Whatever happened to the P in Printed Circuit Boards? I want to put a blank board in a printer, hit Print, and out comes a proper PCB. Is it too much to ask? Why can't someone make this happen? Canon? Epson? HP? Hello?
Ohh you really don't want HP. I had a friend who worked at HP, in the Printer-design department ... even with an employee discount he didn't have an HP printer because he didn't want to have to shell out for the ink. HP printers are inexpensive because they gouge you for the ink...
After experimenting with a hotter set of P90s I put the Sunday Hand wound set in that Tim wound for me last year. Through the new amp the hotter pickups were too dark and felt kinda lifeless. These are absolute perfection. They ain't leaving this guitar again. Deep cleaning and polish, fretboard conditioned and fresh strings.
After experimenting with a hotter set of P90s I put the Sunday Hand wound set in that Tim wound for me last year. Through the new amp the hotter pickups were too dark and felt kinda lifeless. These are absolute perfection. They ain't leaving this guitar again. Deep cleaning and polish, fretboard conditioned and fresh strings. View attachment 96995
This came the other day. It is a great sounding amp with 2 issues. Noisy effects loop and a quick to get super loud master volume. I’m hoping to fix both. The PRS quality control seems pretty bad on this and some of the design choices are kind of baffling. It came not working as one of the transformer wires was not properly soldered but easy fix and it started up. View attachment 96848 View attachment 96849
I've read that this actually has a really nice clean tone channel. But I've also read about the QC issues and design issues. As I recall Psionic Audio tore PRS a new hiney hole when he reviewed one of their amps. Having said that, I've been curious about this amp for a long time. Let us know how you get on with fixing the issues. Maybe just a taper issue on the Master vol?
After experimenting with a hotter set of P90s I put the Sunday Hand wound set in that Tim wound for me last year. Through the new amp the hotter pickups were too dark and felt kinda lifeless. These are absolute perfection. They ain't leaving this guitar again. Deep cleaning and polish, fretboard conditioned and fresh strings. View attachment 96995
Playing catch up on some posts. These are not currently on my workbench but have recently made a pit stop....
After allowing @Guardians of the analog tempt me into buying my ES-335 he was working his mojo to also tempt me into buying an SG......
Ok, not true, I had SG GAS all on my own, Chris was just cheering me on from the sidelines. I didn't quite have cash for a new one or any of the used ones that appealed to me. But in my search I came across this PRS Mcarty 594 Thinline for literally stupid cheap. Basically PRS's answer to an SG. Thinner body that their regular 594 and all mahogany. I've wanted one for a long time but always thought they were overpriced. Snagging this was a no brainer for me. So does it sound like an SG? Well, no. But it's probably the closest you can get with a PRS. Except maybe the Mira.
Anyway, the frets looked brand new and just needed a light polish. The body had some scuff marks and handling marks and a couple of small dings. I buffed it out with Meguires then a couple coats of carnauba and it looks almost new. This is a 2020 model, so before they moved the whole S2 line to US electronics and pickups. The stock G&B pickups were horrible. Muddy and lifeless. So as usual I gutted it. Re-did all the wiring with TAOT CTS 525k pots, PIO caps and Gavitt wire. Wired it to 50's SG specs. I put a set of Durbano Magnetics PAF's in there with an Alnico 3 in the neck and an A4 in the bridge. Killer guitar. I love it!
Playing catch up on some posts. These are not currently on my workbench but have recently made a pit stop....
After allowing @Guardians of the analog tempt me into buying my ES-335 he was working his mojo to also tempt me into buying an SG......
Ok, not true, I had SG GAS all on my own, Chris was just cheering me on from the sidelines. I didn't quite have cash for a new one or any of the used ones that appealed to me. But in my search I came across this PRS Mcarty 594 Thinline for literally stupid cheap. Basically PRS's answer to an SG. Thinner body that their regular 594 and all mahogany. I've wanted one for a long time but always thought they were overpriced. Snagging this was a no brainer for me. So does it sound like an SG? Well, no. But it's probably the closest you can get with a PRS. Except maybe the Mira.
Anyway, the frets looked brand new and just needed a light polish. The body had some scuff marks and handling marks and a couple of small dings. I buffed it out with Meguires then a couple coats of carnauba and it looks almost new. This is a 2020 model, so before they moved the whole S2 line to US electronics and pickups. The stock G&B pickups were horrible. Muddy and lifeless. So as usual I gutted it. Re-did all the wiring with TAOT CTS 525k pots, PIO caps and Gavitt wire. Wired it to 50's SG specs. I put a set of Durbano Magnetics PAF's in there with an Alnico 3 in the neck and an A4 in the bridge. Killer guitar. I love it!
Next up, kind of in the same vein.....I have a lot of dual P90 guitars, most of which I like better than my Epiphone SG Special.
So I decided to mod it by routing it out for a bridge humbucker. Best move EVER! With the wrap tail it has a bit more of an "immediate" attack than a standard TOM and the hum bucker wound up in the perfect position in front of the bridge. Not that I had a lot of options widening a P90 route. But it turned out great. It's gone from a rarely played guitar to something I've been reaching for at least once a day. I put a Wolfetone Marshallhead with A4 magnets in it. The neck is a low output A5 P90. It's a great match.
Does this satisfy my SG GAS? Well, no.....I'm still on the hunt for the perfect Gibson SG Standard 61, in cherry.......with a one piece body......with perfect grain......oh and in my budget
And lastly, this was on my workbench this morning.
I have a lot of Strats and although they each have their own voice and vibe, there's a bit of overlap with my vintage style single coil Strats.
