Own Your Tone Guitar Mod

Inventor

Well we were all set to introduce the Own Your Tone guitar mod kit to the world when we discovered something. Apparently our plan to use a transformer for boosting the signal is not ideal. Better would be a FET or opamp circuit. So we're back to the drawing board on this one and thankfully it's a very easy drawing board to manage. The reason I am writing is the follows:

What features should I include?

Sure, it's simple enough to do a gain-only board, but people like tone and volume controls. And what about a little distortion too? Plus, what type of filter should the tone have? Just a first-order filter?

Just let me know what the guitarist would like and I will include it in the product, thanks.

Les

Antimon · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:03 am Post subject:

Does this mean I shouldn't mod the guitar yet? I've been meaning to do it, but I keep forgetting to buy suitable metal foil for connecting the tuners.

/Stefan

Inventor · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 5:26 am Post subject:

Antimon · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:35 am Post subject:

OK, please don't send anything, I have chips lying around that I may be able to use once you've found the proper solution. I don't want to put more transportation dirt in the atmosphere than necessary. Smile

I'll probably try out the mod anyway and maybe modify it again when you've found a way to enhance it.

How does the lesser quality of the solution with a transformer manifest itself? Is the tone weaker or different in some way?

/Stefan

Inventor · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:08 am Post subject:

Well, Stefan, the thing is that I don't think there are any real disadvantages except cost. The transformer will not give a perfectly flat response curve and it's upper frequency limit is lower than the FET/opamp solution.

The real issue is the guitar amp. Guitar amps are specifically designed with limited frequency response and all sorts of mish-mash to the signal that guitarists know and love, and they are not designed for flat response. A PA system, however, is designed for flat response. So we may end up advising people not to use a guitar amp at all and just use a PA system! How strange is that?

Les

Antimon · Posted: Wed Dec 02, 2009 2:02 pm Post subject:

Gotcha. Well, I don't use a real amp anyway (I have one that broke a few years ago), so no problem there.

/Stefan