June 2011 Pedal Board

Black Jack Part 2 will happen in a couple of days till then im going to start adding the rest of the rig excluding the guitars.
So for now it'll be the two pedal boards and the amps.



Above you have a good view of the EHX Iron lung:

So as you can see im not running anything in the effects loop of the Bandit, That may happen later on in the evolution of my rig. But as of now id like to keep the routing relatively simple.
The chain is basically Guitar into the tuner which then runs into my SH-95 wah. The whammy is then placed after this and im only using the whammys wet signal out into my dirt boxes. Speaking of dirt, Im using the Digitech death metal (the cheapest) the most, the DS-1 for very few things. And the most expensive: MXR blue box the least. Just goes to show that you should never trust the media when choosing musical gear, I prefer to trust my own ear since it is MY TONE!
Anyway after the dirt section I use the BOSS super chorus to thicken up my distorted tone (also helps bring out those harmonics). The Chorus is permanently left on as it is a very transparent sounding pedal. The CH-1 actually relies on your guitar quite a lot so it sounds awesome with the thick mahogany of Black Jack. After the chorus I use the BF-3 mainly for Van-Halen stuff. The BF-3 is almost perfect except its sweep cant be slowed down to the same speed as the MXR version. It took forever to tap in the tempo so that it would sound a little less like a ray-gun.
NOTE: The BF-3 has a stereo output to split my signal into the VOX AC4-TV. This means that the VOX skips the delay and the scooped mids. This was perfect since the AC4 is a very midrange based amplifier. This compliments the scooped mids on my Bandit 112 so that I am still heard during band practice. The VOX is also effected by the EHX Iron Lung this means I can hear the guitar signal as well as the Vocoders effected signal.
The entire board except the iron lung, whammy and EQ pedals are powered by the Dunlop DC-Brick.
This means the entire setup is as quite as possible, A EHX Hum Debugger is likely to feature on this board soon.

-Thanks

Introducing: Black Jack

As I mentioned in the first post: I am going to catalog all the guitars I own then move on to the rest of the rig. Since you have already seen Whiskers I thought I would show off Black Jack.
Black Jack is actually the only guitar I have ever bought with my own money, all the other guitars I own are either gifts or hand me downs. Anyway Black Jack is an Epiphone Custom Shop Flying V.
It was built in Korea at the Saein factory in 2005, I know this from the serial number which can be traced at this website.

Here you can see Black Jack has a unique factory finish:


Everything on Black Jack is stock except for the bridge pickup which is a Seymour Duncan SH-1 or 59' PAF copy. At one point in Black Jack's life he had a Bigsby B5 vibrato installed with a Vibra-Mate mounting plate, This would have been fin except the Bigsby I recieved from ebay was a B500 licensed version which doesnt fit the vibra mate perfectly. This meant it was mounted crooked and caused tuning issues.

The Seymour Duncan 59':



As you can see the white finished pickups don't bear the Seymour Duncan name on the bobbin, however it is still engraved into the base plate:


As of now Black Jack is tuned a whole step down and functions as a backup for whiskers. I may sometimes use black Jack for slide since it has small frets and is setup with a moderately high action suitable for slide.


To end this post we have a gut shot of Black Jack:


-Thanks

Floyd Rose Tremolo

In case you've resided in a 300w mega-stack-proof bunker for the last 30 years you will find that of the various tremolo systems out there, the Floyd Rose tremolo is by far the best. This is because of many essential construction points and revolutionary design breakthroughs:

1. The bridge plate itself is made out of hardened steel, this is important because the FR pivots on two pivot posts in the guitar which ensure that the bridge returns to "zero" (a balanced point at which tuning is standard and the bridge is resting at the same angle as the body).

2. The FR is a double locking system which means that the strings are locked at the saddle as well as the nut this eliminates the usual tuning issues which are often experienced with plastic nuts that bind the string or poorly grooved saddles.

3. The FR is quite a simple design which means less things can go wrong which is always a good thing.

FAKES
Now there are many companies that use fake or "licensed" FR bridges which in the beginning work but the knife edges (the part of the bridge plate that rests against the studs) will soon wear out, This causes numerous setup and tuning issues. On Whiskers, luthier Simon Pinder installed a original German Floyd Rose. These are expensive ($170 US) but definitely worth it in the long run.

An excellent site for info on tremolos in general is Audio Zone DK (tremolo page) , that site has a section which covers everything from cleaning to repairing tremolo bridges.

