There was a thread at Madbean forums about a new online store that will sell electronic components at competitive prices and they were located in the US…I was interested. Mklec, a Mississippi based husband and wife ran shop with a pretty good selection of parts to start with. Their pricing is on par and better in some cases with other online shops like Tayda and Small Bear. I have noticed that most of their parts seem to be of the same quality of Mouser and not some of the lower quality of Tayda. Mklec had a nice assortment of audio quality Nichicon electrolytic capacitors. My first order consisted of the following:

50 x 100uF 16v Audio Grade Electrolytic Capacitor – Nichicon – $4.00
50 x 1uF 50v Audio Grade Electrolytic Capacitor – Nichicon – $4.00
50 x 4.7uF 50v Audio Grade Electrolytic Capacitor – Nichicon – $4.00
50 x 47uF 16v Audio Grade Electrolytic Capacitor – Nichicon – $4.50

Order Details:

• 5-7-2014 – Placed order online
• 5-7-2014 – Received a Stamps.com shipment notification.
• 5-8-2014 – Received an update from owner David Miles letting me know my package was on its way to me and thanking me for my business.
• 5-10-2014 – Package was delivered by USPS.

Opening the package I noticed everything was well packaged and all bags were labeled correctly and clearly.

 

The capacitors are nothing shy of what I would get from Mouser just priced better from Mklec.

Final Thoughts:

I will definitely be using Mklec for passive components and look forward to seeing what items he starts stocking in the future.

 

I have a very bad short term memory and I hate trying to remember how many drill step downs it is for a foot switch or a 1/4″ jack.

Before I go any further, this is a Unibit if you were unsure.

I had a messed up enclosure and I made a visual guide for each piece of hardware. The numbers next to the hole represent how many steps down I need to drill with the Unibit.

Hope this makes sense and helps someone else.

I have been ordering from online audio equipment stores since the internet was just a baby and I think I finally found a company that has customer service nailed down. I have ordered from MusiciansFriend, ZZounds, GuitarCenter just to name a few and I finally gave Sweetwater a try this year. I have now placed 3 orders with them ranging from $150 to $800 and received the same service for each order. In fact, I now have my own rep that I can call for any question and he is very helpful.

Their website is very easy to use and to find wanted items and the check out process was a snap. When my orders are placed, I receive a call from my rep confining the purchase and to give me a ship date. Out of the 3 orders, 2 were for guitars and my rep emailed me high quality photos of MY guitar with matching serial number. I love the fact that I see the actual product I am buying and not some stock photo.

Shipping seems to take a week with FedEx ground (free) shipping to California but that’s not a huge problem. I am accustomed to this due to all the parts ordered I do from New York, Florida and China. Today I got an email from my rep telling me that FedEx notified him that my order was delivered and wanted to make sure the package got there ok and to enjoy the contents. Scripted or not, I really enjoy the human element from Sweetwater and have never seen it from a online store. I opened my box up and was greeted with this.

That’s right CANDY. And good ones at that. Sweetwater, we are friends for life.

Like other builder I know, I’m impatient. I have a short attention span when it comes to building. I want to keep building at all costs. When I’m missing a part I just start another project while I’m waiting for parts to come in. I can accumulate quite a few unfinished builds and not to count the builds that I thought sounded cool but when tested they just didn’t wow me one way or another. The box has getting pretty big over the last few months and wanted a way to organize it a bit. I found that some Cat6 cables I was buying at work came in cool ziplock bags that looked perfect for a unfinished build and documentation. Here is an example.

Nothing to exciting but it’s better than everything tossed in a box or left on the bench.

I am in the process of building a Hotcake and I found with the LM741 that I am getting a lot of fizzy sounds at low gain. I was reading over at Madbean Forums that the Bluesberry mod was supposed to help this by smoothing out the decay notes. A member over at Madbean Forums (Timbo) gave some instructions on implementing this mod.

The “Bluesberry” mod, which puts a 1N914 from pin 2 (cathode) to pin 3 of the IC, and from pin 2(cathode) to ground (pin 4).

