Do it yourself crew in the house?

[lala]

Anyone into do it yourself kits and stuff here?

 

Ive had an SSL G4000 built for me and im getting a pultec next, thought as ive got some free time im going to try something myself

 

 

not really bothered about modular at the moment, its outboard i want so im going to attempt a few 1176 compressors from Hairball Audio http://www.hairballaudio.com/catalog/fet-rackand keep one and sell another and try and build up from there.

 

aim is to end up being able to build kit usually out of my price range & make a bit of money on the side while im at it, bringing joy to friends who want cheaper clones

 

 

I can solder, but dont even own a multimeter yet. yes im scared of being turned into electro from spiderman

[TubularCorporation]

Question for people who actually know electronics: I'm almost done building a Fender 5e3 amp (got a cheap Chinese ebay kit and swapped out a bunch of the parts) and I'm getting ready to wire up the power transformer, but it has 5 different primary leads for different countries' line voltages (sharing a single 0 lead) and I can't really get a clear idea of what I should do with the unused ones. I had assumed I should just cap them and ignore them, but then when I was looking at the layout for a different kit of the same amp (all I got with this one was a not that well drawn schematic) and it showed some of the primary leads tied to the chassis ground so now I'm not sure. I'm pretty confident from measuring continuity that I don't need to connect any of them to each other (that is, it's not one of those transformers with multiple primary windings, just a single winding with taps for different voltages) but I don't know. There's lots of good info on transformers out there but I looked a lot and couldn't find anything relevant to this particular situation. I'll probably have to register a new DIYAudio account (forgot my old login years ago) and ask there, but just on the off chance one of you has an idea...

 

 

 

I try to DIY as much stuff as I can, if only because the tools and experience will usually be useful long after the gear isn't. I don't have any background in electronics, so it can be tough to figure out what's wrong when something doesn't work but usually it does. Done a bunch of simple fuzz pedal clones from scratch over the years, and a few synth and amp kits. The trouble with kits for me is that I don't really learn much by doing them, other than getting better at soldering. The only exception t that is the x0xb0x I was working on before my last move, and have been stalled on ever since, because the build instructions include a lot of testing as yo go, so I do get a little bit of an idea of what does what (and some practice with the oscilloscope I trash-picked a while back) but overall kits are more of a "this is beyond my ability to do from scratch but I want it" thing than a way of learning, for me.

 

Oh, and I posted it in another thread already but I just recently made this in my living room:

 

[lala]

thats pretty amazing guitar, man, i bet you're well proud

[TubularCorporation]

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with it so far. Much better than the first one I made. Still needs a truss rod cover and I'm going to make a new nut and possibly put in graphite saddles at some point, but that's all minor stuff. The only real issue is I designed it with the intent of putting binding on the fretboard but then decided at the last minute I didn't want to bother on this one. Thing is, I didn't really think about what that meant for the frets: with a Gibson style binding, I would have just filed them flat on the ends and let the binding itself be a kind of rounded cap (Gibson collectors call those the "nibs" and are a bit obsessed with them) but without binding I had to round off the frets themselves a little, and that means that the outer strings are a little too close to the ends of the frets now. Not close enough to cause problems but too close. Also I didn't round of the frets quite as much as I'd have liked, for the same reason. Other than that I'm pretty happy with it, hopefully two or three more and I'll be at a point where I'll want to sell them. I'm just starting a 12 string (actually 9, since I don't like having the three highest strings doubled) and after that I'm going to make some kind of MIDI guitar and a bass and then I won't need any more for myself, but with some luck (because when it comes to marketing myself I am bad at it and hate it) I'll be able to start making them for other people.

 

EDIT: might make a new bridge pickup sometime, too. The one in there is the first one I ever made and I think I could wind it tighter now. It still sounds good, though, so I might not bother.

Edited September 4, 2015 by RSP

[lala]

i understand the not being able to market yourself well bit i suffer from that. spend so long on the creative aspect i forget about the getting it out there to people aspect.

 

totally cool, love the craft of beautiful things

[TubularCorporation]

i understand the not being able to market yourself well bit i suffer from that. spend so long on the creative aspect i forget about the getting it out there to people aspect.

 

totally cool, love the craft of beautiful things

 

I'm hoping I can spin my general distaste for marketing into part of the inevitable/already beginning backlash against the self-branding/startup-culture/monetize-everything/ web-2.0 horseshit of the 00's.

 

No Commercial Potential.

 

Building stuff has kind of taken over a lot of the time I used to spend on music in the last couple years, that's why I haven't really shared any music here yet. Most of the stuff I've done that's at all well recorded and recent is just fucking around trying to make things that are ridiculous and have a laugh.

Edited September 4, 2015 by RSP

[TubularCorporation]

Made an Audiothingies p6 last week. So far I'm really happy with it.

[Braintree]

That's sweet, RSP. You've got me thinking about trying to assemble that bad boy.

[sweepstakes]

I built a Shruthi a long time ago. Sadly it sounds like they've been discontinued.

[TubularCorporation]

That's sweet, RSP. You've got me thinking about trying to assemble that bad boy.

