[playingdead]

Just a note of caution for folks thinking about adding an onboard effects loop to a guitar without using the unity gain buffer ... I recently acquired a lefty preowned Scott Walker Santa Cruz. Scott originally built the guitar with the customized Jangletone buffer that included a separate volume boost. The original owner had Scott remove the buffer and just wire in a blaster, that's how the guitar came to me.

When I plugged in a Q-Tron to try out the effects loop before making the guitar available for sale, I was greeted with an ear-splitting feedback screech when the envelope was triggered with a hard attack on the note. It kept doing that, and exhibited the same behavior with a Boss OD-2r pedal, although, curiously, only when a single pickup was used, it wouldn't do it with both pickups on.

After a little back and forth with Scott, Brad and Waldo, it seemed there was some crosstalk involved that was causing the screeching. Both recommended trying a buffer in there to see.

I had my friend Ned come over last night with his soldering iron and we installed a buffer into the guitar, and, presto, the effects loop works perfectly. We also put in Scott's latest version of the blaster with a separate boost volume control that he's been working on with Steve Kimock, and it is awesome, you can dial in a small boost to a big boost to really get the overdrive happening with a flip of the toggle. Highly recommended.

Hope that might be helpful to some of you builders out there ...

And a big thanks to Ned, Scott, Brad and Waldo for their input and assistance.

[search4sound]

That's one beautiful looking and sounding guitar. Sounds great having the buffer always on and the blaster on or off at the flip of a switch. Had to move the tone before the buffer, but that was easy. Glad there was room for both buffer and blaster. --Ned

[playingdead]

Hey Ned ... Scott Walker says he owes you one!

I laughed when I read what I wrote just now, I said "we" installed the buffer ... YOU installed it.

[Jon S.]

John Mara gets to say "We won the Superbowl" and you get to say "We installed the buffer."

Congrats on the sweet axe.

[claytushaywood]

man i really want to own one of those scott walkers one day. I cant believe anyone would buy a fender or gibson custom shop with stuff like that availablle! Did you get that phoenix on ebay that went for like $3500? unbelievable. such cool designs