Check Out This Guitar I Helped Modify!! (Crazy Effect Story)

I helped my friend modify this guitar: we changed the 5-way pickup selector to three independent switches, added in a killswitch (cuts off the sound when you press it, Tom Morello uses one...), and built a DIY Fuzz Face and put it inside the guitar!





Knob for Fuzz knob for Volume.

The funny thing is, even though we followed a fuzz face schematic it didn't turn out right. We had to use Silicon trasistors instead of germanium ones because we couldn't find any, then we also used NPN instead of PNP because we couldn't find any... We also traded in some values of resistors and caps because we couldn't get the right value...

So the result sounded nowhere near right... you had to play above a certain volume to hear any noise. Then when you did, it had a huge synthy sound. then we were messing around with it to try to get it to sound right, and when I placed my thumb in different places on the bottom where all the wires were, I got weird sounds. In one spot, I was picking up radio frequencies. In another spot it sounded like an oscillating fuzz pedal similar to a ZVEX Fuzz Factory. In another spot it sounded exactly like you would think a fuzz face would sound. I had a hell of a time trying to get the right sound NOT USING MY THUMB. In the end I tried some "circuit bending" techniques I read about here, and I got it to work!!! I placed two wires. I think I will load an updated schematic of what I did....

Anyways, it works pretty well know, I will get a sound sample up when I can, but its pretty cool!

I think we are going to put some LEDs in the cavities so they light up and the light sprays out of the holes... it will make it look like we intended the holes to be there!

(attached file is the schematic I followed, but we needed it to be neg.-grounded and we changed some values, then the whole circuit bending thing I did...)

jetpackbassist said:

fun with pacificas!!!

looks good, SEV.

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I was going to ask how you knew it was that, but then I remembered you work at GC therefore know everything!

and thanks, how do you like that metal plate? hahaha, it was a lightswitch socket my dad didn't need, so I cut it up and flattened it out with a sledgehammer! thats why there are so many holes, they were there before I got to it

Soma666 said:

its wicked

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I know, right?

I think we're going to put a delay in it next...

vtwo said:

You should market the guitar with the different "fm radio, zvex clone, and fuzz face" editions! Looks killer - the delay should be sick.

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Sure! I would just have to cut off my thumb and tape it to the circuitboard! then to make more I just need to cut off my other fingers!

haha, maybe I will make another and mess around with wires capacitors and resistors to see what sounds I can get, if I can effectively duplicate the fuzz factory, then I am amazing! hahaha

KarateKid25 said:

Nice one SEV

Speaking of circuit bending, I just did a pretty nice bend on a Speak & Spell I had kicking around the house. It has a few glitches, a loop, a hold feature, pitch control and output jack. Its great when used with effects like delay and distortion. Distortion makes for an evil voice!!

OK...back on topic

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creapy, yet cool. so it works like an effect now? inputs outputs and everything? post clips of it!

meev992 said:

I had an interesting Idea...how about devise some sort of way so that you can easily swap out the built in effect?

might have to do something clever with wiring, that's beyond my expertise, but I'm sure it would make the guitar very versatile that way

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there was some company that did that... Line 6 makes a line of pedals that have like a cartridge then a holder, if you modified the holder to go in a guitar, you could use those...

but I have an idea of how you could do that, but you would need a very mainstreamed way of building things to do that, my setup is very jank

KarateKid25 said:

You could use clips on any wiring between the effect and the guitar, instead of solder. Then its just a case of swapping the effect the out.

Thats a very general comment though... Im not sure how SEV has this one setup.

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everything is soldered on

the clips is a decent idea, the idea I had would be to make a casing for the effect with a strip of connectors for input output power and ground. all the knobs would be on the case, switch would be on the guitar

but like I said, thats a very mainstreamed way to do things. like it would work best for a big production line

KarateKid25 said:

I so wanted too, but I wasn't sure how to work it into a Bass forum

Now its been requested, thats my ticket... I will do it later tonight when I get home

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sweet

meev992 said:

I'm sorry, but i couldn't help but think about my uncle's old Nintendo....

had to blow on the cartridge a couple times to get it started, and pray that the Nintendo didn't blow-up

If I had a guitar that was as problematic as that, I'd pass it along to my brother

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funny, I thought of that when I typed it out!