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DJES Home Recording
and Guitar

 

Equipment Modifications (Mods)

Some equipment mods that may be of interest are below.

JVM410H mod by Voodoo amps

On first playing my JVM410H I was surprised how noisy it was, after playing a Mesa Boogie Roadster for a while.  I had Voodoo amps make their platinum mod and it became a lot quieter.
I also had multi tap power transformer installed so I can rewire for 240V, if I return to UK.

 

Parker Fly Radial GK3

Parker DF522FR with GK3

I installed a Roland GK-3 on my Parker 522FR, after trying Graphtech Floyd Rose system and being disappointed with spurious triggers and tuning stability;
ended up just using the S1/S2 toggle switch.

I had installed a GK3 on a Parker Fly previously, with routing through back, but here  routed cable through bridge pickup cavity, which was tidier.
Woodwork was non-trivial, especially since I had to move bridge pickup forward.

I also added some white plastic fret markers to avoid fretboard confusion up high.

 

PRS 305 N3 and GK3 pickups

PRS305 GK3 and Fender N3

Although I liked sound of PRS 305 pickups at low/medium gain, they are not hum cancelling and a problem at high gain.  I replaced with Fender N3's from eBay and also installed a GK3 for MIDI.

I have now changed to black DiMarzio Injector pickups which are a bit hotter and have less hum than N3's, although sound is less Fender-like.

 

DOD FX25 Volume mod

I liked sound of DOD FX5, but volume change made it pretty unusable.  I modified for very similar volume active and 'bypass'.

Schematic mod and photos are below.

DOD FX25 schematic mod Photo 1 Photo 2

 

Crybaby Wha Hum mod

After changing my pedal board power supply to Voodoo Lab ones to get rid of hum at high gain, I noticed Wha pedal hummed when switched on - just due to power-supply proximity pickup into Wha inductor.  I fitted Mu-metal foil (from Ebay) to base of pedal which got rid of most of hum.

I also tried shield around inductor, but that altered sound and so left it off.

Wha pedal with Mu-metal on base 

 

Carvin HH2 mods

I am something of an Allan Holdsworth fan and saw him play a few times in San Diego - never had such a disconnect between what I was hearing and what a guitarist's fingers appeared to be doing.

I ordered an HH2 from Carvin, then added a Fishman Tripleplay to it, by sliding bridge pickup as far forward as possible then re-screwing in place to make enough room for Tripleplay pickup.

Main tripleplay unit is mounted on rear and is fine for MIDI home recording; it does not disrupt look of guitar.  Pichup and main unit are removeable from moutings.

Also I changed main pickups to smoother sounding Gibson ones and replaced volume pot.

I noticed a hum with high gain amp settings, that appeared to change if I put hand on strings or control knobs - indicating a GND problem.  Checking with DVM Ohm meter I found that strings (metal bridge) had no connection to cable GND.

Unscrewing bridge showed that wire that should have grounded bridge was sitting under black insulating anodization.  I scraped some off to bare metal, then put bridge back in pace and hum was gone.

No GND Scrape GND

 

Carvin V3MC mod

Not really a mod, I just replaced 9.9lb Carvin speaker with Celestion G12 Century (3.7lb) to save over 6lbs in weight, to make even more portable - under 30lbs.