Anyone else besides me who can't stop fiddling with the electronics?

[Ivandrov]

I've had my Warmoth V for almost a year now. Today, I've completed its third revision of its electronics, completely new wiring and components besides the pickups. I just can't seem to stop touching it. Hopefully, I'm set now, but has anyone else experienced an urge like this?

 

[Cagey]

As close as I can tell, many people here don't modify their guitars/basses much. They're more likely to build another one if the current one is unsuitable for a given application.

A lotta folks try to build the "ultimate" guitar, only to find there's no such thing. No matter what woods you use, or how many pickups and/or control schemes, they're always found wanting some characteristic or another, if not several. So, you save your pennies until you can build the next idea.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

I've done it a number of times with my bastardized RG7620, and my main TFS6.
My TFS6 has a volume & a toggle alone, and I refused to drill into it further, so I did switch out the Pot to a push/pull on a few occasions, as well as swapping out the toggle for the Dimarzio EP1111, and I've swapped out similar parts on the RG7620 & drilled other options into and I continue to arrive, for the final time I think, back to a volume pot, a pickup selector, & the truth.

Even my Bari-tele started out with a 4 way switch with a push/pull on the bridge humbucker, and I've since gone back to basics on it, including a single coil only setup, which is the EMG Ceramic set, which I think complements wonderfully in the baritone context.

I the first 2 guitars mentioned, I'm now using the EMG 57/66 set, and the pickup selector, that's it.

I've found that for my purpose, it always comes back to this combination, and I arrived to that conclusion during recording as I found that I always selecting options within this offering, so expanding those options no longer was practical for me.

 

[pabloman]

I do it all the time. For me it's about reaching a target. I have two awesome guitars that I've just finished that I really do not like. They are both super versatile, articulate and just really well balanced. I strongly dislike them. I wanted one to have a little more balls and I need the other to be more raunchy, whatever that means  :dontknow:. They both have different Suhr humbuckers in them. They will be removed shortly. Not sure what the replacements will be. Anyway.....yes. I do it quite often. Sometimes just because.

 

[Sovereign_13]

I think it depends on what you want out of your guitar.  Are you going to build the ultimate do-it-all machine?  No.  Can't be done.  However, if you've found/made/built a guitar that you really get along with physically (heh), but the sound isn't quite what you want, then I can see the constant need to fiddle.  Chasing your "perfect sound" is a moving goalpost - by the time you nail your guitar down to a particular sound, you might find you're more into something else these days.  Of course, by the time you've bought 3 different sets of pickups, you're pretty well on your way to a new Warmoth build, so...

Of course, I also have a mug on my desk at work (given to me by the Mrs.) that says "Engineer's Motto: If it isn't broken, take it apart and fix it".  It's also my flavor text.  Because sometimes people just like to take things apart and put them back together again in different ways.

Save all those parts, regardless.  You never know when you'll end up with a guitar in need of electronics.

 

[AirCap]

The first step in solving a behavioral problem is admitting that you have one. And so you posted....

 

[aarontunes]

As close as I can tell, many people here don't modify their guitars/basses much. They're more likely to build another one if the current one is unsuitable for a given application.

A lotta folks try to build the "ultimate" guitar, only to find there's no such thing. No matter what woods you use, or how many pickups and/or control schemes, they're always found wanting some characteristic or another, if not several. So, you save your pennies until you can build the next idea.

QFT

 

[MikeW]

Some yes. Some no. I've built a couple that for myself that I got right the first time. I have one... Mechanically, it's really good; I love the woods and the set up. But of all the guitars I've done, it's the one that I can't seem to be happy with.

I also have a customer in my shop that is constantly tinkering with different pickups. He's gone through five or six different pickups and wiring combinations in two different guitars. Sometimes more extensive changes with combinations of switches and volume/tone controls, but those don't last long. Mostly, for him, it's about different tones and flavors that he can find through different pickups. It probably goes without saying that he's also one of those guys constantly selling an amp or pedal and getting something new.

 

[Cagey]

Some yes. Some no. I've built a couple that for myself that I got right the first time. I have one... Mechanically, it's really good; I love the woods and the set up. But of all the guitars I've done, it's the one that I can't seem to be happy with. 

I have one like that. One of my Teles is a great player that sounds great as well, and I just can't get next to it. It's an aesthetic thing. The finish is perfect, but I don't like it. Whaddya gonna do? Can't play something you don't like. One of these days it'll find a new home.

 

[Ivandrov]

I wasn't talking about the pickups, they are still the original Jazz, JB setup I bought with the guitar. I'm more talking about the rest of the electronics, more specifically, the pots. I had a complicated phase and series/parallel switching setup the first time, decided it was completely useless and changed to a basic volume, tone, and 3-way switch setup. Then, I found the JB to overpower the Jazz in the middle position so I added a push-pull to split the JB.

I don't quite get what you guys mean by not being able to build the do-it-all type guitar. I think I nailed it with this latest iteration. I've got beautiful cleans both moody and sparkly, awesome rock and searing heavy metal tones. Don't know what else  you need. I definitely don't plan on building another Warmoth guitar any time soon. I love this V way too much.

