereo cord, but if I try to use just one signal from the stereo cord, it doesn't work like you would expect it to. Wierd huh?! I guess it has something to do it needing with two amplifiers being connected together for it to work.