Grateful Dead Music Forum

by **milobender** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:59 am

Well, I had a bit of a time figuring out how to put these up

but here's what I came up with...

http://www.9mileskid.com/eclipseclips.html

you can click on the Icon there and hear the clips.

I only had the '67 Fender Champ to use (volume at 5), and a Real Tube Reverb... it sounds ok, but I played it through a Traynor 40 watt yesterday, and it really sounded sweet :cool:

I can't wait to try it thru a Deluxe or Twin :smile:

Of course at least 75% of the tone comes from the old fingers :shock:

so you are being mislead a bit

The guitar has heavy strings on it, .011 high E and .049 low E, action is still a little bit high. I used a Shure SM57 fairly close/off axis to the speaker, and a Rode back in the room. It definately looses a bit in the recording...

Brian

by **Tennessee Jedi** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 11:11 am

Sounds great Brian.

:cool:

by **waldo041** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:15 am

peace,
waldo

by **Emoto** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:26 am

Beautiful guitar! Very nice!

by **CaptainTrips** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:46 am

That sounds and looks beautiful.

by **Pete B.** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 9:19 am

Nice guitar and nice playing.
I like the way you play through those licks.
Sounds like you have a strong command of the instrument.
Can you post a close up of the battery cover?
Is that a crop-circle type of thing, or what was your thinking on that design?
Really cool looking axe!
Pete B.

by **milobender** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:13 pm

Thanks for all the kind words :-)

Can you post a close up of the battery cover?
Is that a crop-circle type of thing, or what was your thinking on that design?

Sure, and

That's an excellent question... :smile:

I started out thinking of an Eclipse and made the drawing on the rough body (which I thought looked pretty cool) ...

but... it's a bloody story, but I'll give you the "Reader's Digest" version:

I forgot to remember that often line-drawings don't look anything like the object, in reality, without the lines showing anymore.

That coupled with the way I often neglect to fully plan and simply sculpt away... resulted in the body cavity and brass plate being completed before I figured out how I was going to make the inlay and design... So I was committed to trying to recreate the drawn design. I started with the piece of walnut burl, made it perfectly round, cut the holes, perfectly round, cut out perfectly round little "planets" of different wood to go in the perfectly round holes, and then started trying to figure out how to make the sliver pieces. That turned out to be very difficult trying to come down to that incredibly sharp point

Plus the wood just wasn't having any "glow" which I envisioned for the Eclipse. It's gotta be bright! So I thought, let the brass show thru, and fill it with epoxy, just glue the burl piece to the brass and see how it goes. Unfortunately I used way too much epoxy

which nearly filled the cutouts when I pressed it... which made a really big, hardened epoxy, mess

So I had to dig the epoxy out, which scratched the hell out of the brass, and tore chunks of the burl out, small chunks, but big enough that I had to resmooth the edges, which caused everything to be NOT PERFECTLY ROUND

Anyway, after all that, which occured after the rest of the guitar was built, waiting, I just figured, not good planning, not a great design, but I want to play it already, so I finished it like it is... buffed and sanded and left some texture in the big circles, trying to make them look a bit like moons, or planets, filled the whole thing with epoxy, and used the small hole to screw the plate to the body with. (Which incedentily is another snafu... With this design there is nowhere for the mounting screws to go without messing up the design

) LEARNING CURVE!

I like the crop circle idea! But I was thinking I'd love to have an inlaid Cyclops on one :cool:

by **milobender** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 1:30 pm

I had it back at the music store this morning and listened to the owner play it thru the Traynor... it was very interesting. It sounded much better than the Champ again, but listening to someone else play it with the same setup really made clear the difference technique makes... :smile:

Brian

by **Pete B.** » Sat Apr 19, 2008 5:06 pm

Great story. Thanks.
I had guessed that it was also some kind of 1/8th moon type of thing or something.
It looks like this is one part that can be changed out as you feel like. Which is also cool.
For some reason I kinda have a thing for getting a "plate" like that on one of my guitars (although It wouldn't cover anything).
I picked up two old small oval picture frames at a rummage sale a few weeks back, thinking I would "try an experiment". They are a little big, but I'll try to follow through with the idea just to see how it looks (I'll post a pic next week or so if I get'er done). I don't know how to mount them yet (for non-intrusive testing purposes). Maybe just some double sided scotch tape (I think I can clean the tape mess with Naphta).
Thanks again for the info, and congrats on your cool guitar.
Pete B.

by **BuddhaG** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:25 pm

hey Brian,

just finally listened to the sound clip and its really nice! i like the tone a lot, its smooth as butter!

even more impressive considering you made almost everything for the guitar and wound the pickups yourself! CONGRATS! :cheers:

the guitar sounds nicer than the one you were playing in the other clips - did you use the same technique to record both?

GREAT JOB

by **China Cat** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 12:42 pm

thats really awesome man. hope the one im building goes as well

by **milobender** » Sun Apr 20, 2008 4:38 pm

the guitar sounds nicer than the one you were playing in the other clips - did you use the same technique to record both?

No, not the same at all... the other recordings were done all in the computer, using a Johnson J Station for the guitar. It definately doesn't have the life the tube amp does, but it's a bit more practical for recording right now... I don't have a place to record that is quiet, no dogs, cats, grandkids, phones, wind, et. :shock:

by **milobender** » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:02 pm

Well, I guess it makes the most sense to post this here... This is with the Rivera TBR-1M, Real Tube Reverb, and Ibanez AD202, and unfortunately a webcam mic... :smile:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8WuXcDU_1k

by **milobender** » Sat May 03, 2008 6:37 am

I already posted this on another thread, but thought it might be good here too, for general info...

OK here's the A/B Clip to compare Passive pickups with the Unity Gain Buffer engaged.

Both sets of samples begin with an example of the passive pickup only, then using the Unity Gain Buffer. Each group goes through each of the five switch/pup positions. Volume on the guitar is 10, tone controls are at 10. The volume is increased for the UGB samples to compensate for what I believe is referred to as the "Psycho-acoustic effect", which simply is the way "louder" appears to sound "better" to us, especially in comparisons.

Group 1:
Passive only
UGB on, volume same as above
UGB on, volume on amplifier turned up to compensate for the UGB loss

Group 2:
Passive only
UGB on, volume on amplifier turned up to compensate for the UGB loss

http://www.9mileskid.com/eclipseclips.html

enjoy!

by **milobender** » Mon May 05, 2008 10:08 pm

I put this link in the Tune Submissions too... This clip is done with the Rivera TBR-1M, Real Tube Reverb, and the Rhythm tracks used BYOC Compressor. Unfortunately I forgot to turn the compressor off when I did the first lead track...

The second lead is without compression.

I wasn't able to have the amp volume up quite enough, but you'll get the idea. :smile:

http://www.9mileskid.com/tunes/improvisations.html

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