 

[Cagey]

Tell that to Seymor Duncan, DiMarzio, Lollar, Bareknuckle, et al. They only have 396,254 versions of the same pickup. There are differences that only a sophisticated audio analyzer suitable for an advanced nuclear submarine hunter could discern, but there are folks out there who swear by certain characteristics that only their chosen model can provide.

 

[Sovereign_13]

I don't quite get what you guys mean by not being able to build the do-it-all type guitar. I think I nailed it with this latest iteration.

Guarantee if you gave it to 5 different people with different musical tastes they'd all find some tonal limitation with it.  "Doesn't quack like a Strat."  "Doesn't twang like a Tele."  And so on.

Guitars are very versatile, but the more boxes you try to check on the vast list of tones they can provide, the more you'll end up compromising those tones to have access to others.  You can get pretty close with tricks like parallel switching, coil-splitting, and EQ, but a humbucker is fundamentally not a P90, Strat single-coil, Jazzmaster single-coil, or Filtertron.  It just can't be.

I guess it depends on how wide a range of music you like and play.  When I say "do it all", it might be a much wider range of tones and guitar types than what you're after.  For a lot of us, though, "do-it-all" means at least two or three different instruments.

 

[Verne Bunsen]

I enjoy tinkering with my guitars almost as much as playing them. I'll routinely break out the soldering iron just to satisfy some random curiosity or to try out something idea that occurred to me. Different pot tapers and values, different tone cap values, modern wiring and 50s wiring, independent volume wiring on 2V/2T configurations, clever ways to utilize switches, different pickup combinations, so many things to try! Maybe it's just a good excuse to get out of practicing scales.....

 

[Ivandrov]

I don't quite get what you guys mean by not being able to build the do-it-all type guitar. I think I nailed it with this latest iteration.

Guarantee if you gave it to 5 different people with different musical tastes they'd all find some tonal limitation with it.  "Doesn't quack like a Strat."  "Doesn't twang like a Tele."  And so on.

Guitars are very versatile, but the more boxes you try to check on the vast list of tones they can provide, the more you'll end up compromising those tones to have access to others.  You can get pretty close with tricks like parallel switching, coil-splitting, and EQ, but a humbucker is fundamentally not a P90, Strat single-coil, Jazzmaster single-coil, or Filtertron.  It just can't be.

I guess it depends on how wide a range of music you like and play.  When I say "do it all", it might be a much wider range of tones and guitar types than what you're after.  For a lot of us, though, "do-it-all" means at least two or three different instruments.

Well, I didn't build this guitar with what other people think in mind. It does everything I want it to do very well, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Metal,

Tell that to Seymor Duncan, DiMarzio, Lollar, Bareknuckle, et al. They only have 396,254 versions of the same pickup. There are differences that only a sophisticated audio analyzer suitable for an advanced nuclear submarine hunter could discern, but there are folks out there who swear by certain characteristics that only their chosen model can provide.

I don't choose pickups based on audio analyzer characteristics. I choose based on how they look, type of pickup and DC resistance.

 

[Cagey]

I'm sorry if I implied all pickups sound the same, I only meant that many do. Conversely, many do not. If you're picking models based on appearance, type and DC resistance alone, you're liable to be in for some surprising results. There can be a world of difference between pickups that share all those qualities. There's the metalurgy and configuration of the pole pieces and/or magnets, the intensity of the magnetic field, the number of winds, how tightly and/or organized the wind is, etc. that aren't obvious on inspection but can have a dramatic impact on the sound. Even DC resistance is useless as all it reports is the overall length of the wire wrapped around the coil form, which will change the number of winds depending on the gauge of the wire. That's why there are so many models of pickup out there.

 

[Ivandrov]

I'm sorry if I implied all pickups sound the same, I only meant that many do. Conversely, many do not. If you're picking models based on appearance, type and DC resistance alone, you're liable to be in for some surprising results. There can be a world of difference between pickups that share all those qualities. There's the metalurgy and configuration of the pole pieces and/or magnets, the intensity of the magnetic field, the number of winds, how tightly and/or organized the wind is, etc. that aren't obvious on inspection but can have a dramatic impact on the sound. Even DC resistance is useless as all it reports is the overall length of the wire wrapped around the coil form, which will change the number of winds depending on the gauge of the wire. That's why there are so many models of pickup out there.

DC resistance isn't useless, it's a fair approximation of the inductance of the coil(s). If you take two pickups with the same total area taken up by the coil and measure their DC resistance to determine their length. One comes out to 12K and the other 20K. That means the 20K was wound with a higher gauge wire and has a significantly larger turn count. You can't make more turns without having a longer wire, if you change the gauge of the wire and keep it the same length, the area that the coil takes up will be reduced and the DC resistance will stay the same (ignoring the small change to resistance provided by the different gauge). The value of number of turns is squared in the inductance calculation formula, therefore, total area of the coil is linear and number of turns is exponential. When we are dealing with thousands of turns on a single coil, the length of the wire matters far more than the area it takes up.

I usually look at the metallurgy of the magnet as well. Other than that, I'm not too worried about the other components.

 

[Cagey]

Well, if all that works for you, then who am I to argue with success?

 

[Ivandrov]

I don't think you were arguing, discussion is discussion. Both sides can benefit regardless of anybody's opinion.

 

[Cagey]

Absolutely.