Another Paisley Strat Digression

Well, as far as my Paisley project goes, I've organised most of the parts I need, and 'tightened up' the specification.

It seems my vague musings of a Strat with a Jazzmaster trem/bridge, isn't a runner as I suspected, and so after a lot of looking around at Mustangs and the like I've gone for the boring Strat trem. Basically this is down to the fact that it is already routed for one, and there we are.

As for the paisley cloth, I've found one I like (on eBay, believe it or not) and hopefully that side of things will work out. I'm planning on sticking it to the body with aerosol adhesive and then varnish/clear-coating over the top until it is pretty solid. I have read about some other stuff that is used for decoupage, which is better and all shiny glossy, but I’m not sure what it is and whether you can get it in the UK. Also, whether it would work on a guitar/material combo.

Other than that, the neck came with tuners, string trees and a nut, and so the trem/bridge and a neck plate were the only two things I really needed.

Oh, apart from the pickup, but I think I mentioned that I'd got a second hand P90 soapbar type one out of a PRS SE One. As to how it will sound in a (very) lightweight Strat body, time will tell I guess.

As far as the effects go, I have decided to put a Green Ringer type of circuit in for starters. This is an octaver originally built by Dan Armstrong, but I'll be using a PCB I got from Tonepad. I could probably wire one myself, but to be honest I'm not sure if I'll leave it in for long anyway. I will probably put one of our Sophie's Filthy Boots Fuzz Circuits in too if there is room.

And I think that is that for now. Once the post brings all the goodies I'll show you them. Oh, the foto is the cloth I’m going to be using (assuming it works.)

Digression and the Paisley Strat

This isn't really what is meant to be happening here, but I managed to get hold of a nice old Strat body (bit battered around the edges) and a Squier neck that had been reshaped to look like a Suhr one, which appealed to me for some reason.

Anyway, they showed-up on Friday and I've been filling the hours trying to think what it would be best to do with them. Apart from fitting them together, that didn't take quite so long to work out.

Basically, I've always fancied a bit of a strange Strat, and this looks to be the chance to do it, so I'm thinking of the following:

1. I don't like the cream coloured body much and it is a bit tatty even if I did, which I don't, so instead I'm planning on doing it in a fetching shade of  Paisley. OK, hardly original, Fender even sell Teles that are Paisley after all, but mine is going to be covered in Paisley cloth and not paint, which I figure will make a difference.

2. I'm not sure this is possible even (although I think it will work with a bit of woodwork), but I've decided that I don't want Strat pickups. I don't even want humbuckers or humbuckers that are the size of single coils. No. What I want is a single, P90 soapbar pickup in the bridge position, with a single volume pot to keep it company. I've even managed to get hold of a P90 soapbar pickup out of a PRS SE One, which will hopefully do a decent job (until at least, I decide whether I want a Bare Knuckle or a Bulldog, or maybe a Wizard.)

3. Bridge wise, I quite fancy putting a Jazzmaster one in, although I'm not sure that the Strat body is either big enough, or flat enough to be honest. If it isn't, or I can't find a way to cover the hole already routed for the trem/bridge bobbins, I might go for a hardtail one. I don't ever use trems so it seems pointless putting one on unless I have to/there is a good reason to do so.

4. As I'm going to wire the thing up (even I can work out one pickup and a volume pot), I'm thinking that it would be nice to add some other electronic gubbins. What I'm pondering is maybe a clean boost, an octaver and a fuzz. Or maybe just one of them, we'll see.

5. As far as the scratchplate goes, I can't make up my mind. It would be nice to get leary, but with a busy body design I'm reluctantly admitting that a plain black scratchplate is probably best. (Reluctantly, as it was my 'art director's' suggestion and well, there you go.) I might try and cover it with the same cloth though,see how it looks.

6. The only other thing that springs to mind (though there will no doubt be a 100 other things later on) is that although the neck is really nice, I would prefer it to be a bit darker, so I might Danish Oil it or something like that anyway.