Anyway getting back to the point, here are a couple of picture provided by Simon Pinder of the installation process (I messed up the positioning of the mounting stud holes).


Here you can see the shim he created for mounting the locking nut:



Simon Pinder filling my poorly positioned mounting stud holes, A quick tip: what Mr. Pinder does is collect broken drum sticks which can then be used as dowels.



Here we can see the studs finally positioned properly, It is important that these studs go into the guitar body perfectly straight, I suggest using a drill press or a jig for a hand-held drill.



Here is a final picture of the floyd rose installed with an EVH D-tuna:





-Thanks

Whiskers Hardare + Cavity

Finally got time to post the pics of Whisker's hardware and control cavity.

In this pic you can see the Shadow Electronics "Kill-Pot"
The nice and neat wiring wasn't done by myself but by master luthier Simon Pinder, Mr. Pinder is probably one of the best luthiers in the world and he also tackled my Floyd's installation which I personally managed to mess up.





Here you can get a good view of the Schaller locking tuners which work great except that the low E's locking system sometimes loosens itself since the string is thicker than the others, This isn't a problem just something to keep in mind.




After I finish posting about all the guitars I own I may start doing reviews or a rig rundown, something to look forward to.
Hopefully you followers (the few that I have) will spread this blog around and help keep it alive.
-Thanks

"Whiskers"

At the start of 2009 my younger brother bought "Whiskers" a Yamaha erg-121 as a starter guitar, As I had hoped he soon got bored with it and the guitar became mine. Soon after I received official "ownership rights" to it I decided that I wanted it to become a custom project. Ever since I haven't stopped modding it and it has become my favorite guitar ever. If you are following this blog you will probably end up seeing this guitar on various occasions in a lot of my future posts, Every time a change is made to "Whiskers" I will post a pictures as well as a quick write up.

As of now I cant figure out how to add text boxes so ill have to do the captions up here:

1. The first Image is a horrible picture of the original guitar, The tuners are standard Yamaha, The Pots and 5-way switch are all Alpha and the bridge is a Yamaha knockoff of a Fender synchronized vibrato bridge. Surprisingly the thing kept in tune despite the cheap plastic nut and pot metal bridge.
Pickups consisted of two average humbuckers and a terrible single coil (both Yamaha).
-Overall a cheap guitar with excellent essentials but bad hardware.

2. The second picture shows "Whiskers" in its latest form, Original German Floyd Rose, Electronics consist of a Shadow SH-124 "Kill-Pot" and a "Black Ice" passive overdrive system from Stewart-Macdonald (Black Ice has been setup so that pulling the push-pull pot will result in variable overdrive with tone on 10, or flipping the mini toggle resulting in variable tone and full on overdrive). The output-jack has been replaced by a "Switch-Craft mono output jack". The pickups have been changed to Seymour-Duncan "Duncan Distortions" in both the neck and bridge, both pickups are connected to Seymour Duncan "Triple-Shot" mounting rings which eliminate the need for multiple push pull pots since the rings allow me to split coils as well as engage parallel wiring at the flick of a switch. The Duncan Distortion in the bridge is probably going to be switched out for a Dimarzio Tone Zone while the one in the neck will be switched for a "Fernandes Sustainer Driver".
The "Yamaha Single Coil" has been removed entirely since it was never being used. it is unlikely to ever be replaced since I rarely have a need for single coils and in the rare event that I do I always have the option of splitting the Duncan in the Bridge
Now to talk about hardware a little more: The tuners have been replaced by Schaller locking tuners which help save loads of time when restringing. In addition to this the nut has been replaced with an OFR locking nut. The strap buttons have been changed to Jim Dunlop Straplocks which in my opinion are the best on the market and have a much smaller profile than the similar Ernie Ball Strap Locks which also happen to be more expensive.









For pictures of the hardware and control cavity in detail please check back as it will feature in the next post.

-Thanks

Introduction

In this post I would like to talk about the purpose of this blog.
Basically this blog will act as a museum for my guitar gear which also show my collections growth as well as allow me to look back on my rig later on in life. Basically this blog will act as a sort of diary of my setup. Although this blog is primarily for my own use I do appreciate follower comments and if enough people decide follow I may start posting reviews and discussion of gear that I own. So remember to tell your fellow gear heads if you do stumble upon this.
-Zubin Isaac