Order On The PedalBoard!

It really comes down to preserving the tone identity of what each pedal can do. Having a not well thought arrangement can choke the life out of your pedals. Here is a guide that seems to be followed commonly by guitar pedal board designers and guitar players:

1. Tuners. Seems logical to place the tuner in the first place in your FX chain since you want unprocessed signal to go in it for correct reading.

2. Filters. It would make sense to add these (envelope filters, auto wah, wah pedals, etc.) at this spot. Any dynamically controlled filters are triggered by the signal attack so it would make logical sense to add them as early as possible in the chain so they aren’t limited by other effects.

3. Compressors. Notorious for noise level increase, compressors should also go as early as possible in the signal paths.

4. Overdrive. Since the overdrive pedals are generating overtones (harmonics), they should be placed here. Don’t feed overdrive pedals with modulated signals since they can easily clash with the harmonics. Unless you are in for some really wacky tone.

5. Modulation. It is time to add your flangers, phasers, choruses and tremolo pedals here. They breathe the best here in relationship with the overdrives/distortion pedals ahead of them.

6. Volume. Again, the logical place for a volume pedal, since it won’t alter the signal level entering the overdrive pedals maintaining this way the fully affected tone. Also will let the delay finish its job (delay-ing) when the volume pedal is minimized.

7. Reverbs & Delays. They are the last pedals in the chain since they are hard to tame if placed before overdrives – they can produce spikes in the effect level and upset the overdrives.

Following this pedal ordering you can get a decent tone out of your guitar pedal board.

Mr. Horsepower by Nigel Tufnel (Spinal Tap)

 































At the January NAMM show in 2001 the Ernie Ball, Music Man company created 25 of these guitars just like Nigel's, with all proceeds going to charity (The Casey Lee Ball Foundation). In October of 2003, one finally came up for sale that I found in time to buy . Each guitar is signed by Nigel and numbered. They went for $5,000 each at the NAMM show when originally offered. Now they are going for a lot more. I heard about one that went for $15K to someone in Japan. The number 11 guitar had a few modifications and sold for $11,000 on eBay in May of 2001. The #11 being a very important number for Nigel and Spinal Tap! On this guitar the "Attackometer" went to 11, the trem handle had an 11 ball instead of an 8 ball and there were dice (5 and a 6) inlayed at the 11th fret. This guitar here is #8. As luck would have it, the attackometer goes to 8 and there is an 8 ball on the trem handle. Everything except the chrome exhaust pipes function. Regarding his one of a kind guitar, Mr. Tufnel said "I wanted something that was flashy and would stand out on stage. But it had to be a working instrument that played well". And so it does. It has the same headstock as the Van Halen Music Man guitars and a very similar neck as well (a little fatter). It uses the Albert Lee body. The guitar is fairly heavy. Here are some of the important features:


- Maple neck; Chrome Yellow body and headstock; Flame paint job on body 
- Music Man Albert Lee Guitar body style
- 4 humbucker pickups, sized to match the string width as it travels down the body
- Pickup on/off status lights, colored to match to light signals on a drag strip
- "Hot-fuel proof" rubber selector switches
- Stainless steel exhaust headers, on the side of the body
- Functional tachometer built into the body with adjustable redline that measures the attack on the strings while playing
- Copper heat exchanger access covers on the back
- Key signature Inlays on the fretboard
- Tyre volume knob, which activates the tachometer lighting when pulled out
- Floyd Rose licensed tremolo system, with a gear shifter replacing a tremolo arm. Eight ball on the end of the gear shifter.
- 12v battery powered
- Each model hand autographed and numbered

EVH Frankenstrat - The Original Frankenstein Guitar

Starting off at Only $25,000.00 you too can have your very own EVH Frankenstein Replica equipped with every scratch, ding, and cigarette burn!

This red, black and white ash-body guitar has been put through an astounding aging process to replicate the original down to every last scratch, ding and cigarette burn. Fender craftsmen even scoured the land for 1971 quarters-just like the original Eddie at one time stuck under the original tremolo bridge-to mount near the Floyd Rose® Original tremolo bridge. The guitar features a Seymour Duncan® Custom Shop EVH® humbucking pickup, a single master volume knob (that says "Tone") mounted on a partial black pickguard identical to the original. Leaving no stone unturned, the guitar is complete with a non-functional three-way switch and single-coil pickup that occupy two of the three pickup routs.