And basically, that is the plan. I've got a hundred other things to do, but I'm aiming to have this together by Christmas (assuming I can source the parts). Be nice to give it a go anyway.

Sophie's Filthy Boots: Fuzz In Excelsis

Moving on from amps a wee bit, we have also been spending some time trying to come-up with a dirty, sleazy, slapper of a fuzz box, and believe it or not, the convent education hasn't gone to waste after all, and I think we might just have got there.

Breathe.
Must remember to breathe.

I'm sure there will be more as time moves on, but I'm chuffed to announce that our first pedal is a rather naughty little bint we've decided to give the moniker 'filthy boots' or to be more accurate 'Sophie's Filthy Boots', as we feel that it is quite a sophisticated little number, if truth be told, but one that is perhaps trying to shock, if you see what I mean, and deflect attention from it's quite nice, BBC, middle class roots. Our Sophie is a one knob girl, and seems to scrub up well to start with before basically going ape-shit when the party starts.


We were actually going to call this something like 'Lou's Patent Leather New York Boots', but forgot, and so didn't, but the dom imagery of shiny-boots-of-leather could have fitted quite nicely and maybe fed into our decision to go for the daughter-of-the-Beeb kind of nomenclature. So Lou could have worked and maybe should have.


But in the end didn't prove to.

So there we are.

Things to Make & Do

One of the fun things we do in Jookyland (?) is spend time trying to find interesting and unusual ‘enclosures’ for the amps or pedals.

(By enclosure, I mean the boxes you put the electronic gubbins in, by the way. New one on me too, to be honest, but there we are, every civilisation has it’s own alphabet.)

Now generally, if you are making guitar effects pedals, you will probably buy some metal boxes and either paint or powder coat them, and then screen print some kind of logo on the top. Doing this means that you can buy in bulk, and generally have a ‘product’ that is easily replicated, making you lots of money.

All good stuff.

As you know, our approach is a bit different, in that we are only ever really interested in making one of anything, and as a consequence probably never making enough to feed the termites.

So quite often we’ll be scurrying around and finding, for example a tobacco tin, and then try to decide what to do with it. Not a world of limitless opportunities, but the conversations tend to be along the lines of:

‘I just got a tin’
‘Cool, what shall we do with that?’
‘Dunno, maybe an amp?’
‘Nah, too small.’
‘A Pedal then?’
‘OK’.

And that is when I’m on me tod.

From there on in, we generally just play around until we find something we like. And as you will see over the next few months, we do quite like old (pre-WW2) tobacco tins, and Cigar Boxes, so you will see them pop up quite often.

We have also come across some modern, but fun tins that I think will either end-up as small amps or groovy effects, but basically anything goes and whatever we find is fair game.

The reason I mention this, is because I recently got hold of some wooden tobacco ‘pots’ (for want of a better name) that the seller tells me are from the Sixties. All very nice, but probably more interesting because they are each covered with genuine (apparently) snakeskin. This looks real to me, for what it is worth, and I’m thinking maybe a pair – an amp and a pedal of some kind. I'll put some fotos up sometime, about time we had some on this site.

Cool, cool & cool.

And me a vegetarian.


Still, I promise not to eat them.

Amy-Tone: Dirty Amps

Well, we spent all that time making the perfect little amp and our beautiful shiny-faced Cheryl-Tone finally came along, all pure (at least on the surface) and sure to make you proud.

And we should have been proud,
but at the back of our minds was a
lurking little boiling
hubble of a darkness
that we could never seem to
displace.

Oh, we tried to stay in the light, avoid the shadows and everything else, but we couldn’t resist the dank, dirty little charms of our Cheryl’s darker and more insidious big sister.

And so we finally just had to give in to the urge, accept that we can’t imagine a world of clean bright tones for every occasion, we have to accept that sometimes we all want a bit of filth right from the off.