I am using a layout by BeeJive and will free float these diodes to test with and see if it solves my issues. If not, I will start to look at other ICs or other component values.

Edit: Still have the issues. Need to look more into it.

Many people don’t realize it, but a pickup won’t sound right unless it’s at the right height. Those screws on the side are there for a reason! If a pickup is too close to the strings, it will be louder, and sound dark and muddy. This may sound like a good thing for some, but it’s really not. Pickup height is measured similar to the way action is:

• Put a steel ruler on top of of the low E string’s pole piece on the neck pickup, and measure the distance between the pole and the bottom of the string. For single coils, this should be 6/64″ (2.3813 mm).
• Do the same for the high E’s pole piece. This should be around 5/64″ (1.9844 mm).
• Repeat for the bridge pickup.
• On humbucker equipped guitars, the pickups are not as close to the strings, since they have higher output. It should be 4/64″ (1.5875 mm) on the bass side, and 3/64″ (1.1906 mm) on the treble.
• Unless you have a guitar with an angled neck, such as most Gibsons, pickup height will be relatively the same. This does not apply to Jaguars unless you have shimmed your neck (I’ll discuss that later). Just remember that the pickup height should always be the same amount from the strings.

This information was taken from Ranger’s Guitars, which seems to be a dying website. This is the reason I re-blogged it to save the information. I liked his breakdown and simplicity of the instructions. 

Every guitarist should know how to intonate a guitar. What is intonation, you ask? Well, there are many ways to answer that, but basically, it’s how well your guitar is in tune with it’s natural harmonics at the 12th fret. Most modern electric guitars feature six adjustable saddles, so that you can fix intonation when needed for each string. It’s actually really easy to do. So, here’s how it works.

• Tune your guitar to standard tuning, using an electronic tuner.
• Play the low E string, open, and make sure it’s still in tune. Then fret the same string at the 12th fret and play into the tuner. It should give you the same reading for both notes when intonated correctly.
• If the fretted note is higher than the open one, move the saddle back by tightening the screw on the back of the bridge, behind the saddles. If the fretted note is lower, do the opposite, and loosen the screw.
• After the adjustment, re-tune the open string, and check again to see if the fretted 12th string matches. Repeat this process until the two notes match, then repeat for each string.

This information was taken from Ranger’s Guitars, which seems to be a dying website. This is the reason I re-blogged it to save the information. I liked his breakdown and simplicity of the instructions. 

These are notes I found on the Fender Jaguar but it should work for the Jazzmaster also.

Action is a key factor in how a guitar plays. Simply put, action is the distance between the strings and the frets. A lot of people will tell you that the best setup is to have the lowest action possible without buzzing, but this is not necessarily true. It is true that a guitar with lower action is easier to play, but it often does not sound as good. Different styles of music use different actions. It is best to experiment with it until you feel you’ve reached the right height for your playing style. To measure action, you’ll need a ruler that will measure 1/64 of an inch (or millimeters if you’re outside of the US), and an allen key that will fit into the saddle/bridge posts. Here’s how to set up action:

• With all the strings up to pitch in standard tuning, place the ruler on the 17th fret, and measure the distance between the bottom of the low E string and the top of the fret.
• Normally, action should be anywhere from 4/64″ (1.5875 mm) to 8/64″ (3.175 mm), depending on what you think feels right. I myself compromise by using an action of around 6/64″.
• On a Jaguar/Jazzmaster, if you feel the action is too low or too high, you can roughly adjust it by turning the allen screws in the bridge posts. Tightening will raise the bridge; loosening will lower it.
• Once you get it to about the right height, on many Fender guitars (including the Jag/JM), you can fine tune the height of each individual saddle. Once again, tighten the allen screws on the saddle to raise it, loosen them to lower it.
• After obtaining the right height, repeat the process for each string.

This information was taken from Ranger’s Guitars, which seems to be a dying website. This is the reason I re-blogged it to save the information. I liked his breakdown and simplicity of the instructions.