Making Up Guitar Cables & Patch Leads

Michael from Sleeping Dog FX recently decided he needed some flashy new guitar cables and patch leads. With a gig up and coming there was no time to lose… rather than paying through the nose for inferior cables, Michael popped an order in with me for a batch of REAN (Neutrik) plugs and some rather excellent Evolution OFC Professional Instrument Cable.

Michael was good enough to photograph the process – yes it’s simple, but like all good things there is the right way to do it. The attention is in the detail, and if you want roadworthy cables that will stand the test of time then you have to do it right.

Pictures by Michael from Sleeping Dog FX, words and instructions from Doctor Tweek…

Step One. Get QUALITY Components…

Step One: 6 meters of OFC anti-kink guitar cable and REAN Jacks

Step Two: A collection of tools on the bench - nothing more frustrating than not having the right tools for the job.

Step Three: Starting to prepare for the first plug - Michael scores around the outer sheath of the cable, about 25mm from the end. Careful not to cut too deeply - just roll the blade over the insulting sheath all the way around the cable.

Step Four: Once the cable has been cut as in the previous image you can pull off the outer insulation.

Step Five: Heres the braid revealed after pulling off the outer insulation. Now, you didn't cut too deep and cut through this did you?

Step Six: Here Michael is cutting the intermediate insulation. Note that he has moved the blade about 5mm further towards the end of the cable, also note that the blade is at an angle so that he has more control of the depth of cut. Again you don't want to cut all the way through...just this layer of insulation.

Step Seven: The intermediate insulation can now be removed, revealing the inner insulation. Also the braid is now twisted between your finger and thumb.

Step Eight: Repeat the previous step for the inner insulation. Again be careful not to cut too deep. A set of wire strippers is handy! Also twist the inner wire the same as you did for the outer braid.

Step Nine: Tin the wires - basically apply the iron to the wires and feed in solder until they are thoroughly imprgnated with solder. This is essential. Michael uses a set of helping hands here, which makes things a lot easier to handle.

Step Ten: You also must tin the plug. Apply heat and get some solder to pool up on the two contacts. Another essential step.

Step Eleven: Here we go positioning cable and plug together. They will be good freinds for a long time.

Step Twelve: After offering up the cable to the plug you will be abe to see what length you need to trim the wires to... use a pair of wire snips to trim them as in the picture above. Neat.

Step Thirteen: Here's the cable soldered to the wire. Because you have tinned both elements they should come together easily. Use some flux on your bit to make sure everything flows together. When the work has cooled examine the solder joint and give it a good tug. It should be fab!

Step Fourteen: Pop the sleeve and case onto the other end of the cable - the top Neutric jacks allow you to pop the case on from the plug end, but these REAN (Neutrik) jacks need the case sliding on before you solder the other end! Easy to forget - honest!

Step Fifteen: Note the wire is crimped in place using a pair of pliers on the 'sleeve' terminal. Then the plastic insulating sleeve slides over the whole assembly. Don't mis this item out - it insulates the connections from the case. Some cheap jacks don't have this. How bad is that?

Step Sixteen: Now it comes to repeat for the other end. First though, pop the other case and sleeve onto the cable. Don't forget - it is really embarrasing!

Step Seventeen: So, heres the finished result. Best tested with a multimeter for connectivity and insulation...but plugging them in should be as good a test as anything. Fabulous Cables - much better perfomance than cheap shop items and a lot cheaper than some fancy name brands. Plus they have the Mojo that you made them. Thanks Michael for the pictures!

Drilling Aluminium

I’ve had a few emails asking about the best way to drill aluminium. Bottom line and what works for me:

• Quite a slow speed – about 800rpm (if you can do it) for the 12mm holes – bit faster for the small sizes.
• A decent feed so that the bit cuts in and doesn’t just make the ally form a ‘skin’ which acts as a bush bearing, stopping progress.
• Use Oil – or actually WD40 to lubricate the cutting edge. I’ve read about a combination of kerosene and bacon fat…. but let’s not go there! Oink.
• Watch out for the ally clinging to the bit….it’s not actually melted, but smears over the cutting edge. Ally is very ductile…  Not good, but can be removed.
• Use a center punch to get things started.
• Work up in sizes – dont expect to drill 12mm straight off. Start small and work up in size (as the actress said to the bishop).
• Remember that the bigger the hole, the slower the speed you need to use.
• Get a stepper drill bit
• Don’t panic.

Re-Housing a FX Pedal by Holger

Doctor Tweek is always on the lookout for interesting links and articles. Here’s a brilliant piece by one of the customers in the shop – Holger. He has a brand new blog site that looks as though it is going to be pretty interesting. Check it out.