With a heavy heart, although a racing of the pulse, I commend to you our ‘other’ type of amp I bring you Amy-Tone, and may God have mercy on all of our souls.

But what does she sound like?

Well, Amy-Tone is a dirty and fuzzy bitch right from the off. She is seedy, Lo-Fi in-excelsis but guaranteed to give you a good time just as soon as you plug in. A quick twizzle of your knob though, and she turns into a furious mess of fuzzy fury, biting spitting and encompassing you in her emaciated filth.

She is a dirty little secret that'll eat you for breakfast, but man it will be the ride of your life.

Blimey

I can't quite believe I'm saying this, but I just heard a piece of incidental music that wasn't by Take That.

On television, I mean.

Who'd have thought it?

Cheryl-Tone: Tweedy Amps

When we decided to build some Jooky little amps, we were very keen to make them a wee bit special. All of them would be hand-made, we knew that, and all of them would be unique in some way (and we’re not just talking about the serial number.)

They would all run from a 9V battery, come in stoopendously imaginative and interesting boxes or tins, and generally would be pretty swish and special and excellent. Some would have mood lighting, others would have mad effects or crazy paint jobs. Whatever, they were all going to be good and we couldn’t wait to make them.

Of course, there was also the slight issue of what they would sound like, and so we put our thinking caps on.

First things first, they would be quiet. Not very quiet, but use-at-home quiet. They would be practice amps, with the added bonus of being able to drive a speaker cabinet if you wanted to. But generally around the ½ to 1 watt vicinity.

Next, they had to have some kind of clean tone to them. We always loved Smokies, but it has always been tricky to clean the sound up, and to be honest, we think that it’s good to have options. We like the idea of something that you can get clean tones out of, but that will break-up when things get a bit hotter. And do you know what? I think we got where we wanted to be, and are totally proud of our first, little amp.

But how to describe it? 

Well, suffice to say that our Cheryl-Tone circuit goes (and goes) from a tweedy sound to something more glam, at a twizzle of a knob.

But then things can start to go wrong. A bit of pressure or attack and everything gets as dark as coal and she turns into a hissing and spitting fishwife harridan of a nightmare.

So whether twang is your thang or you prefer something wrong in a thong, we call it Cheryl-Tone and hope you will want to make the lasses’ acquaintance.

I Think I'm Talking Siamese, I Really Think So.

Another day, and still I play. We’ve actually ended-up with two different types of amps – the relatively clean one, which we’ve been working hard on ‘finessing’, and a much more fuzzy experience that to be perfectly honest I quite like and stamped my little foot over keeping.

So one has become two.

So be it.

This has naturally meant that our ideas have all got disconocorated and generally messed up, as we were only going to have one option (any colour you want as long as it is black, like Harrison Ford), but there we go.

On the plus side, it means that we can actually start building some of these amps for proper-like, and that is the next step.

To actually put one up and for sale, and then I guess try to spread the word a bit and maybe even sell it for money.

Or swap it for something good, anyway.

We’ll see.

Next week
Rat-a-tat-taaaat.

Maybe a Time to Stop Digging

If you read earlier, I mentioned that we were still playing with our little amp - swapping a few components to see what happened and generally trying to make the design a lot neater and all that. This, we're still doing off and on, but I'm guessing that not for much longer. I think we're pretty much there.

For the record, the prototypes sound pretty cool - lovely clear 'tweedy' tones to start with, and responsively overdrivable as you increase the volume, all the way into fuzzy oblivion.

Or something like that.

We are chuffed though as what we really wanted to do was find a way to avoid the immediate fuzziness of some of the small amps - like the Smokey - which although great in their own right, are kind of one-trick-pony-limiting, especially if you want to plug something in with a piezo pickup, like a Cigar Box Guitar.

Close to our hearts and all that.

The next step though (once I finally accept that there isn't a better transistor or resistor to be used on the mush of the earth) is to put the little thing into a box and see how we go from there.

