OT: Ever see a guitar with a joystick?

[Dean Hazelwanter]

Up until today I would have said no.

Today I bought a Quest (Japanese) '4Play' guitar with 2 humbuckers, 3 interlocked pushbutton switches, a center-off toggle switch, volume with pull-on switch, AND A JOYSTICK! :shock: Just had a minute to look inside it and, as expected, there was a PCB with a few wires off. Anyone have any information on these things? I'll dig deeper as soon as I get a chance. Anyway, got this guitar (with hardshell case), a solid state Harmony G20 practice amp, Korg tuner, Boss DF2 Super Feedbacker and Distortion, Boss DM2 Delay, guitar stand, 2 sets of strings, and 2 guitar lesson books with CD (one with Carlos Santana). All for $75!!

Some days you're the bug, some days you're the windshield. Today was a windshield day. :lol:

[Brett Sinclair]

Man that is one sweet deal...  :shock:
A Boss DM-2 alone can go for about 150 Euro = 200 USD around here...

Any chance of a pic of that guitar?

[maximee]

Congrats on that sweet deal!!!

Where did you get it?
Anyways...I want to see some pictures

[Dean Hazelwanter]

I know - I was amazed too!

I saw an ad in the paper, gave him a call, went to see it, and drove away with a big smile on my face!

I'll try to take some pictures tonight. If you send me your email addresses to dean{dot}hazelwanter{at}sasktel{dot}net, I'll try to send the pictures tonight. If either of you (or anyone else) wants to serve them, go ahead.

[inverseroom]

What does the joystick do?

[R.G.]

One of the early Vox electro-acoustics had a joystick back at the bridge - worked an onboard wah/volume as I remember.

[Mark Hammer]

Hey!!  Someone in my neighbourhood left a Harmony G20 at the end of the driveway recently.  Naturally, I scooped it up, wiped the snow of and tucked it in the trunk of my car on the way to work.  It's a Garnet design, confirmed by the CSA number on the front.  In the absence of a schematic (and the presence of *only* 3 control knobs), I decided to gut the thing, repaint, and rededicate the chassis to another design.  Before clipping all wires, though, I didn't actually turn it on and listen to it (actually, as a piece of "garbage" it looked a little too scary to do that with any guarantees of safety).  So what does it sound like?  I have the board intact.  Would it be worth bringing back to life?

The DF2 is also a great find.  A fun pedal  I sometimes wonder if it might be possible to adapt it to provide a synthesized note (plus its octave) for external processing, without the fuzz and crap.  Now that I think of it, the DF2 has to do some sort of crude P-2-V conversion to produce the synthesized note.  It'd be great to be able to stick a minijack on the side of the pedal and have a mono synth up and running.

[Dean Hazelwanter]

Brett and Maximee, I just emailed the pictures. For anyone else interested, Brett has offered to host them.

[adgators89]

yeah, that would be cool to post the pics.  

I was thinking about the joystick thing.  That would actually be a pretty cool idea for a guitar with a fixed bridge.  I hate tremolo bridges due to retunning when you want to play in drop d, but then you lose the divebombs and screams that the floyd rose or other tremolos can give you.  So with a joystick near the bridge you could have a fixed bridge guitar and have it control a divebomb effect or a tremolo.  heck you could make it a decent range whammy joystick

the possibilities are endless

[Dean Hazelwanter]

Flo (Maximee) has posted the pictures(THANKS!), and Brett, you're still welcome to if you want.

http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0002.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0005.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0006.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0008.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0010.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0013.JPG
http://13ic.web.easynet.be/dean/IMG_0015.JPG

So here's the latest from last night. I took educated guesses and reconnected the 4 unconnected wires where I thought they should go, and it works, but I think something's still not right. There are 2 pots connected to the joystick's up/down axis, and 1 for left/right. Left/right movement controls a wah-like filter, but up/down does nothing. Kinda cool, but I think there is more there.

The pull switch on the volume pot is a coil tap switch for both pickups. The pushbutton switches are pickup selectors (neck/bridge/both). I'm not 100% sure what the toggle switch does yet, although it did seem to minimally alter the filter frequency on the joystick. I'll try to dig deeper tonight.

[Dean Hazelwanter]

Oh Mark...

I fired up the Harmony last night. Sounded ok clean but the pots - especially the overdrive - need cleaning real bad.

Did the basic 'does the LED come on' test on the pedals. DF2 - yes. DM2 - no. Took it apart, resoldered 1 pot lead which was off, and noticed that a diode on the board was smoked. Turns out it's an 11.1 v zener to protect from using an adapter with too high a voltage output. As a quick check, snipped 1 lead from the diode, and LED comes on now.

[adgators89]

sure is different, I'll say that.

[Khas Evets]

My guess is that the joystick is a tone control for each pickup. Did you try the joystick with both pickups?

I love hearing about a great value like this. I just picked up a Squire Strat and a Fender practice amp for $60. I then sold the amp to a friend for $50. Now I can chop up the Squire without any regrets!

[Mike Burgundy]

That is wild
What's up with that weird bridge? Looks like a D-bender?

[petemoore]

Coll Pics Interesting !!
 They sure didn't skimp on PCB estate, a rather large cavity in the guitar...
 So these joysticks actuate two pots? One for 'pitch' and one for 'yaw'?

[Dean Hazelwanter]

Adgators89: Yup, it's different, and a major PITA to put it on a stand. :wink:

Khas Evets: Yup, tried the joystick with both pickups, and every switch combination. Left to right affects the filter. Up and down does nothing.

Mike: No, it's not as exotic as a D-bender. The string-holder/adjuster deal is gone, so the guy put the string through a couple of nuts and wedged them into the mechanism.  :shock:

Pete: There's actually 3 pots. 1 for left to right, 2 for up and down.

[Khas Evets]

Maybe the two pots used for the up/down axis were meant to fade between the two pickups?

[Paul Marossy]

Maybe the two pots used for the up/down axis were meant to fade between the two pickups?

That would be my guess. Maybe something is wrong with the circuit...

[inverseroom]

Maybe the two pots used for the up/down axis were meant to fade between the two pickups?

That's what I was thinking.  It couldn't be too hard to do that, could it?  Since there are already switches on most guitars that did.  Now I wanna put a joystick on one of my axes...