This is my second Stick preamp project. This one has more to it than my first one.

I have finished the first of three prototype DIY Stick Preamps. This one is based on this circuit from Jack Orman. I bought two Printed Circuit Boards from him:

http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm

This is a prototype and I wanted to save money on the box so I used a cheap plastic storage box. Once I have finalized my plans based on the prototypes, I’ll use a high-quality box. Here’s the first picture of it:

It has two channels, as you can see. Here’s the top showing the knobs:

And here’s the insides showing the circuit boards:

And here’s one completed circuit board waiting for its box.

Operation:

• It is two mono channels that are completely separate, they even have separate batteries.
• The Gain control varies from about a 4db boost to a hefty 30db. This is a lot of gain and you can overdrive most amps with it.
• The Input Impedance is a really interesting feature I decided to add. We talk about what the best input impedance is for Sticks a lot on the forum. I wanted to be able to hear the difference on the same preamp. So, I added these rotary switches that can vary the impedance in discrete jumps. This will let you know exactly which one you prefer. The different values, all in MOhms, are 1, 2.2, 3.3, 4.7, 7.5 and 10. I was worried that there would be a pop when the switch was changed but it is dead quiet.

How’s it sound?

I have one of the original simple little preamps like Curtis and Japhlet have made. I don’t have a StepABout to compare it with, though. I was delighted with my first little JFET preamp and I thought it would be hard to beat. But, this mosfet pre is better, and I think it is much better. First, it has gain, lots of gain. This is great even when you don’t turn it up much. When you play a little harder it really gives you the gain. You have the feeling that it won’t quit, it will just keep getting louder as you play harder.

Next, the frequency response is basically straight flat. There is no coloration of tone at all. The JFET circuit is known to add a pleasing coloration to the sound of guitar-like pickups. Pleasing to most people, that is. This mosfet circuit adds nothing, it just gives you all the sound from the pickups.

The input impedance switch gave me a big surprise. The difference in tone and highs from 1 to 10 MOhms was actually fairly subtle. It is quite noticeable but it is not as dramatic as I thought it would be. The other surprise is that I am tending to like the bass side to have a lower input impedance than the melody side. Right now I’m at 2.2 for bass and 4.7 for melody. I think this is a really nice feature. I had originally just planned on this being a prototype feature. Once I found my preference I was going to just hard-wire that in the final version. However, now I’m going to keep the switch. If you are going after a rounder, more jazzy tone, then 1 or 2.2 might be better. If you are going for an acoustic sound 7.5 or 10 might be just the thing.

And then there is the tone. The tone is just wonderful. It is clear and transparent with no nasty edge to it. The highs are crystal clear and there is more bass than I was ever used to. This is a sweet circuit, I can now see why it is one of the most popular ones in the guitar and bass DIY communities. And Jack has been very helpful. I asked him a bunch of questions and he answered them all in good detail. The boards are very high-quality and building them was a joy.

How about noise? The circuit uses a single mosfet transistor. This results in an extremely quiet circuit. You can hear lots of noise if you turn the gain up all the way. But, that would be expected at 30db of gain! At normal levels you need a completely quiet rig and be listening with headphones to hear any noise from the preamp if you turned it up a bit.

Next, I’m making another prototype based on JFETs with more gain than my last one. This is getting interesting!

Take care.

I haven’t had new headphones for decades and my old ones are falling apart. I had no idea that headphone technology had advanced this much. I play my Stick through headphones a lot when the kids are asleep and these actually have bass. They are so clear that I’m hearing things that I wasn’t aware of before. They are essentially a music-altering experience!

My DIY Stick Preamp

I have finally taken the time to make myself a preamp for my Stick. While this is certainly not a StepABout, the sound is really great to my ears. I based it on this fairly famous circuit by Don Tillman:

http://www.till.com/articles/GuitarPreamp/index.html

I put 2 of them in one box. Here is the input side of the preamp:

Here’s the output side, it is really simple:

The 2 channels are fully independent and could be used for bass and guitar as well as Stick.

Here’s the Ugly Truth. I haven’t made anything like this for a very long time, so the inside is not very pretty:

Here’s it in use:

The Specs:

This preamp has an input impedance of 3Mohms and a 3db boost. That’s all.

The Results:

WOW!!! Everything you have ever heard about the Stick needing a high impedance is absolutely true! The difference this little thing makes is truly amazing. I was using some stomp boxes as the first thing in my chain with what is normally considered “high impedance”. The difference is dramatic. It is not only that this adds highs to the sound. That’s part of it but everything sounds better, the lows, the mids, and the highs. There is more presence and my Stick just feels more responsive. I was hoping for an improved sound but, frankly, I didn’t expect this big of an improvement. I made it in this box so I could plug it into any type of amplification from Fender Twins to a PA.

I will make some audio samples next weekend, I’ve spent enough time for this one.

[ Update: I have not made the samples yet. I will post when I do.]

The Cost:

I dunno, not much really. Maybe less than $20 depending on what kind of box you use and where you get your parts. The FETs were 12 cents a piece. I was impatient and bought a big bag of resistors to get the ones I wanted, if you ordered them that part would be cheaper. This can also be made very small and put right into a cord but I wanted the most flexibility.

This is just the start of what will hopefully be a full DIY rig. One step at a time…

So, in a moment of inspiration, I made a quick recording of my arrangement of Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1. I put it up on YouTube! Here it is:

What do you think?

I have completed the second page of my arrangement of Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1 for Chapman Stick. This is the main body of the piece. What I have left are the 1st and 2nd endings. I’m getting closer on this learning experience. I have learned a huge amount about the Stick, music engraving, and the art and craft of transcription. Let me know what you think!

Here’s the download link

Here’s my arrangements page.

I’m working on a recording which I’ll also post when I have a good one.

