Stub Mandrel

So it was all a ploy... Just for comparison: My A string, neck pickup, tone rolled back: D string, bridge pickup, tone on: Both of my signals look 'smoother'; than yours:

A boot was originally a storage box on a horse-drawn carriagem, in contrast to a suitcase strapped on as an afterthought. 🙂 Just as a bonnet is more up-market headgear than a hood 🙂

I've got a fantastic little plastic jig for dowelling, I just use that straight off, no screws, when I work plywood these days. Used them to make this box:

You're looking to get something like this, you may need to experiment with which note you use and thw volts/ division setting. Note the use of 'freeze display' to stop it dancing about:

Strange! I could swear I posted this earlier... https://academo.org/demos/virtual-oscilloscope/

Does it have a built in mic? Try going that website and see what happens. you just play into the mic and click the box to 'freeze' the waveform and take a screen grab.

All desperate to play on Rod's twanger...

One of Richie's lesser-known accomplishments 🙂

Here's an idea. Stick a microphone into your computer and use this to grab what the waveform looks like. Use a good, clean signal like a E or A with the treble rolled off and finger-plucked at the middle to get as clean a signal as possible. Then share a screen grab and we can see if the distortion is visible (it might not be).

I have pretty much got the first two pages (out of 4 1/2) of Joy Joy down now. I can play all the bits up to speed but working on fluencey and getting transitions between the sections better. Amazed how much faster I can play now than a week ago!

I'm a big fan of Joyo pedals. They sent me this discount code today, should work for anyone:

Looks like in your circuit it's TR10 that does the job (top centre). The heatsink compound on it does look a bit suspect. You could try gently poking it to see if it is in good contact with the heatsink. This is your amp: https://el34world.com/charts/Schematics/files/Ashdown/Ashdown_apc033xa_schematic.pdf

Fitin' talk! Put up yer dooks!

Stiffness of board is proportional to tht cube of thickness so 18mm will be (best Hugh Cornwell voice - let me pause for reflection) over 3 times as stiff as 12mm board for 1 1/2 time the weight.

*blob, not bolb.

This ashdown amp uses TR5 on the heatsink (near bottom right - it even says 'on heatsink' on the circuit diagram!) to prevent crossover distortion. If that's your problem see if you can spot a small transistor that (should be) bonded to the heatsink between the big power transistors. If it looks like its come away a small bolb of heat-transfer compound and gently pushing it back in place could cure the problem. (Of course, I could be completely wrong and it's something else altogether).

Crossover distortion is if the amplifier isn't set for enough bias current, so when the signal 'crosses over' from negative to positive there's a brief moment where the signal is cut off. It tends to be more noticeable with softer signals as it doesn't increase with volume. Basically the half of the amp that does the top of the signal is switching off before the half that does the bottom switches on. If yours in is a linear class B amplifier (rather than a class D) there's a biasing arrangement in there to prevent it happening. This can go wrong. Sometimes its as simple as adjusting a preset to get the right 'quiescent current' or it could be a diode or transistor needs replacing. The most common cause is when a transistor is used to set the bias current and kept at the same temperature as the power transistors by being held against the same heatsink. If it comes lose you get crossover distortion that gets worse as the amp warms up. Easy to spot if you have a scope (see picture above) but needs a bit of amp repair experience to fix.

Ah... I had assumed that you number them sequentially. No wonder I thought you were respraying them!

Seems to get more noticeable as the volume reduces. Crossover distortion? You could invest in a cheap oscilloscope module. Mind you, it's an ashdown you haven't got the sub-octave turned up a bit without noticing have you? (BTDTGTTS)

Is this the one that was green a page back? Or is here more than one FX-5?

Making progress... I can now play all of the first two pages in sequence, and am even getting most of the muted notes (actually I dont think many of the muted notes are muted at all, just hammered on). Downside is that is it sounds like a sequence of separate chunks and the timing suffers, so present task is working on sections in pairs or small groups trying to develop smooth transitions. Thus is definitely the hardest thing I've evr tried to learn. Big plus is it will set me up for Teen Town and Rhythm Stick!

I think my 'SG' is 25mmm ply.

I love how messy it sounds isolated, yet in the song it's spot on.

I bought a remaindered copy of '25 Years of Rock' in around 1981/2. One of the phrases I recall was 'faceless mid-westeners "Kansas"'. I guess they get the last laugh 🙂

I think the key improvement for any Kay is a decent bridge so you can sort intonation and action. I fitted a tune-o-matic to mine. The big downside is how light it is, only having a piece of relatively thin ply for a body! Yours really benefits visually from having a decent chunk of body!