Making some changes to my tear-jerker wah and took the opportunity to tap the enclosure’s little standoff thingy for a standard 6-32 enclosure screw. Enclosure screws are too long and it was easier to use my crapsmanship skills to make a little spacer instead of cutting a spare screw down to size.
Side note: these daier (I think?) enclosures are a massive PITA. I paid too much for mine via one of the usual pedal supply companies and am still bitter about it. 20 bucks on Ali express is sort of fair, but anything higher is getting too far into “used or broken crybaby” territory to justify the annoyance of these things.
20 bucks on Ali express is sort of fair, but anything higher is getting too far into “used or broken crybaby” territory to justify the annoyance of these things.
I wait to find 40$ shipped crybaby's on reverb. One time I even got a 25$ shipped one. Get to re use the inductor and pot if you wanted and it's pre painted (albeit beat up but their paint is durable)
Making some changes to my tear-jerker wah and took the opportunity to tap the enclosure’s little standoff thingy for a standard 6-32 enclosure screw. Enclosure screws are too long and it was easier to use my crapsmanship skills to make a little spacer instead of cutting a spare screw down to size.
Side note: these daier (I think?) enclosures are a massive PITA. I paid too much for mine via one of the usual pedal supply companies and am still bitter about it. 20 bucks on Ali express is sort of fair, but anything higher is getting too far into “used or broken crybaby” territory to justify the annoyance of these things.
AIONFX Empyrean (Darkglass Alpha Omega). Decided to go fancy with this one and only use WIMA (expect for the one 2.2uf on the bottom right). This thing sounds sooooo good. Really looking forward to boxing this up and playing with it more.
AIONFX Empyrean (Darkglass Alpha Omega). Decided to go fancy with this one and only use WIMA (expect for the one 2.2uf on the bottom right). This thing sounds sooooo good. Really looking forward to boxing this up and playing with it more.
I'd swap that 2.2uF film cap for a tantalum, would fix the aesthetic and match the other corner in color. Just mind the polarity since tantalums tend to be violent in reverse polarity.
I'd swap that 2.2uF film cap for a tantalum, would fix the aesthetic and match the other corner in color. Just mind the polarity since tantalums tend to be violent in reverse polarity.
Do you find a big difference with WIMA vs non-WIMA caps? I'm never sure if my noise floor is from a long run, single coils, high gain just taking its toll, our component choices (or, more likely, all of the above).
In a compressor pedal, maybe? I can see that they would make a a difference in there. But I don't think they make any difference in a distortion pedal. I just like way they look and it was only a couple of bucks more
When your noise floor is a concern layout, wiring, then component choice is what I usually see as most to least important. Doesn't mean you shouldn't select the parts best suited to the circuit, modulation, eq, and dynamic pedals benefit the most from this.
When I was 14 I worked with the middle aged guy at a nursery loading top soil and stuff. He told me the biggest part of being a man is dealing with and accepting compromise and disappointment
When I was 14 I worked with the middle aged guy at a nursery loading top soil and stuff. He told me the biggest part of being a man is dealing with and accepting compromise and disappointment
I also worked at a nursery in highschool. Got any good rose bush/monkey puzzle scars? Strangely enough I also have a few nuggets of wisdom from "middle aged nursery guy." The only one that I found useful was "mix your whiskey with water or nothing."
I've been working on an Ampeg VH-140C preamp pedal the past couple of months and just finished the first prototype build.
I installed a faulty DC-DC converter at first but after swapping it out for a new one everything works as intended now. What a relief. Unfortunately the cut-out on the board for the footswitch is off and the jacks were supposed to be solder lug Neutrik NMJ jacks but they were too tall for the enclosure lid to close so I had to improvise a little with those slim profile jacks.
Anyway, the more important thing is that the layout works. Aion FX also has a VH-140C board but it is kind of prone to squealing at high gain with the mid and treble controls up. I get no squealing with my layout unless I dime just about everything so that's nice. The power supply is dead quiet as well and the relay bypass works perfectly without false triggers. I'm using a Nexperia HEF4013B flip flop which is essentially a CD4013B with added schmitt triggers on the inputs so that might help.
I'll do a proper build report when the new boards arrive, just wanted to share this for now.
This episode of Mike's NGD's is a little outside the scope of my tradition vintage-style sensibilities.....
Background: (TL;DR skip ahead to the pics)
I've been wanting a more "modern" super strat. I've messed around with some of my Strat builds by putting a Humbucker in the bridge
but somehow it just didn't work out as well as I had hoped. My vintage style M-Line Strats are better just being what they are and how I originally built them. So anyways, I had been looking at the usual suspects, Ibanez AZ, and some others.
I came across Vola blowing out the last of their inventory of their more "traditional" models. The OZ and Vasti (Strat and Tele).
These are Made in Japan at the same factory that makes the high end Ibanez, ESP, etc models. (Probably Fujigen but that's just a guess)
At ~$830 for an MIJ guitar is a bit of a steal so I ordered one. It was late on Wednesday night and I was half asleep when I ordered it.
It was on my doorstep on Friday. 2 days from the Hong Kong warehouse! That's absolutely nuts.
Anyway, it's pretty much everything I expected/wanted. The build quality is insane. Impeccable fretwork. I didn't need to touch them.
I've bought 5 or 6 MIJ guitars in the last few years and the Japanese are absolutely obsessed with quality and attention to detail. Some of the best guitars in the industry are coming out of Japan lately.
All Gotoh hardware, locking tuners, 2 point trem. HSS config.
It's got a straight 12" radius on a 1 pc maple neck. Very light alder body. I think the whole thing weighs just about 7lbs.
The stock pickups actually sound fantastic. It's their in house brand and not too hot. From neck to HB measured, 6.2k, 6.2k, 9.3k.
I was expecting super hot pickups and was planning to change them out but these stock pickups sound really good.
The only thing is they used 250k pots for the Vol and Tone, which makes the hum bucker sound a little too dark for my tastes. So a re-wire is pending.
The neck profile is like an Ibanez. A bit thin for me but I'm seeing if I can adapt.
The big topic is the body shape. It seems like either you love it or hate it. I happen to think it's a cool and unique take on an oversaturated market of these types of guitars. It's a shame they are disco'ing them to focus on their more high end models.
But with their direct to consumer sales model they are all about 50% of what a similar guitar costs through the dealership route.