 

If you've built a couple things it should be pretty easy. I got it as far as powering it up and testing it in about 3 hours and then came back from playing music with a friend and got the LEDs in and the case together before bed. It's digital so there really isn't a whole lot to put together.

 

Next thing is going to be one of these.

 

I'd have loved a shruthi or ambika, it's sad they're gone.

Edited September 23, 2015 by RSP

[Hugh Mughnus]

 

 

 

That vinyl collection though

[TubularCorporation]

 

 

 

 

That vinyl collection though

 

 

Used to work at a record store for quite a few years, I've got too many of them. Most of the good stuff was behind me.

Edited September 23, 2015 by RSP

[TubularCorporation]

Putting together a minimal live rig. Couple more small pieces of gear to finish and make a second rack for, and then I'll have to scrounge up the money for a little mixer and I'll be good to go.

 

This rack's almost done, just need to decide how I'm going to keep everything clamped down so it doesn't break when it's in a case.

 

[TubularCorporation]

Done.

 

[psn]

Neat!

[TubularCorporation]

Anyone know anything about Goom? Seems like it could be a fairly easy, really cheap way to add a simple 16 voice, multitimbral VA synth. You'd definitely need to pair it up with some kind of MIDI routing/dispatch/filter/something to make it useful in a larger setup since it looks like the MIDI channels are hardcoded but in the right setup it could be interesting (and cheap! Really, really cheap!)

Edited September 27, 2015 by RSP

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

Seems like a good thread to ask... I'm building a control box for something that's kind of for musical things but in an abstract way and am a bit stuck with some wiring. Basically I've got two IEC chassis sockets powering two different circuits in the box and I want one switch to turn both on and off at the same time. Is that possible? Looking at DPST switches which will activate/deactivate two circuits in this manner but the only wiring diagrams I've seen deal with one power source? Do I have to have two switches or is there a way of doing what I want without killing myself or blowing up my control box? Plez halp!

[sweepstakes]

Anyone know anything about Goom? Seems like it could be a fairly easy, really cheap way to add a simple 16 voice, multitimbral VA synth. You'd definitely need to pair it up with some kind of MIDI routing/dispatch/filter/something to make it useful in a larger setup since it looks like the MIDI channels are hardcoded but in the right setup it could be interesting (and cheap! Really, really cheap!)

No but I really appreciated this tidbit:

Despite what many say, assembler code is considerably more efficient than compiled C, largely because of the possibility of making better use of registers and of conditional instructions; for this reason, the voice generation code is written entirely in assembler. An early prototype written in C was approximately a factor of two slower. Looked at another way, the C implementation would have allowed only eight simultaneous voices rather than sixteen.

Thanks for the link.

[Guest Chesney]

Nice guit RSP. Like the horns. Props man.

I'm on my 4th guit build, really need to get back on it at some point as it's been on the back burner for nearly 2 years. i'll post some pics later.

Would love to start some outboard kits and whatnot but I don't know electronics I just dive into maintenance of my gear not knowing what's what. Still fun but would love to know some shit.

[psn]

 

not really bothered about modular at the moment, its outboard i want so im going to attempt a few 1176 compressors from Hairball Audio http://www.hairballaudio.com/catalog/fet-rackand keep one and sell another and try and build up from there.

 

Cool, interested to hear about this build!

[Guest Chesney]

This is my 2nd build.

 

And 3rd made out of layers of perspex. The neck is a little too flexy making the action not 100% so I plan to redo the neck with some embedded carbon angles

 

This is the latest and simplest I guess.

[Guest Atom Dowry Firth]

Damn son, nice work - both Ches and RSP. Building a guitar wasn't something I'd considered before but am now

[Guest Chesney]

Half the job is having the balls to even have a go. Then you realise as long as you have certain elements spot on then anything goes after that. Really easy to make a nice playable guitar.

[TubularCorporation]

Nice guitars!

 

How do you like the sunken tune-o-matic on your second one? The one I was just starting before a bunch of stuff at work ate up all my time for the next month was going to be a 12 string but I'm leaning toward actually making is 6 string, and that means deciding on a different bridge before I can finish the design. I want to try setting the neck without any angle to it this time and I'm kind of on the fence between buying a bridge designed for that or doing the sunken tune-o-matic thing (especially since I already have a brand new one in the parts bin), but I've never actually handled a guitar made that way before so I'm not really sure what I think about it yet.

 

Nice looking inlay work, too. How'd you cut for those lines on the fingerboard of #2? I've been using a dremel on a little homemade (by someone else, since he had it made already and only wanted $15) router base but I might try hand cutting next time. The fewer power tools the better!

[Guest Chesney]

I only recessed the TOM out of necessity really. I had never seen any guitars done like that before but because it's a full neck through and the 3 lengths of wood (sandwiched Walnut between maple) warped pretty bad so when I took them down so they were all equal I lost too much wood to do an angled neck and angled headstock. Obviously having already bought the hardware I had to come up with a solution and decided to recess the bridge. It works fine. Sort of feels like a typical strat height. As far as inlays, I have a lazer engraver at work so I can burn into the wood with any design and then I filled with glue and acrylic and sanded back.