I think I said before that all of our amps will be numbered, and this will be numero uno, as it were, so it is going to be tricky to know whether we should try and sell it and break our duckbilled-cherry, or whether we keep it and move on to number two.

Other than the amps, the R&D continues in different directions. We have some fun/cool add-ons that will be scattered sparingly across the amps, and then we're looking at a pedal or two as well - again, unique in some way, and I really can't see them being in Hammonds etc. to start with anyway. There are also designs down for a piezo pickup/pre-amp that will be cool for the CBG builders too. So plenty to think about.

Still, just figured you might be interested, now that we're in a double-digit readership.

Being Arty & Up Me Bum

I had an email today, from somebody asking about our amp. Pretty good going, I thought, considering we haven't actually made one yet, just a dozen-or-so out-of-the-box prototypes. It was nice to get though, and our mailing list now stands at 1.

Nice to meet you Brian.

One thing Brian did do though, was make me think about the little amps, and that perhaps I could be less enigmatic about the idea, despite my natural instinct not being to talk about them in detail until there is an actual product that somebody could buy.

In other lives I've whipped up a bit of hype before and it is fine if things go smoothly, and a pain of regal proportions if not. I'm not looking for a job here though, and certainly don't need any hassle, so there you go. Lets keep expectations snake belly low.

What I can explain though is that we are going to be making small and teeny amps, rather than 100Watt stacks, things you can use around the house or keep in a gigbag.

We want eveything (pretty much) to be unique in some way.

All of the amps (guitars, effects) will be limited editions of one, signed, visually interesting and have a story attached, a reason for it's being. In terms of the sounds or electronics, as I say we've been putting together a standard amp that we are happy with, and we will use this as a basis.

What I mean is that it will be tweaked or added to if the story fits, and that really is the key. When I say all of them will have a story attached, it is this story that will define the characteristics of the amp. So if we look at a cigar box that we think will house an amp, and it looks like a South American Dictator, that amp might become 'The Despotic One' and have some sort of styling or features that fit that idea.

Probably sounds entirely up-me-bum and arty, but there we go. It will probably make sense when you see it rather than read about it.

It is meant to be fun and make things interesting,
la la & la.

The Acquisition of Stuff

At the point when we started to do the whole Jooky Emporium thing, one of the ways that I sold it was that it would be fun, yet amazingly cheap.

Very little up front investment, followed by slightly more return if things happen nicely.

Not that the making of money is a factor ( when you eventually see our prices, you'll understand that comment) but equally, I didn't really want to be laying out loads of dosh, then getting bored and wondering what I do with a garage full of components.

Not that I've done such things before, you'll understand.

Anyway, once we started on the amp project, it became apparent that the parts weren't exactly going to cost the earth. A few quid, tops, although the time spent making things work and everything else would be a different kettle if we let ourselves free to tally

But we don't,
so there we go.

So given the low cost angle, it seemed a good idea to try lots of alternatives. I mean, our amp (really must tell you the name) is pretty cool, but transistors and op-amps are cheap, so why not try some alternatives in the interests of possible progress, perhaps.

And so to the point of this.

Despite the keep-it-lean-be-mean motto tattied on my forehead, I have noticed that the number of 'bits' are growing rapidly.

I have every kind of resistor, capacitor, chip and socket going. I've even bought a fistful of old, vintage trannies made out of geraniums or some other fleur-de-loon that caught my eye despite not actually knowing what they are other than that some blogger I've never heard of thought they may have sounded more authentic than the ones I can buy anywhere for pennies.

A blogger writing in 2001,
page 712 on Google and no doubt having
changed his mind
thirty times since then.

So I've decided that because of the fact that I am ecstatic with our amp design, and the fact that it sounds awesome and runs a 4x12 and everything else, maybe I should leave well alone and think about putting it in some sort of box, wiring it up to useful things like Jack sockets and generally finishing something for once in my life without getting side-tracked by the Rapid web site.

