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Can you build effects into a guitar?

Has anyone tried this?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by BrianQ. on March 13, 2021 at 8:03am

Yes, many have, lots of pros have them under the hood? Jerry Garcia had a Boost & Buffer, in the Tiger guitar, so did Phil Lesh. Search Electra guitar, a commercial Les Paul type guitar in the 70’s, it introduced the famous Electra Overdrive every pedalmaker copies? But there’s a must that can’t be skipped, you have to shield the effect in metal or better yet, an aluminum enclosure, or it will wreak havoc being so close to the pickups. And Shielded wire is also a must to keep things quiet? Put it towards the back away from the pickups. What kinds of effects are you building? Good luck on this, let us know if you’re successful :)

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Permalink Reply by Ozz989 on March 14, 2021 at 10:32am

Well I’d just had this idea to put a guitar neck on my fender backwards and carve a bowl into it to roll the string around in, I’ve already superglued a capo to my bc rich to get like a nut extension for my e string and scalloped out the frets to the 4th string in all frets in hopes to get a doom sound but it’s more wow now, I don’t really know what I’m doing and I’m kinda new to this

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Permalink Reply by BrianQ. on March 14, 2021 at 1:16pm

If you’re looking for a Doom sound then you’ll need a loud Marshall style amp with some Fuzz pedals, you may need a Noise gate pedal to quell the noise associated with high gain at high volumes? But a good start would be to get a Fuzz face or Big muff Pi style pedal, these are mega Doomy when youre playing in lowDrop-tunings?

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Permalink Reply by Ozz989 on March 15, 2021 at 1:59pm

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on March 15, 2021 at 2:51pm

fark .. i forgot the html thing .. and no time to type it all again .. ill be back .

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on March 15, 2021 at 7:43pm

Hi, yep that catches me out too at times, but to save typing it all again this is what I do.

once I've posted something I always check it appears. If I find the post blank, I simply use the 15minutes available to make changes, to make changes.

Go back, but instead of making changes click on HTML and send again. Save.

I also tell myself I need a yellow page to write on. HTML goes yellow. Saves a lot of time. Hope this makes sense and helps. Taff

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Permalink Reply by Southern Ray on March 16, 2021 at 8:55am

That's some good info, guys.. I guess I'm a bit anal when it comes to long posts that I make. I write them on the computer's "Notepad" and when it's time to post, I copy and paste it in.

Ray

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Permalink Reply by ILL GREEN on March 16, 2021 at 4:27pm

Yup, but works best with fuzzes and overdrive circuits. Delays and choruses would need more real estate from your guitar and eat up 9 volts real quick.

As BrianQ mentioned, the Electra circuit is the easiest circuit to solder consisting of just one transistor. The second easiest circuit is the FuzzFace or Tonebender mk 1.5 if want dank spitty fuzz. Also, they are easy to wedge in a guitar cavity when you build them right. I've seen Electra circuits size of a thumb print..

Other than that, if you don't want to build a circuit, you can strip a chinese clone micro pedal and ram it in your guitar.