Thinking about it I have a couple of old units that could use this treatment… I have a battered old Alesis Microverb kicking about somewhere in a cupboard…mmmm…. slot it into a fuzz face…

Meanwhile, I asked Holger if I could use his article: a bit of cut and paste   ….

My DIY pedal. Or: you can accept ugly if you fix it. by Holger

I play bass guitar. And I am a sound snob. I have used plenty of audio equipment, both digital and analog, over the years and I would think of myself being able to get the sound I want out of every box provided it can technically deliver what I need. So with my progress as a bass player over the last 2 years I progressed from a laptop based FX solution (Guitar Rig) to a digital stand alone multi FX (Zoom B9) and finally to a real analog pedal board with stomp boxes. I now have the sound I always wanted and while I appreciate the comfort of an all-in-one solution I’d rather find myself confined to the pedals I own knowing that they will always sound that much better.

I like to grab a bargain and if a cheap product can do the same as an expensive one I don’t mind going for a cheaper brand. But, and this is where we finally strike the chord of this blog, I hate ugly. For me its all about the user interface and the beauty of a well designed piece of technology. And while the discussion whether  you can achieve good product design for the same price as bad design may be reserved for another day, reality seems to teach us this very lesson.

I wanted a Phaser effect. So I went out and bought a Behringer Vintage Phaser VP1. It is a very accurate copy of the circuitry of an Electro Harmonix Small Stone. And it desperately wants to look like one, too. I would have forgiven this lack of inspiration if it would have had the built quality its design suggests unfortunately the great thing about this pedal is its sound when on. All else is really bad what you can expect for the price. After spending €19 Euro on it I decided to retain what’s great and spend a bit more to fix all of what’s not so great. Read below if you want to do the same to your VP1.

Issues to address:

• The case sucks. I wanted a flat box design pedal.
• The pot shaft is plastic, so is the knob. The really bad kind of plastic. lightweight and just cheap.
• The tone switch is finicky and to easy to move.
• The red LED is boring.
• The foot switch is too easy going and once I opened the pedal I knew why. While it looks really pro its just a fake switch pressing down a tiny microswitch on a board.
• The biggest issues: no true bypass and the thing is really prone to pick up all kinds of environment noise.

So I basically threw out all but the two main boards:

• Case – gone, replaces by an aluminium case.
• Pot replaced by a high quality 1M pot
• Knob replaced by a big custom aluminium knob
• LED replaced with a white one with a decent metal LED bezel
• Switch replaced with a high quality DPDT switch
• Footswitch replaced with high quality 3PDT foot switch
• DC socket replaced with one you can build into a drilled hole.

I was just about to replace the audio sockets but decided to use the original ones as they were good enough.

Soldering took a couple of hours and since this was my first project of this kind I killed the following items during the process:

• an LED
• the first case as it was too small
• A drill as I tried to widen holes with just the one metal drill I had. If you want to embark on this and you only  take one advise let it be this one: DO get a stepper drill.

Soldering wasn’t quite as easy as the original board is really crowded and the stuff is tiny. Re-connecting the pot, switch and LED turned out to be most challenging and you really want to use a desoldering tool, pliers and ideally a magnifier glass.

To implement the true bypass I used information found here. (mind the little corrections in the thread to connect audio socket).

I ordered all parts from DoctorTweek and I can not recommend this shop high enough. Steve is an absolute delight to deal with and you immediately get the feeling that you could talk to him for hours over a few pints.

Because it’s a Stone I decided to paint the case in grey primer and nothing else. It looks really stone-like and definitely sticks out of all the other pedals out there.

Now, looks like I need a Peter-Hook Chorus. Time to build a CloneClone.

Want a Boutique Guitar Effect Pedal?

If you are in the market for a boutique guitar or bass effect pedal then yor search is over.

Doctor Tweek is putting together a collective of talented and capable builders who can custom craft your boutique build in the U.K.

 

So far there are builders who specialise in custom circuit designs, pcb design, enclosure etching, distortion, fuzz…in fact all types of effect circuits, mods, repairs and even help for people who cant’t get their self build pedal up and running.

This is a non-profit service by Doctor Tweek; bringing pedal builders together with potential customers. The Great British Sound and the UK Cottage Industry are what I aim to promote here. I hope musicians support this too!

If you need a boutique effect pedal building to your specification, if you need help with sorting a build out or working a mod for your pedal or just want an lovely enclosure etched to your requirements then go here. Smashing Stuff.

Awesome Boutique Guitar Pedals

It is a pleasure to present a new boutique guitar effect pedal hand built by Sleeping Dog FX, available from Doctor Tweek. This is not your usual mass-produced clone… this item is pretty much a work of art and since hand crafted, will be available only in limited numbers.