Maybe I'll clear the garage too, the space might come in useful

In case you are wondering about the scenery..

Just to say, we're having a play around with the look of this wee blog at the moment, and that means that it is changing every few minutes, in terms of how it looks.

When I started this post the blog was white and bland.

Now it is vibrant pink with a lipsick kiss in the top right corner.

Can't see that lasting.

Now, it has twigs, which is nicer.

Yet again, it has gone all moody and forest-esque.

So in truth, by the time you read this it could
and no doubt will
have changed many times until
we find something
we
like.

Then we'll change that too.

Its just the way of things.

Waiting for my man in a dress

Well, we've reached a point that I hate which means we're waiting.
Waiting waiting waiting.
Bored bored bored.

What for?

Well, our little amp needs a few bits and bobs and the usual Rapid, Bitsbox, RS or Maplins, where I would normally buy electronics stuff don't seem to have it.

Oh, they can get it, I'm sure, but I don't want to wait.

Never do.

Its a transistor, and I can probably use an equivalent, in fact I know I can, but who wants to compromise so early in your career as the impresario of an emporium of such delights?

Bored
bored
bored.

Still, our girl has been christened, and it kind of fits well

I'll tell you about that when I've got more time though.

Sisters are DIY

Well, the whole basic-amp-design has come along wonderfilled-like, and to be honest I can't stop smiling.

Don't get me wrong, we're still getting it all ironed-out and swapping transistors and capacitors and resistors and things I don't actually recognise for other things I can't even spell, but you can plug a guitar in and a sound comes out that is nice and pleasing to the ears.

It sounds like an amp.
Bleedin' hell.
It's got a little speaker and it is pumping out at least 1/2 a watt of fist-pumping-stadium-drenching-testosterone-laden noise.
It's beautiful.

I still need a name for this.
I'm thinking Suzi Quatro

often.

R&D

Well hello again. I thought I'd tell you a little about what we're up to right now, in case you were wondering.

(Although, I'm guessing nobody is reading this at the moment, but you never know it may have future historical significance. Well, a boy can hope, can he not?)

Future history apart, we've been having a lot of fun in designing what we think is going to be our main 'thing'. The thing we'll be using as a boring basis for a lot of interesting stuff, if you see what I mean.
Maybe you don't, I'm not really being that clear am I?

OK, what I'm trying to say is that we've been looking at how to come up with a nice little circuit that we can use in some little guitar amps, that doesn't sound like a tinny fuzz right from the off, maybe has some clean tones you can use and then breaks up a bit naturally. That's the aim anyway.

Why are we doing this if everything is meant to  be one offs? Well, I like the idea that we have a basic amp to start with, and so we're putting one together that we're happy with.
And we are getting somewhere.

I've got to think of a name for it though, any ideas?
Let me know.

Early days, yet.

Well, what can I say apart from welcome to The Jooky Guitar Emporium, although there isn't a lot to see as yet and as that is the case I can only talk about what-may-come-to-be, rather than what-is-here-now.

You see, I wanted this little blog to act as a way of tracking the building-from-scratch of what I hope will be a fun place to be, if you are into your guitars and more to the point if you like things that are a little unique and one-offish.

That is the plan for the Emporium you see. I want it to be a place where you can come and find some interesting guitar related things, whether that turns out to be Cigar Box Guitars,  hand wired amplifiers made out of cigarette tins or fuzz boxes that nobody else has got, it will all be special.

And handmade and
as rare as ruby hen's teeth.

Not that I'm looking for Boutique prices, or trying to stiff anybody.
I like the idea of making something and then if somebody wants it,
selling it to them for a fair price.

No stock or product lists, just as simple as that.

So sometimes you might come along and there be nothing to buy.

Other times there might be something you just can't do without.

But we'll see, time will tell.

Pop in again and see what the score is..