Thanks,

-Eric

I have finished the first page of my first Stick arrangement. It is the Gymnopedie #1 by Erik Satie and I am really enjoying playing it and transcribing it. Here is the download link.

Update I have made some corrections and uploaded version 0.2.2a

I would really love to get comments since I’m sure that I have lots to learn about music engraving. If you see any mistakes let me know and I’ll put up another version quickly.

I also have a page that will have all my arrangements here.

Introduction

My Stick is a black polycarbonate model made in 1987. I bought it new from a music store in 1990. I played it for about a year and then quit music altogether in 1991. In January of 2007 I decided to start playing music again and decided that I would learn the Stick and not return to guitar. I was delighted to find that there was now a great online community with a mailing list and a forum with lots of people at different levels of playing. I have learned a ton from everyone online, and I recently went to the Heartland Stick Seminar 2007. It was great to meet other Stick players and to get instruction from Greg Howard and David Parr many thanks to them.

During the seminar Greg inspected everyone’s Stick and told me that I should send it to Stick Enterprises and have Emmett look it over. And that’s what I did. Emmett gave me a list of things he could do to it to make it play and sound like a modern Stick, and I had him do everything.

I have it back now, and I have taken a bunch of close-up photos of it, and I’m going to give a detailed account of everything that was done to it. I’ll start at the top and work my way down and then to the back.

You can click on each image thumbnail to get a fairly large close-up.

Quick Conclusion

O…M…G!!! This is fantastic! The tone and playability are amazing, very close to a brand new Stick.

The Nut

The first thing that was changed was the nut. The old, adjustable nut screws were removed and replaced with new, shiny brass ones that are much bigger.

I think they are very nice looking and make the strings very stable.

The Damper

I was wondering why my open strings would sound so loud when I was playing and took a finger off a string. I had been reading on the forum that this was mostly a matter of playing technique and it will improve over time. But it just wasn’t improving. The new damper material that is on new Sticks really is much better than what was on mine, and this problem has been reduced dramatically. I still have much room for improvement to make them dead quiet when playing, but this change has gotten me most of the way. I was surprised what a difference this small thing made.

The Neck Strap

My old neck strap was replaced with a new one, and the clasp on the Stick was replaced. Now my strap doesn’t fall off while I’m playing! That was really annoying.

Frets and the Neck/Body

Over the years my Stick had developed a noticeable twist in the body. This made adjusting the action very challenging. I didn’t think there was anything that could be done about this, but I was wrong. The twist in the body was somehow leveled and the frets were then leveled, crowned, and polished. They are beautiful!

This is a hard job since the frets are stainless steel and not nickel-silver. I now expect a lifetime of hard use without seeing much, if any, wear.

The Pickup

I had the original Stickup on my Stick, and I really liked the tone. However, I didn’t realize what I was missing. All the years of sitting in my closet had taken a toll on my Stickup. The pots were extremely noisy and couldn’t be cleaned. In addition to that, there was some corrosion inside that left the pickup itself very noisy with a high amount of cross-talk. I now have a brand new Stickup!

The sounds is incredible. To my ear there really isn’t any cross-talk, and I have highs now! I now understand why people say that a poly Stick has a very “acoustic” sound. I liked my sound before, I LOVE it now.

The Bridge

The bridge on older Sticks is not the new adjustable one like on new Sticks. The new bridges really need a longer body since they stick out the end. If you try to put one on an older Stick then you can’t put the instrument on a stand. You could add some sort of new end bumper of some sort, but it seems like too much work. Since I prefer light gauge strings this really isn’t necessary anyway if you get what Emmett has come up with. Just like the nut, the bridge screws were all replaced with new, bigger brass ones. However, some of the screws are “shaved” to improve the intonation. With light strings, the intonation is pretty close to perfect. Here’s a shot of the whole bridge.

Here’s a close-up of one of the shaved screws.

I think this bridge is great.

The Truss Rod

My poly Stick didn’t have a truss rod, and after 20 years it had a bow in the body. There was just no way to adjust the thing to get low action! This was the main reason I sent it back to Emmett. They routed a channel down the middle and added a truss rod, just like a new Stick gets. Here’s the top anchor.

They did a great routing job! Here is the bottom end with the adjustment nut.

I can now straighten out the neck/body along with the best bamboo Stick! Woo hoo!!! This has let me get the action down very low. The playability is just wonderful now. I played Greg Howard’s new 12-string bamboo at the seminar, and the action was so much better that it was enough to convince me to get mine retrofitted. I had to have that action, and I wanted it now!

The Tale of the Fly (Listening to Your Spirit Helper)

While I was taking the photos of my Stick, I had a visitor to the shoot. A fly kept landing on my Stick and mugging for the camera. At first I was annoyed at its attempts to get my attention. First, it waved it arms.

I just ignored it and shooed it away. It came back and tried flapping its wings hard, thinking I might hear them.

Then it turned its back to me in disgust and flew away. I thought it was finally gone and I could finish the shoot.

But, it came back with a greater resolve and really got in the pictures. I finally stopped and leaned over and said in an annoyed voice, “What?” He stopped, moved closer, looked right at me and said…

I said thank you for the input, and he really flew away this time.

The moral of this tale is that you never know where your Spirit Helper will lead you, and you better listen.

Conclusion

I heartily recommend that anyone with an older Stick without truss rod give SE a call right now and set up a retrofit. I didn’t really expect this big of a difference. I thought it would sound the same and just have better action. The real surprise was the tone! It is bright, with incredible sustain, and has a magical, acoustic-like quality. I have turned off all effects, and I am loving practicing more than ever before. You really owe it to yourself to have an instrument that has been set up recently by Emmett. It is worth the investment in time and money.

Take care.

-Eric