malagutial
Member
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2011
- Messages
- 10
Note from DrKev: Tough moderating decision here, a very special case, but after some intercontinental head scratching and a good night's sleep, beej and I are in agreement - this is a cool personal project and we hope you'll all enjoy seeing it as much as we did.
Hello people!
This is my first post in the Ernie Ball forums, but I felt I had to share this with people that might appreciate it. Before people make a fuss about any copyright issues or such, I will never sell it and this project has never been intended for any kind of profit. It was mainly a learning experience for me, into which I drew inspiration from Ernie Ball's incredible products.
John Petrucci is the most inspirational guitarist to me. He has had a serious impact on the way I play and I have never found music that engages me on so many levels as much as Dream Theater's. John's tone has always been something I've loved and trying to imitate it when on a student budget is very difficult! When I saw the JPX-6 on Ernie Ball's website I fell in love. I already loved the feel and tone of the JP (after trying one in a shop), but the new shape of the JPX, the colour and the overall beauty of it just made me want one.
Knowing that I simply could not afford to buy one, I had a think about what it was that made the guitar so special.
The choice of wood had a great effect on the guitar's tone. The use of more exotic body materials resulted in a more unique tone and was something I liked. The Piezo-acoustic system was maybe my favourite feature of the guitar. Having the option to switch between acoustic and electric tones without switching guitars was such a brilliant concept to me. The construction of the JPX-6 is a simple bolt on neck, but the design of the fins and the height of the joint means that access to the high frets is easy, making the guitar more playable. The dual-outputs allow allow for more variety in tone/live and recording setup and for the guitar to be run through two amps.
I'm a design/technology enthusiast and a scholar of the Arkwright Trust so I decided I would combine my two favourite hobbies and make a guitar from scratch, based on the MusicMan JPX-6. I completed the project after 3 months (this was working around full time education), and entered it for my A-Level extended project, for which I received full marks. I am planning to pursue a career in Medicine/Medical engineering and this has been a fantastic experience for me that's left with me with a truly one-of-a-kind guitar!
The spec of this guitar includes a 1 piece Iroco body with chambering, a maple neck, 2 high output pickups (waiting for the funds to install DiMarzio's), a fixed bridge (I don't use tremolos), a piezo-electric acoustic simulator system (of my own design), locking nut at the neck, 5 way pickup selector, dual outputs, metallic purple high-gloss finish, and a MusicMan style headstock featuring my own 'MusicLad' adaptation of the Ernie Ball Logo.
Attaching a piezo-transducer to each saddle of the bridge, then into a special pre-amp circuit would have been too expensive. Performing research as part of my Physics studies I investigated the propagation of waves of differing frequencies through varying density of material and found that waves of lower frequency travel more strongly through a material. I therefore reasoned that there would be a sweet spot in the body where I could place a transduce that the frequencies from low and high strings would reach equally, making the output equalise naturally. Obviously, the output from a single transducer would not be enough to simply plug into an amp. In order to pre-amplify the signal from the transducer I bought a hearing aid module from 'Poundland' and replaced the microphone with the transducer. The hearing aid is powered by a button cell battery and boosts the signal to line-level output. I then connected the output of the hearing aid to the output of the guitar. You can hear a demonstration of this acoustic system in the video in this post.
You can follow the photos of the project from start to completion here. Feel free to add me on FaceBook if you want to follow my future projects/musical endeavours.
I recorded a demonstration video of the guitar, showing its tones for lead and metal, as well as demonstrating my design for a piezo-electric acoustic system and talking through the features of the guitar, and the features I incorporated.
I'm very proud of the final product. It plays like a dream and I really feel I can get a lot of new tones from it.
Alex Taylor
malagutial's Channel - YouTube
www.facebook.com/malagutial
Hello people!
This is my first post in the Ernie Ball forums, but I felt I had to share this with people that might appreciate it. Before people make a fuss about any copyright issues or such, I will never sell it and this project has never been intended for any kind of profit. It was mainly a learning experience for me, into which I drew inspiration from Ernie Ball's incredible products.
John Petrucci is the most inspirational guitarist to me. He has had a serious impact on the way I play and I have never found music that engages me on so many levels as much as Dream Theater's. John's tone has always been something I've loved and trying to imitate it when on a student budget is very difficult! When I saw the JPX-6 on Ernie Ball's website I fell in love. I already loved the feel and tone of the JP (after trying one in a shop), but the new shape of the JPX, the colour and the overall beauty of it just made me want one.
Knowing that I simply could not afford to buy one, I had a think about what it was that made the guitar so special.
The choice of wood had a great effect on the guitar's tone. The use of more exotic body materials resulted in a more unique tone and was something I liked. The Piezo-acoustic system was maybe my favourite feature of the guitar. Having the option to switch between acoustic and electric tones without switching guitars was such a brilliant concept to me. The construction of the JPX-6 is a simple bolt on neck, but the design of the fins and the height of the joint means that access to the high frets is easy, making the guitar more playable. The dual-outputs allow allow for more variety in tone/live and recording setup and for the guitar to be run through two amps.
I'm a design/technology enthusiast and a scholar of the Arkwright Trust so I decided I would combine my two favourite hobbies and make a guitar from scratch, based on the MusicMan JPX-6. I completed the project after 3 months (this was working around full time education), and entered it for my A-Level extended project, for which I received full marks. I am planning to pursue a career in Medicine/Medical engineering and this has been a fantastic experience for me that's left with me with a truly one-of-a-kind guitar!
The spec of this guitar includes a 1 piece Iroco body with chambering, a maple neck, 2 high output pickups (waiting for the funds to install DiMarzio's), a fixed bridge (I don't use tremolos), a piezo-electric acoustic simulator system (of my own design), locking nut at the neck, 5 way pickup selector, dual outputs, metallic purple high-gloss finish, and a MusicMan style headstock featuring my own 'MusicLad' adaptation of the Ernie Ball Logo.
Attaching a piezo-transducer to each saddle of the bridge, then into a special pre-amp circuit would have been too expensive. Performing research as part of my Physics studies I investigated the propagation of waves of differing frequencies through varying density of material and found that waves of lower frequency travel more strongly through a material. I therefore reasoned that there would be a sweet spot in the body where I could place a transduce that the frequencies from low and high strings would reach equally, making the output equalise naturally. Obviously, the output from a single transducer would not be enough to simply plug into an amp. In order to pre-amplify the signal from the transducer I bought a hearing aid module from 'Poundland' and replaced the microphone with the transducer. The hearing aid is powered by a button cell battery and boosts the signal to line-level output. I then connected the output of the hearing aid to the output of the guitar. You can hear a demonstration of this acoustic system in the video in this post.
You can follow the photos of the project from start to completion here. Feel free to add me on FaceBook if you want to follow my future projects/musical endeavours.
I recorded a demonstration video of the guitar, showing its tones for lead and metal, as well as demonstrating my design for a piezo-electric acoustic system and talking through the features of the guitar, and the features I incorporated.
I'm very proud of the final product. It plays like a dream and I really feel I can get a lot of new tones from it.
Alex Taylor
malagutial's Channel - YouTube
www.facebook.com/malagutial
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