Awesome Roadworthy Quality from Sleeping Dog FX

“You Filthy Rat” is a twist on the classic RAT pedal. Sure, it can do all the stuff that a standard vintage RAT can do… and then it lifts off into a whole new dimension. It features Germanium, Silicon and LED (diode) distortion stages, each of which are switchable and to some extent mixable. So, you can go from hard crunch to vintage mush all in one pedal.

There are some really sweet touches to this piece of audio art: It responds very well to your guitar’s volume control, so, as you roll back the sound gently cleans up. It also behaves in subtly different ways depending on your pickup type. Strats maintain their cutting, single coil edge, whilst ‘buckers still maintain an unbelievable level of fatness.

Plugging this feeeelthy rat into a clean amp produces the best tone in my opinion – however it works fine too through driven tubes. Just playing with the pedal reveals a wealth of tone – in fact it is hard to get a bad sound out of it. You just need to define your tone from the multitude of possibilities.

Controls are volume, filter, drive and filth. Nice. Switches are Filth (filth boost on or off), LED, Silicon or Both,  Silicon, Germanium or Both. As you can imagine the possibilities are many!

Other nice touches are the glowing eyes of the feeeeeeeelthy Rat. The louder you play the more his evil eyes glow at you (providing of course you are using the LED stage).

The pedal is True Bypass, and only powered by an external supply (not provided) – no batteries. Internally the board is extremely well soldered and only the best components have been employed. A joy, and a pedal that is roadworthy and will give years of pleasure… probably a good investment too

Although commanding a premium price, you get what you pay for – top quality. The pedal has ‘back to base support’ from the builder. Not a company, but a person. Try that with a mass manufactured piece!

Bottom line: The Filthy Rat is available for £169 for build number 001, type 01. (dated 01/05/11)

More desirable than any so called boutique pedals, that are in reality, mass produced in China or Tiawan. Mad Prof? No, Doc Tweek!

Subsequent build numbers may be slightly cheaper as the product is moved to a commercial PCB, although it will still feature hand wired and hand placed components / soldering.

Should you be seriously interested in owning one of these fine pedals please email me: sales@doctortweek.co.uk or just purchase online (if in stock) at Doctor Tweek

 

Making your knob fit… onto a pot

Good grief, the titles for these articles get worse… but how else do you say it? LOL

OK, you know the score. You have got 6mm quality pots but the knob you want to use requires a 6.3mm (1/4″) shaft. Yes, the knob fits, especially since you have a quality item that is secured by a grub screw or allen bolt. However, you may find that you are not happy because the knob is not completely concentric with the shaft – its only 1mm or so, but …

Here’s the fix. Doctor Tweeks top tip:

The tools you need

You need to cut your 6.4mm heatshrink to the length of the pot shaft – in this case 10mm

Cut your heatshrink like this...

Now pop it on the shaft of the pot and shrink it! I use a kettle…

Don't scald yourself....but this works neat.

Now, slide the sleeve off the potentiometer shaft and insert it into the knob hole. It will fit!

Seems bizzare to do this but if you try and push the knob onto the pot then the shrink will screw up - do it this way.

Now all you need to do is push the knob and shrink onto the pot, tighten up and it is perfect. Snug fit, concentric and feels good.

Job Done!

Brilliant stuff eh? You never need be fearful of a knob not fitting again….oh, good grief…

Good Music

So you love good music? Totally peeved with the X-Factor hogwash? Then go no further… Just listen to ‘Kill It Kid’ and be refreshed.

Kill it Kid in Action

Blending the best of Rock, Blues and accomplished musicianship along with some sorted tunes, these guys are defying definition in the way that all great bands do. Just when you think you have a handle on their sound they continue to suprise. They are original and yet sit comfortably in the zone. The level of polish and talent is evident and yet their music is both contemporary and popular at the same time; a mix that is hard to achieve even for established rock legends.

So why am I mentioning these talented souls on this blog?

Chris Turpin is the male voice (Stephanie takes the female parts and is bloody awesome too!) and guitarist for ‘Kill It Kid’ and recently contacted Doctor Tweek regarding a pedal build. Moving onto their second album Chris was ready for a refurbishment of his gigging and studio fx board – keeping his classic sound but upping the ante somewhat.

I put Chris in touch with one of the many talented boutique builders that frequent the shop; Michael, of Sleeping Dog FX. Michael is working closely with Chris to achieve the sound he needs and shortly I hope to be able to post some pictures and sounds of his new pedal.

 Meanwhile, please enjoy ‘Kill It Kid’ on YouTube with “Pray on Me”: