Kent, John, and Artie!

[beandip]

hey guys, you fellers are like the electronics dudes on this forum. Well, I wanna learn about that stuff. Know any good websites to help me out?

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Bean...What exactly do you want to learn? Are you looking for the actual drawings that show how to wire up pickups? I can't think of any sites that teach actual electronics as far as how to test circuits etc...You might want to check out your local library for that...Can you be more specific?

John

[beandip]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

about wiring stuff up, jsut comming up with it. About the tone changes of different caps and resistors and what will happen. Impedimence or however you spell it. Stuff like that.

[rspst14]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

I agree with John, go to your local library and check out a book on electronics for beginners. It helps to have a general background in electronics before you try to apply that information to guitar/amp electronics.

Ryan

[beandip]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

I have a background in electronics, I'm in my third year of computer maintenece (I know the hardware, not the software), so I've got it down pretty good. I reckon I just wanna be able to come up with guitar wiring and special switching out of the blue.

[ArtieToo]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Bean; One of the things I do, is semi-constant "doodling". (Which, by the way, involves no part of male anatomy.) I keep a tablet of graph paper in my briefcase at all times thats just my "guitar notes" pad. I scribble out ideas as I get them, and if one looks good, I redraw it neater, and test it.

If I recall, aren't you pretty good at putting guitars together. Get an inexpensive, yet reasonable quality guitar off eBay or something, (Peavey comes to mind). Shoot, you can get brand new, from the dealer, Raptors I think, for $99. Convert it into your "test-bed". Just don't steal my Technocaster name.

Build a small stock of pots, caps, coils, switches, and pups, and go to work. Start experimenting and see what works and what doesn't.

I'm a couple of weeks from springing onto the world a whole new dual-volume control setup. Stay tuna-ed.

[Kent S.]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

I agree with John, go to your local library and check out a book on electronics for beginners. It helps to have a general background in electronics before you try to apply that information to guitar/amp electronics.

Ryan

There you go! Take an actual electronics course, buy the actual textbooks that teach the electronic theories, without that you are 100% screwed.
Make damn sure you brush up on your algebra, and trig as well ... Math? It's all Math!
If someone has three years in electronics they wouldn't be asking this question, Most computer based electronics courses start with a basic primer inelectricity as a pre requirement. They have to, even with all the digital gate studies (sound familiar Ryan ... ). Apparently, Bean is studying computers, NOT electronics ... big difference.
A course will often do better, why? Because you are taking your own money and time and investing it in it. Generally this means you'll actually study rather than buy a book, thumb thru it, and let it collect dust on a shelf ... all the while wondering why you don't understand things.
As far as guitar wiring, that stuff is pretty simple (conceptually at least), this is where basic concepts of phase and series-parallel come into play along with basic filters, and the handy dandy good old voltage divider. Impedance and it's effects are covered under any electronics course when entering into the AC section of study. If you don't understand the concept of how a pup works, you're screwed ... the basics are explained under the FAQ of the SD site, and about every other guitar site; if you have no understanding of signal flow you're screwed. These are all things that are covered on guitar sites (FAQ sections), and basic courses. Also a good book on the science of acoustics also is a must, why, because it tends to cover things such as pahse and frequencies more in depth in other ways. I remember giving Bean a long list of books, I'm not going to repost those, If he's interested he can do a forum search for them. Many, many electronics component manufacturers offer downloadable white papers regarding the use of filters and such (T.I. is great for this), there are many EE programs available from the web, Google search is wonderful for finding sites with tutorials. Radio Shack has a wonderful basic EE program (Protolab 4.0) for like $50 USD, it includes a dual trace oscilloscope, wattage, resistance, voltmeter, and ammeter. All your passive components (except for pots, you construct those), and some basic actives, suck as diodes, Fets , bipolars, mosfets, opamps. Also they have some (or at least at one time) descent course materials as well.
I mean if you just want to learn to wire guitars, why not by one of the 50 some odd books published on the very subject? It's not like they are hard to find.

