Grateful Dead Music Forum

I'm hooking the near-done guitar right up to the wheel box, and to a small pedal board, and to an amp, so there is a good OBEL path....and so with the on-board switch and Wheel box switch in the OBEL position, viola! sound comes out of the amp when I talk each pup with a screw driver!

have to say, I was pretty surprised it worked at all!

Making a nice schematic is a great idea, but I always feel time crunch - you know, I have an hour here or there to build guitars, and I just enjoy doing more than planning, so I'm always apt to just dive in....be it the wood working or wiring side (though with this one, I did draw a full scale mock up of the neck joint because it was my first set neck.)

Anyway, expect updates later tonight!

Your (second)last post made me go back and read your original post. Yeah, I'd get strings on it and plug everything in before going much further.

Remember that the OBEL switch and the AO box switch do two different things. The OBEL switch on the guitar sends the signal from the pickups and buffer either right to the output master volume or down the stereo cable to the effects loop (and back). It's really an "OBEL bypass" switch. The switch on AO's Wheel box (I have one too) makes it easier for you to use your effects pedals either as part of the OBEL loop of an equipped guitar, or with a "regular" guitar. It's not really "stereo/mono", it just avoids having to do a bunch of unplugging and plugging of the guitar, loop, and amp cables when you go from an OBEL to a non-OBEL guitar.

so I put the ferrels in, and got the control cover to seat properly. But I'm leaning toward ripping out all they wiring and starting over. Just too crowded in there to trouble shoot the buzz.

Will keep you posted and thanks for the help so far, and the help that's sure to come!

Just one more way to look at it: if you're picking up radio stations and 60-cycle hums and buzzes that change as you move around and change the location and the orientation of the guitar- shielding should help. If the problem is hums when you touch different parts of the guitar it's most likely a grounding issue. Remember Phil's scene in the Grateful Dead Movie where the camera was causing the wierd sounds- that's like a shielding thing (except that in this case they were sticking a big movie camera up close to powerful pickups- even good shielding might not have prevented that. Was Mission Control shielded?).

TGP thread on shielding. WARNING- 20 pages!

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... p?t=847972

Quick update....

Had a local pro help e with a bone nut and fret dressing. Got it back yesterday and had about 10 minutes to fiddle with it....hum is really not as issue. No more hum than any of my other unshielded guitars.

Thing really sounds great. I was originally skeptical of OBEL being worth it....but in the 10 minutes I had last night with it, I'm immediately sold. Already can't imagine not having it really....particularly for auto wah effects....really amazing.

I can see it takes a little re-learning re: effect levels. My zen drive really became a heavy distortion pedal instead of the light crunch over drive etc... but my discombobulated finally lived up to me expectations at low volume.....

Amazing.

Thanks for the help all...don't think I'm going to re-wire after all. Gonna be starting my next build after the first of the year, and just plant o focus on that one.

I'll post some finished pics as soon as the sun comes out here.

So here it is....