So I decided to mod my Seafoam Green strat. This is a Paulownia body from Allen Eden that's already routed for HBs.
Really all I've done is wire up a second pickguard for it, it's an easy swap back and forth.
I've been wanting a Dual HB strat for a while now but most iterations I see on the market are like "Super Strats" or shredder type guitars.
What I wanted was a "traditional", "vintage" style strat with vintage trem, 9.5" radius FB, bone nut, etc.
The concept crystalized in my mind when I started watching some Michael Landau vids and he's got a couple of Dual HB Strats and I believe his "COMA" strat from Fender comes with two pick guards, one of which is a dual WRHBs.
That really inspired me to do this mod.
It's wired with dedicated volume control for each pickup, 3 way switch and a push pull on the master volume for partial coil split. (2.2k resistor on each pickup).
I out a Wolfetone Dr. Vintage with an A3 magnet in the neck and the bridge is an A5 vintage output humbucker I got from Guitar Parts Zone on Ebay. It's a great sounding humbucker, the fact that it's inexpensive is just icing on the cake. I have the same pickup in my "Goldie" H-S-S strat.
What I did NOT have was a 52mm raw nickel cover to make them both covered. But the "one open, one covered" look is kinda growing on me.
I'm really surprised at how this neck pickup sounds on this platform. Very different from anything else I've had it in.
These were just temp pickups to test the concept but I think they might be staying in.
I've read that this actually has a really nice clean tone channel. But I've also read about the QC issues and design issues. As I recall Psionic Audio tore PRS a new hiney hole when he reviewed one of their amps. Having said that, I've been curious about this amp for a long time. Let us know how you get on with fixing the issues. Maybe just a taper issue on the Master vol?
The clean channel is great on this it has a solid EQ and the volume works fine for lower volume. I’m pretty sure changing the master from a linear taper to an audio will fix it also. Anyone know of a source for a D shaft Pcb mount A500k?
I haven’t done too much with this yet I just shielded the wires that go to the effects loop and it lowered the noise significantly. Putting a lower gain tube in v6 also seemed to help but does seem to change the character of the amp some. I’m going to try to get it silent without a tube swap.
2 of the bundle of 4 connectors were grounds so one is a shield only, I lifted the ground on the breakout board side. Built in ground loop for some reason.
I will probably clean up some of the spaghetti wiring and resolder any bad joints when I have it all apart.
It still gets noisy on the effects loop with ground loops. If I plug my pedalboard into my rack it gets a bunch of noise I may need ground lift somewhere there.
I bought both of these in the same week. I got the one with the evertune and enjoyed it so much I got the one with the 2 point bridge. They both spec out nice and were pretty affordable. I believe they are made in the same factory as your PRS assuming it’s an import. The one with the evertune is by far the best rhythm guitar I have owned.
The clean channel is great on this it has a solid EQ and the volume works fine for lower volume. I’m pretty sure changing the master from a linear taper to an audio will fix it also. Anyone know of a source for a D shaft Pcb mount A500k?
I haven’t done too much with this yet I just shielded the wires that go to the effects loop and it lowered the noise significantly. Putting a lower gain tube in v6 also seemed to help but does seem to change the character of the amp some. I’m going to try to get it silent without a tube swap. View attachment 97008
2 of the bundle of 4 connectors were grounds so one is a shield only, I lifted the ground on the breakout board side. Built in ground loop for some reason.
I will probably clean up some of the spaghetti wiring and resolder any bad joints when I have it all apart.
It still gets noisy on the effects loop with ground loops. If I plug my pedalboard into my rack it gets a bunch of noise I may need ground lift somewhere there.
I bought both of these in the same week. I got the one with the evertune and enjoyed it so much I got the one with the 2 point bridge. They both spec out nice and were pretty affordable. I believe they are made in the same factory as your PRS assuming it’s an import. The one with the evertune is by far the best rhythm guitar I have owned. View attachment 97009
The clean channel is great on this it has a solid EQ and the volume works fine for lower volume. I’m pretty sure changing the master from a linear taper to an audio will fix it also. Anyone know of a source for a D shaft Pcb mount A500k?
I haven’t done too much with this yet I just shielded the wires that go to the effects loop and it lowered the noise significantly. Putting a lower gain tube in v6 also seemed to help but does seem to change the character of the amp some. I’m going to try to get it silent without a tube swap. View attachment 97008
2 of the bundle of 4 connectors were grounds so one is a shield only, I lifted the ground on the breakout board side. Built in ground loop for some reason.
I will probably clean up some of the spaghetti wiring and resolder any bad joints when I have it all apart.
It still gets noisy on the effects loop with ground loops. If I plug my pedalboard into my rack it gets a bunch of noise I may need ground lift somewhere there.
I bought both of these in the same week. I got the one with the evertune and enjoyed it so much I got the one with the 2 point bridge. They both spec out nice and were pretty affordable. I believe they are made in the same factory as your PRS assuming it’s an import. The one with the evertune is by far the best rhythm guitar I have owned. View attachment 97009
Nice looking guitars! Yah, you don't see a lot of Cort branded guitars anymore, at least in the US, but the parent company Core-Tek makes guitars for a LOT of brands, as you mentioned the PRS SE line. But the one I posted is an S2. It's all made in the Maryland factory but (up until 2024) used offshore components and pickups. But the differentiation between the Indonesian SE and USA S2 line was starting to blur as the SE guitars just keep getting better and better and essentially shared the same components as the budget US S2 line. So in 2024 they started using Switchcraft, CTS and Orange Drops in the S2 line and started using the previous generation US pickups. They also raised the list price by like $500 heh.
