Internal Phase 90

[renton00]

I want to install a phase 90 effect in my guitar. I'm not building it, i just bought it. I think most of the stuff I can figure out, but I need to know how to run the lead through it. how to I run a simple hot guitar wire through the effect before it exits the output jack? the board is fixed with jacks soltered at 6 seperate points, and I don't know where to begin. Can anyone help?

[petemoore]

Are you planning to use a bypass?
 Are you thinking of ripping the pedal apart, or do you have a large soundboard hole you plan to feed it through?

[renton00]

Yeah I'm ripping it apart and just inserting the circuit board. I'll attach a diferent pot and switch that will mount on the guitar like a regular guitar knob and switch. I just need to know how to run the lead. I don't know about the bypass. I'm sure its best to do, but I'm not so sure I know what I'm doing.:-)

[Mark Hammer]

I would seriously reconsider what you are planning to do.

a) From what you indicate, the board is already made, so it is obviously not designed to fit in your instrument.  Rather, you have to figure how to make the guitar accommodate the board and controls.

b) I, personally, would not dream of installing anything battery-powered in my instrument unless I knew for sure I could go for a year or more without changing the battery.  There is just too much nuisance, too much risk of cosmetic damage, and risk of thread stripping if you have to get in there on a regular basis.  You also don't want a wall-wart feed to the guitar.

c) Having it on the instrument may seem like a convenience, but removing your fingers from the strings to switch the effect in and out is a real hindrance compared to working the switches with your feet WHILE you play.

d) The position of the phaser in your effects chain is absolutely fixed.  You can't shape the tone or level of the signal you feed it, and you can't use that shaped and phase-shifted signal to alter other devices in a tactical way.

e) You can always mod an effect and stick another controls or two on a pedal chassis.  Altering the effect or adding controls on the guitar itself is a big deal...especially when you have to work with a board YOU didn't design expressly for your guitar.

Have I persuaded you yet?

[renton00]

I'm getting a body built and it already has to be routed for a Fernandez Sustainer Driver board, and a hexaphonic preamp for MIDI output. True the battery might be annoying, but the hexaphonic is powered by its midi cable with the option to power an aditional 9V component like an avtice pickup, or - a Phase 90. Plus the fernandez has to have a battery box installed as well, so I've just bought a double battery box. the guitar will basically have a very large control cavity, and there will be no trouble getting the board in there, nor will there be any trouble adding a different switch and a different pot. The only trouble is wiring the input signal through for true bypass, and I don't really know how to do any of that.
I get what you are saying, but I'm stubborn. However, I thank you. Do you perhaps know how I might go about wiring the lead?

[bwanasonic]

I'm getting a body built and it already has to be routed for a Fernandez Sustainer Driver board,

Have fun with the sustainer! I would really like to try one. For wiring the Phase 90, check out the wiring diagrams at www.generalguitargadgets.com , under articles. You can use a mini DPDT toggle in place of a footswitch. Bo Diddley makes great use of effects built into his guitar, but I most say I doubt  it's utility in this case. A gain effect such as a booster/preamp maybe.  Well have fun with it anyways...


Kerry M

[Mark Hammer]

Well, at least you recognize your stubbornness for what it is. :lol: Can't fault a man for honesty!

The obviousness of it might be staring me in the face.  Are you simply looking for how to wire the phaser up for normal bypass purposes?  Is it your intention to have all signals exiting the guitar pass through the phaser in mono or were you planning to have some sort of selective processing? (e.g., phaser to neck pickup but bridge remains unprocessed).

Given the amount of stuff on there, you'll probably want something like a 6-pack or 8-pack of AA or AAA batteries so that you get something with a bit more current delivery capacity than a conventional 9v and more life between replacements.  That will add to the weight, but I'm sure with all the stuff in there that there will be plenty of chambers and other weight-reduction mods to offset whatever weight is added by the assorted hardware you note.  Should you use a 12v supply, my guess is you will probably need to alter the bias of the FETs on the P90 for optimum performance.

The Fernandes unit relies on feedback from the pickup signal.  That signal should be obtained *before* it goes to the phaser.  In other words, treat the phaser as if it is a stompbox after the guitar, even though it is in the guitar.

Since you're having the body made for you this may be moot, but one of the considerations with guitar controls is often the length of the threaded neck on any pots or switches.  It obviously has to be long enough that there is something to thread the retaining nut onto.  If you go to Stewart-McDonald's site I'm sure you can see some pictures of "long neck" pots for installing on Les Pauls.  Fender-type arrangements are a piece of cake since the hardware is mounted on a pickguard or plate, but more custom carved bodies usually involve components being inserted into wood and being screwed against wood.  For such circumstances, probably the best solution is a long-neck switching pot, with a push-pull switch.  Fortunately, the Speed control on the P90 is a 500k pot - a fairly standard value for such custom switching pots.  The nice thing is that it saves a bit of surface space by having the bypass switch in the same spot.

Of course that may be a nuisance or a blessing, depending on how you intend to use the instrument/effect.  If you want fast in/out switching, a toggle will give faster access to changes than a switching pot that you have to pull up.  On the other hand, the less clutter on the surface of the instrument, usually the more playable it is.

Note that the old Gretsch Super Chet Atkins had a compressor and phaser on board.  See if you can score the schematic for it somewhere, and that may provide a reasonable protoype.

[idlefaction]

dude.  excuse if this is condescending at all.  i have no idea if you know what shielded cable is.  

take the wires that normally go between the volume and the guitar's output jack, and unsolder them.  there should be three - two from the volume control, and a black one from the power pack in your guitar.  leave the power one connected.  the two you've removed may be disguised as one wire with a central wire and lots of fine mesh around it, which is actually another wire if you pull the central wire through the mesh and roll the mesh together.  remember which one went to the sleeve and which went to the tip.

unsolder the input and output jacks from the phase 90 circuit board.  put them in your parts bin.  

unhook the battery clip from the phase 90, note where the red wire went and where the black wire went.  if it's decent, put it in your parts bin.  

hook up a red wire to the power coming from your guitar's battery pack, and connect it where you just took the red wire from the phase 90.  THE WIRE MUST BE RED OR NONE OF THIS WILL WORK!!!  this is one of the secrets of building your own effects.  no, i'm full of shit.  the colour doesn't matter    (we spell it 'colour' in new zealand)

hook the two wires you disconnected from the guitar's jack up to where the phase 90's input jack used to be.   the tip is furthest from the edge of the circuit board, the sleeve is closest, and the middle one you leave empty.

now you need either two more wires or another piece of that cool central-mesh double wire.  hook that up from where the output jack used to be on the phase 90 to the output jack on your guitar, tip to tip, sleeve to sleeve.

assumptions i made:
1.  you always want the phase 90 to be going!
2.  your power is switched by a scheme where inserting a mono guitar lead shorts 0V to signal ground, providing power when you have the lead in and turning the power off when you pull it out

if you want true bypass, i'd need to draw a picture.  i probably should already anyway but i'm at work.

HTH...