Ok kids-I have FINISHED the first of the two (1 of 2) hand made fretless les paul electric guitars:
AIR WHAMMY
Both will have original artwork as well as fretless necks. Ive also decided to further customize them with the addition of "Air Whammy"s-done via, in 1 case Dr Blankenstein's Illumuringer, and my own version of the same-which uses a TOTALLY different means of manipulating the sound.
The end result is similar and the appearance on the guitar is very close, but his circuit employs an (apparently) proprietary program and a microcontroller (looks like an Atmel attiny but could be a PIC etc to manipulate the sound coming from the guitar according to info given it by the sensor (an LDR)
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| Sensor I used instead |
I made other changes to Blankenstein's module, but they are not major and ointing them out would just detract from the contribution it makes to the project.
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| illumiringer setup (note type LDR sensor used above-replaced in ours) |
Mine is also all analog, instead of digital. This is so we can keep the signal path "all analog sound".
Also added were:
-a dial (potentiometer-100kb to be exact) to control the relative volume/amount of the effect
-a switch to turn the effect on and off.
-a red LED to light up and let the player determine when the effect is engaged
Its important to note that the sensor in both cases was further protected (and in keeping with the aesthetics) by a pocketwatch case. This allows the player to close the cover and protect the sensor which playing-handy especially if playing metal or punk and picking heavily.
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| cover closed |
When the cover is open, the sensor can EASILY be reached by the same picking hand as it is only inches from the strings. Just as close and easily reached as a whammy-more so since you do not need to actually 'grab' or 'hold' anything.
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| sensor cover open |
As you will see in the demo video, it can be used with the palm or a finger or the whole hand. Further, you can leave your hand close for smaller changes in the pitch or sound and
keep your hand farther away for more/bigger
changes in the pitch/tune/sound of the string or note or chord that you happen to have struck or be playing at the time.
ORIGINAL ARTIST DECORATED FRETLESS NECK______
Important to note (in addition to the info regarding this in the post previous to this one) that a strong layer of polyeurethane protects the artwork AND is waxed (and should continue to be waxed and buffed to be maintained, FYI) -front AND back-to maintain a VERY fast neck.
otherwise the particulars of this are covered below regarding both prototypes.
VINTAGE TONE BANK
This is an additional custom element we added to both guitars, although the formulation of the exact tone range differs slightly as we wanted to try two separate combinations of capacitor values(capacitance-usually meansured in Farad, MicroFarads, or PicoFarads)
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| note: vintage audio-grade polystyrene-silver on L,bumblee on R |
There is also a switch to allow the player to turn the entire tone bank off completely.
Some of the capacitors used in the tone bank (can be chosen via one of the buttons on blue switch bank) are : A vintage "bumblebee" capacitor, A vintage Mica capacitor, Vintage 'tropical fish' cap, Vintage oil/paper capacitor, polystyrene, plastic dip, and ceramic.
Pictured is the ACTUAL tone bank capacitor combo used in the black prototype.
(Both tone banks on the two prototypes have a bumblebee and tropical fish type caps)
thats it for today -check out the YOUTUBE VIDEO of the black prototype describing the various attributes and containing a SHORT audio demo of it in use:
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