Onboard gutiar circuit ideas.

[DanielWong]

Name some ideal circuits to put in my guitar. Namely something with a smaller, simple circuit board, very few potetionmeters (unless it's a parametric EQ, then I'll think of a way to get by) and very, very economic with 9v's (this is in a strat so battery changing is the biggest hassle in the world. I've considered installing a bettery holder in the rear of the guitar, but drilling holes in my instrument scares me! I've been considering putting a Green Ringer circuit innit. What do youse guys think?

Any recommendations with links appreciated.

[GREEN FUZ]

A bit obvious but a Fuzz Face. Low parts count, low battery drain, responds well to the guitar volume. Let`s not forget the Classic sound.

[rockgardenlove]

I vote an EQ.  Four knob...
High level
Mid level
Mid frequency set
Low

Sweepable mids are great. 

Use some of those tiny 9mm pots like ZVex does.

[Paul Marossy]

I put a Maestro Boomerang (wah) in one of my guitars:




It's kind of hard to see, but the PCB I made for it is pretty compact - about 1-3/4" square. The little knob between the tone controls is for the wah sweep. I use it as an on-board resonant filter. It has a true bypass switch on the pickguard, of course.

[soulsonic]

My vote is for a Rangemaster - maybe with switch for different boost frequencies. I think that would be the most useful, because it's right there for a boost whenever you need it, and it can help give a wimpy amp a kick in the balls. You'll never have to worry about a weak tone with that in there.

[petemoore]

  DPDT / volume pot [switching potentiometer for true bypass push/pull knob.
  Maybe a lithium battery [batteries?
  Stereo output jack which switches power off when plug isn't inserted.
  Hybrid FF or temperature/bias stable FF, hardwired after the volume control [this way the volume control becomes a fuzz gain control].
  ...but I'd tune it alot before installing it..especially for volume, probably somewhat above unity...so the cleaned up FF [with volume control rolled of...enough to clean it up] is at least close to unity...
  You might want pure fuzz in which case i'd make that setting be above unity a touch or two.

[soulsonic]

There's always a SHO. Those things are TINY.

[Paul Marossy]

I forgot to mention that I put a battery compartment in the back of my guitar (a Strat). I wasn't willing to have to go thru all that hassle of removing the pickguard every time I have to change the battery. It was a refinish job on the body anyway...

[R.G.]

The smartest compromise is an onboard booster/buffer. See http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/

Putting a lot more on the guitar necessarily involves making the guitar into something that's not resellable. If you have a guitar you'll never want to sell, or a project guitar that you don't care about butchering, see Anderton's onboard tone controls.

There's simply not room on the guitar as we normally think of it for the controls.

[Paul Marossy]

Duh. Yeah, the Tillman preamp is a good one, too. I have that in a couple of my guitars, too.

[ambulancevoice]

+1 on the boost

[Mark Hammer]

There is a universe of sounds you can create when you can change the order of effects in use.  Sticking anything on board a guitar that you have even the slightest desire to want to place after something else cuts you off from those possibilities.  Something that cleans up or preserves/maximizes the signal quality is something that you will ALWAYS want first, no matter what.  You can always dirty or lo-fi things up later, but you can never restore clarity you lacked in the first place.

My vote is for a pre-amp/buffer too.

Now, having said that, being able to control things from the guitar is another matter entirely.  If you have the chops to run a multi-conductor cable from the guitar to a remote box, you can mount voltage-control pots on the guitar and have the best of both worlds: easy access to controls, and option to change the order of effects.  You will note that the little plastic add-on thing that the Roland GK pickups plug into do exactly that - they provide pots to send control voltages to other units.  The down-side is that: a) you will need to plan out your connecting cable very well, b) the extra socket and controls add weight (but then so do on-board effects and their batteries), multi-conductor cables are not the sort of thing where you decide you're going to use a 25-ft cable today and a 12ft tomorrow (so, a little constraining if you like to leap around).

[solarplexus]

how about a Fetzer valve or a Marshavalve ... 2 preamps for 2 distinct sounds.

you could have a ON/OFF/ON switch and choose one or the other, or neither.

[DanielWong]

I'm thinking some kind of a buffer then. what exactly is the difference of a pre-amp boost and a pre-amp buffer? I was originally thinking of making a Green Ringer a la Frank Zappa but you guys got me thinking. Please send more links to various buffers and pre-amp please!

Paul, can you show some pics of the battery compartment or some diagrams for cutting one in?

[petemoore]

what exactly is the difference of a pre-amp boost and a pre-amp buffer?
  A buffer is 1/1 unity gain [almost], but may sound a touch louder, especially if there is loss in cable-age.
  fet buffer is source follower, bipolar buffer is emitter follower, they do about the same thing and allow for a high impedance input/low impedance output, this helps retain signal and overcome losses 'en route' to the amp.
  Boss pedals and many/most commercial pedals have buffers in the signal path when the effect is 'bypassed', this is an easy way to tell if a buffer is helping drive the cables etc. / but you have to unplug the effect to bypass the buffer [and why they don't work in 'bypass' mode without power supply].
  "booster' means voltage increase, which means output is louder than input..whatever voltage swing the input sees, the output 'follows', but at a higher voltage/amplitude [when power supply and etc. permit' higher voltage, -/+ signal swings].

[soupbone]

I put a Maestro Boomerang (wah) in one of my guitars:




It's kind of hard to see, but the PCB I made for it is pretty compact - about 1-3/4" square. The little knob between the tone controls is for the wah sweep. I use it as an on-board resonant filter. It has a true bypass switch on the pickguard, of course.

How the heck did you do that Paul!

[seedlings]

Battery voltage indicator.

CHAD

[sault]

FWIW, I will never own a guitar ever again that doesn't either have active pickups or an onboard buffer preamp.

An onboard buffer preamp means low output impedance means cable capacitance doesn't affect your tone means you can buy cheap cables and it doesn't matter. I resent even the idea that I should spend more than 20-30$ on a flippin' guitar cable!

I think that the Tillman isn't bad... but my tech put in a buffer with a TL072 (after I botched a repair job myself, ha ha), and I can't be happier. You get more usable headroom (errm, almost rail-to-rail voltage I mean), a lower output impedance, lower noise, and still get a bit of that Jfet flavor. I like the high-gain and high-output pickups, so all that stuff matters to me.

[amptramp]

As well as buffering, you may want to add isolation to your guitar electronics wish list.  An RF modulator / demodulator combo would keep stray power line voltages off the guitar body if the isolation was after the guitar cable in the first box the guitar plugs in to.  If you don't like RF, fibre optic cables and the associated drivers and receivers could be used.  You could run a standard 4-20 mA industrial sensor interface to avoid cable losses and permit power and signal to be on the same line.

[charmonder]

there's also the fact that some of these vintage fuzz effects sound best first in chain before any buffer. in which case it probably sounds even better without a cable between it. and then you wont need an input knob because that's already the guitar volume knob.

so my vote goes to harmonic percolator!