Guitar
It seems that a lot of readers worldwide have been very interested in the Kay/Univox effector guitar, and particularly the schematic, so I'll have to assume there are a few users and/or enthusiasts out there. I finally got my brother's tobacco sunsburst Les(s) Paul copy fixed. It's armed with built in phase reverse, fuzz, echo, whirlwind, wah and tremelo all stuffed onto a ropey looking board in an unbelievably sloppy rout with a 9volt battery door in the back; it's gloriously funky and right up my alley.
The body looks to be made of mahogany ply, with maple veneer front and back. In the effects rout you can see how the the veneer was bent and laid over the body with 1/4 inch gaps in some places; this is as cheesy as it gets, but somehow, between the massive effect-bay rout and the air between the top and body, this is a very resonant Paul-style guitar. In combination with it's one piece mahogany bolt-on neck, this guitar achieves an almost Fender-like snap and twang which is rare in a Paul. The tuners are reasonably user-friendly for a guitar of this pedigree, not entirely smooth or reliable, but not an exercise in frustration, either. The bling factor is brought with block inlays (I've seen worse inlay) and purfling around the body, not to mention the ridiculously involved control plate. The headstock is inlayed with a mopey looking split diamond arrangement and no brand name; these guitars were sold under at least two imprints, Kay and Univox, and I suspect there were others.
As I noted in a previous article, this example has had it's stock pickups swapped out for a set of Washburn humbuckers, labeled 'Headhunter '69' in the bridge and 'Shaman '70' in the neck position. They're not great humbuckers really, or at least when they're both selected, which is always, 'cause there's no pickup selector - you get a choice of in and out of phase and volume and tone knobs, but both pickups are always on (modders?). Oh yeah, to preserve battery life, the volume knob also functions as an on/off switch with a satisfying little click at the bottom end of the knob's travel. The out-of-phase setting is this guitar's raison d'etre in my opinion; funky, percussive and rich in upper-mid detail, it's a breeze to nail old Switchmaster and Varitone tones. Unfortunately, we are still experiencing some sort of grounding issue, so any contact with the bridge pickup screws elicits all sorts of ungodly buzz and hum when you're in the out-of-phase position. Careful right hand technique will have to suffice for the immediate future...The in-phase pickup sound is a little wooly for my taste, but useable.
Okay, you've all waited patiently... "What about the effects, man?!?" you ask? Well, kinda' cool, in their own way. First of all, echo, whirlwind, wah and tremelo are all pretty much the same thing, as far as I can tell. When Fred (amprepair.ca) handed it back to me, it was with a certain amount of frustration, as he'd put five hours of his life into fixing it and thought he'd only partially succeeded. Well Fred, as it happens, your work was successful. It's just that the difference between the four effects is so subtle that it's east to miss. I haven't tried yet, but I suspect that using a different style battery (alkaline vs. my standard carbon fuzztone engine) might make a difference in the intensity of what I suspect is essentially a subtle trem-y phaser circuit with a couple of tone capacitors to modify it into the different "effects". The good news is that it's a pretty cool effect with a natural tendency to overdrive and a pleasantly oblique and organic wobble. It seems to vary in intensity a bit if I turn the the volume knob switch on and off a few times(?). You can hear it's eccentric oscillations pretty clearly at the beginning of the demo. The modulation circuit on gives up a fairly dynamic and touch sensitive grind that loves to take off at the extreme ends of the sine wave, which also makes me think "phaser circuit".
The fuzz makes me think Muff, with its thick, smooth and dark distortion. It's almost disappointingly refined and wears it's '80s era heritage on it's sleeve. A Fuzzface this is not, giving up neither gating nor splatter, but rather amping things up with a healthy volume boost and a thick-as-molasses dose of woodwind-like lower midrange beef. Using the pickups out-of-phase with the fuzz tempered it's darkness and evinced some honk and snark, pushing the unit more into real fuzz territory.
I'm a sucker for weird and vibey guitars and will forgive a bit of tuning instability or buzzing to get at tones that are otherwise impossible to achieve ("your strat isn't gonna' do this anytime soon"), and this oddly beautiful beast certainly fits the bill. I've seen comments trashing these instruments, but I would have to beg to differ: they are exactly what they advertised - weird, cheap and available in the Sears and Roebuck. It's never a bad idea to have one absolutely wacky instrument in your arsenal, particularly if you record a lot. Sometimes the magic tone to fill in a track is the one that all the conventional instruments are no good at producing.