EVH Eddie Van Halen Frankenstein Replica Electric Guitar Features:

• Body: Ash
• Neck: Maple bolt-on
• Tuning Machines: Schaller
• Fingerboard: Maple w/12" 16" compound radius
• Frets: 21 Jumbo (Dunlop® 6100)
• Bridge pickup: Seymour Duncan® Custom Shop EVH
• Middle pickup: None
• Neck pickup: Seymour Duncan® Custom Shop EVH
• Controls: Master Volume
• Bridge: Floyd Rose® Original Tremolo
• Pickup Switching: 3-way
• Hardware: Aged Chrome
• Strings: .009, .011, .016, .026, .036, .046
• Pickguard: One-ply black
• Scale Length: 25.5" (648 mm)
• Width at Nut: 1-5/8" (41.2 mm)

The New - EVH Wolfgang

The "Wolfgang", named after Eddie's son, starts off at around $2999.99 . All in all this is built like a tank to last!

EVH Wolfgang Electric Guitar Features:

• 1-1/2" basswood back
• 1-2" arched AA maple top
• Bolt-on quartersawn maple neck
• AA birdseye maple fingerboard
• 25-1/2" scale length
• Compound fingerboard radius 12-16"
• 22 vintage-size stainless steel frets
• Floyd Rose R2 locking nut
• 1-5/8" nut width
• Chrome hardware
• EVH-branded Gotoh tuners, chrome with pearloid buttons
• EVH-branded Floyd Rose locking tremolo
• EVH humbuckers (neck and bridge)
• 3-way pickup switch
• Master Volume and Tone Controls
• 2 Bourns low-friction pots 250k/500k
• SKB case with molded stripes
  
  

  Unique features:

• Hard mount pickups
• Magna Coatings paint
• 2 graphite neck reinforcement rods
• Schaller chrome string retainer
• EVH D-Tuna
• Square jack plate

Crazy J Player Guitar

Crazy J has officially brought me to Geek Tech Heaven! Player Piano meet Player Guitar.

Presenting: The Crazy J- guitar playing machine

The Crazy J is made up of mechanical parts, electronic components and software control.

The mechanical parts can be seen in the picture above and include a fingering module (on the left) and a plucking module (on the right).

Here is a close up of the plucker:

Here is a close up of the teflon picks that actually contact the strings, and the solenoids (top, pink and blue wires) that power them, via the pluck rod linkages (middle).

The fingering on the guitar is actuated by solenoids also (below), which connect to levers (above).

The "fingertips" that press the strings to the neck are seen close-up here, the springs that return the fingertips after a note is played are also visible:

This next picture shows the banks of solenoids that actuate the fingertips and the springs, which serve to damp the slapping of the solenoids (held by two nuts on threaded rod).

The control part of the Crazy J is a Motorola HC11 Micro-Controller. The output ports B and C of the HC11 connect directly to the Control Board shown below (ribbon cable on left of board). The control signal is sent through adressable latches (column of black chips) and then to the Power Boards (3 ribbon cables on right of board). Each signal line has an LED connected in parallel with it, so that the LED lights up when a signal is sent (yellow, green, red bulbs). This helps in debugging.

One of the two Power Boards for the fingering solenoids can be seen below. The blue potentiometers allow for adjustability and fine tuning of the power sent to each solenoid. The transistors see a lot of current and are therefore connected to heat sinks (metal bars in back). The connection to the solenoids is made via a 15 pin connector (back right of board).

The Power Board for the plucking solenoids is very similar to the fingering board. One difference is in the connection to switches, which act as hard stops for the plucker (brown connector with cable coming out, in middle of board, behind blue potentiometers).

The switches can be seen in this end-view of the Crazy J (small black tops touching levers between solenoid connections).

The positioning of the Power Boards in the black box below the guitar can be better seen in this picture:

The MIDI signal that comes into the HC11 connects in the right connector on the top end of the box, shown below. The power cord plugs in to the left of the MIDI cable, and the other end is plugged into any AC wall jack. The metal grate on the right covers the cooling fan.

And here is one more picture of the entire Crazy J.