polvo

I've been acquiring random bass & guitar effects pedals for a while, basically buying up anything interesting that I find being sold cheap second hand. I've played around with various different combos, but I'm interested to hear what other people would do with this. So treat this like a box of lego - what are you gonna build? And what's it gonna sound like? Bonus points if you can point me to a recording of the kind of sound you're aiming for. You can also add in one or two missing pedals if you think there are others I should be adding into the mix here. Pedals include: Sansamp BDDI MXR blow torch fuzz/overdrive (NOT PICTURED) EHX bass big muff Boss ODB-3 bass overdrive MXR sub octave bass fuzz MXR blue box octave fuzz EHX octave multiplexer Boss OC-3 super octave 'Dumble' homemade overdrive* TC Electronics skysurfer reverb MXR smart gate Neewer noise gate Marshall ED1 compressor (*Seller's description of the Dumble: Based on the NE5532 chip. Can go from full distortion to light overdrive with the drive knob. Has a smooth sound that works with single coils and humbuckers. Mid-focused overdrive tone.)

Yeah, that was the first thing I did after taking those photos!

I just picked up a second hand strat and the pickup poles are not aligned, they seem to be in pairs at three different heights (E-A strings medium height, D-G strings high, B-E strings low). At first I thought there was something wrong with the pickups, but the heights seem consistent across all three pickups so I guess this is intentional? They sound good either way, but it made me curious. Has anyone come across this before? And if it's not meant to be like this, is there any way to adjust the height of pickup pole pieces? (Bonus question - Is there any safe way to remove the rust?)

Picked up a dirt cheap bass that I want to start modding, but I hate having a website logo on the headstock so I managed to remove the decal. Now I want to stain the headstock to cover it completely. Any ideas? Bonus points if I can use tea or coffee or something I already have lying around the house! I might also just try to cover it up with some weird artistic decal, but haven't been able to find anything good online (most of my searches just show fake Fender decals!). So if you have any suggestions for online shops that do good ones, that would be awesome!

Success!

Nice one, thanks for your help!

Ok, so the problem was the pickup switch after all! Is there anything I need to look out for when buying a new one? Or just any cheap one from ebay that looks the same? E.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174298111017?hash=item2894fa1c29:g:gFcAAOSwEt9ez3yO&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoPhnpAyzfLW2iNeb7AGNRxHBnu7to19TeQ3SWa1EhkiOkHpe94kIPe3ptMMvAQaEGIXuRZUNazMXJAEjHUzAp1rzO19iXdVafcAY6ceFH9ePpr5DOpGidApi7MUywiWXmbCXG7FRuYbsnZvJPUWYxwjj%2Fpz24inJNBGO3F9A3FpiEj3OLOO7ijkoINZBJWDWxFOK4dgKqEWiT%2Fe8biSDB0o%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6606erBYQ

Thanks, I'm gonna test if the problem is the switch, if not then I'll need to get a multimeter I think

Yeah that joint is connected. Good idea to try swapping them round. Hopefully I'll find it's only the switch that's broken To test that i just need to switch the two white wires, right? Everything else stays in place?

(deleted cos I posted twice and can't delete my comment!)

I've just picked up a second hand guitar (Yamaha Pacifica 120SJ) and the bridge pickup works fine but no sound at all out of the neck pickup. Attempts at investigating the problem have so far been limited to just opening the back up and looking at the wiring (all seems to be in place and all the soldering seems solid). What else should I try in order to find out what is causing the problem and how to fix it? Or do I just go ahead and buy a replacement pickup? Bonus question #1 - any advice on how to find out what type of pickup I need to get? Also, the poles on both pickups are a bit rusty. Bonus question #2 - aesthetics aside, is this going to impact on the sound coming through the pickups? Am I better off replacing both pickups? (I'd like to keep costs down, but if replacements will make a big difference then it might be worth it)

Yeah, about that.... Anyway, despite my less-than-top-quality soldering, I got lucky and had the wires hooked up the right way first time round. Job done!

I need to replace a 3-way pickup switch (on a Epiphone Les Paul special VE), and it seems like it's gonna be a 50/50 gamble as to whether I get the pickup wires aligned properly so it matches the 'rhythm/treble' label at the base of the switch. The switch I'm replacing has two wires with black coating, each of which has one silver wire (both going to the same place on the switch- on the right of my photo). One then has a red wire going to one side of the switch and the other has a red wire going to the other side of the switch (both of these on the left of my photo). There's also a yellow wire, not sure what that is... grounding maybe? Is there any standard way of arranging this (e.g. red for neck pickup, white for bridge)? Or any way of checking without taking the pickups out to check? Or do I just need to guess and take my chances?

UPDATE: I've just found the Monarkh SC JS22 (also JS22, like the one I'm looking at), which has dot inlays: https://www.jacksonguitars.com/en-GB/body-shape/monarkh/js-series-monarkh-sc-js22/2916902568.html But that has a different headstock to the one I'm looking at, so now I'm just as confused as I was when I started...

I'm thinking about buying a Jackson guitar, which as far as I can tell looks like a Dinky JS22. (But correct me if you think this is wrong) The only weird thing is that it has dot markets for the fret inlays, and every photo I can see online of a Jackson guitar has shark fin inlays. Are there some exceptions, or is this a red flag that the guitar might not be what it claims to be? Did Jackson ever use dots?