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Bean...There really isn't any fast way to learn electronics,especially the kinds of things so related and specific to guitar wiring etc...Most of us learned by screwing up our own stuff first,scratching our heads,and going back at it..Nobody that I Know is going to be able to teach you anything overnight...it's like guitar playing..Guys playing 30 years are still learning all the time...The beginner wants to play like the guy playing for 30 years,but you still have to put your own time into it..It's alot of experimenting and reading what you can from books and all the resources available to us via the net..When alot of us started messing with electronics,we didn't have any of the info available to us today..Keep plugging away..Baby steps brother..

John

[sanrafael]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Either you already know, or an elementary electronics text will tell you what resistors, capacitors and inductors do to signals of different frequencies. You must get your hands on the parts. Get software for your computer that turns it into a simple signal generator and oscilloscope. Get some parts and do the the simplest example from the book, and work up from there. Then go buy the test guitar.

[beandip]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

1. My library sucks. it's small, stocked with only 5,000 books are so, and I'm gonna guess that 4,900 of those are novels. I dont have access to the college library, if I did, I wouldnt be asking this.
2. Any websites that you could post? I'm not trying to be a pest, but I'm running a very slow 56K connection, and to do a Google search to find something like that would easily take hours. Most guys can load a SD page in about 10-30 seconds, I can make a sandwich and come back, and it just finish.

[Panzer]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Most guys can load a SD page in about 10-30 seconds, I can make a sandwich and come back, and it just finish.

and you still post more than anyone else here

[beandip]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

hey, alot of people say that a post count dosnt matter, but yet everyone seems to bring it up, WTF?

[Kent S.]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Bean...There really isn't any fast way to learn electronics,especially the kinds of things so related and specific to guitar wiring etc...Most of us learned by screwing up our own stuff first,scratching our heads,and going back at it..Nobody that I Know is going to be able to teach you anything overnight...it's like guitar playing..Guys playing 30 years are still learning all the time...The beginner wants to play like the guy playing for 30 years,but you still have to put your own time into it..It's alot of experimenting and reading what you can from books and all the resources available to us via the net..When alot of us started messing with electronics,we didn't have any of the info available to us today..Keep plugging away..Baby steps brother..

John

Thank you John, in here you make another important point as well. There are a lot of related things that go along with it, there isn't ONE source for it, that's why I suggest cross references of books on acoustical science, PA systems, studio enginneering and recording (lot's of stuff on grounding and shielding, as well as a tone of frequency related problems with impedance), and of course the basic electronics ...theories, principles, and laws of, THEN applications. John it is a rather quirky sub field to learn isn't it ... Cool, nice point John.

[Kent S.]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

Either you already know, or an elementary electronics text will tell you what resistors, capacitors and inductors do to signals of different frequencies. You must get your hands on the parts. Get software for your computer that turns it into a simple signal generator and oscilloscope. Get some parts and do the the simplest example from the book, and work up from there. Then go buy the test guitar.

That's another thing also, most of the electronic *course* books have a lab section along with it so you can get your hands into it as you go, only to reinforce what you just learned. That Protolab 4.0 is a basic simulator, that has all the basic stuff one would need, there is no reason to but a $400 piece of software for the more complicated things. $50 and some course books should get one started.Although the breadboard approach is still worth doing (as opposed to a simulator).

[Kent S.]

Re: Kent, John, and Artie!

and you still post more than anyone else here

Well, I don't know about that, but ...
To Bean, ... go read over to www.geofex.com, as there are some interesting articles over there on pots and impedance, and other things. Hit some of the amp sites, http://duncanamps.com has a listing of o scope programs, and links to other sites. I think there is a listing or two of basic electroincs primer courses. The pedal mods sites, such as Jack Ormans site at AMZ www.muzique.com, have lot's of links to stuff like that, but you got to comb thru the site to find it (do the work).
I know of no on-line site that teaches electronics in a complete form (why, I haven't had to look for one), if you're that interested you'll put in the time, go make a sandwich (good idea actually, now I'm thinking about it), come back and see what the comp has found for you.