I put a little tune together for the video that I though would show off the fairly subtle modulations and the grit. As usual, the recording was done direct into my cheapass DAW. I used analog delay (because the guitar's echo isn't really echo) and a Gore Codpiece booster, as well as an EBow. All the other signal processing came courtesy of the guitar's onboard array. Surprisingly, there's quite a bit of grit with the fuzz turned off and the mod section on, as evidenced by the solo guitar at the beginning of the tune. It's weird - the effects and their accidental overdrive seem to affect completely different parts of the eq, and some frequencies seem to escape unscathed...strange, but very cool. I'm very happy that my brother owns this thing and that it is in the stable for short notice borrows.
- Huge Lot Of Hand Wired Custom Guitar Pedals In Oshkosh Wi Area - At Good $
This seller has been building some nice pedals and he is offering them for a pretty good price. Note that he doesn't do any screening on the pedals so the knobs are not marked and there are no logos - still he's got some cool DIY pedals...
- My ,uh, Funky Fuzz Factory Clone.
Fuzz Factory clone: note the radically cross-threaded DC jack...oh, dear. I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took...
- The Memphis Roto Phase - Give Yourself A Swirlie!
The Memphis Roto Phase: groovy and chewy rotations from Japan via Tennessee. My good buddy over at amprepair.ca (the gentleman who brought life back to the ultra-eccentric Univox/Kay Effector guitar, twice!) was kind enough to lend me this groovy...
- His Latest Flame Pt. 2, The Video/demo
Disaster DIY - Frankentele Cabronita Edition So recently I made a trade and acquired a frankly pretty dodgy DIY take on the Fender Tele Cabronita (you can read more about it here and here). Although there is much to be desired about the workmanship...
- More Updates And Ephemera
The echo and trem remain elusive, whirlwind ineffectual, but the fuzz, ooh, the fuzz. Oh dear, my ears are ringing from too much time mixing demos under the headphones. It's really a terrible way to mix, but my boy is asleep in a room...
Guitar
the Kay Effector, pt.2 - the review
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| I love the elegantly curved tailpiece. It's the little things... |
The body looks to be made of mahogany ply, with maple veneer front and back. In the effects rout you can see how the the veneer was bent and laid over the body with 1/4 inch gaps in some places; this is as cheesy as it gets, but somehow, between the massive effect-bay rout and the air between the top and body, this is a very resonant Paul-style guitar. In combination with it's one piece mahogany bolt-on neck, this guitar achieves an almost Fender-like snap and twang which is rare in a Paul. The tuners are reasonably user-friendly for a guitar of this pedigree, not entirely smooth or reliable, but not an exercise in frustration, either. The bling factor is brought with block inlays (I've seen worse inlay) and purfling around the body, not to mention the ridiculously involved control plate. The headstock is inlayed with a mopey looking split diamond arrangement and no brand name; these guitars were sold under at least two imprints, Kay and Univox, and I suspect there were others.
As I noted in a previous article, this example has had it's stock pickups swapped out for a set of Washburn humbuckers, labeled 'Headhunter '69' in the bridge and 'Shaman '70' in the neck position. They're not great humbuckers really, or at least when they're both selected, which is always, 'cause there's no pickup selector - you get a choice of in and out of phase and volume and tone knobs, but both pickups are always on (modders?). Oh yeah, to preserve battery life, the volume knob also functions as an on/off switch with a satisfying little click at the bottom end of the knob's travel. The out-of-phase setting is this guitar's raison d'etre in my opinion; funky, percussive and rich in upper-mid detail, it's a breeze to nail old Switchmaster and Varitone tones. Unfortunately, we are still experiencing some sort of grounding issue, so any contact with the bridge pickup screws elicits all sorts of ungodly buzz and hum when you're in the out-of-phase position. Careful right hand technique will have to suffice for the immediate future...The in-phase pickup sound is a little wooly for my taste, but useable.
Okay, you've all waited patiently... "What about the effects, man?!?" you ask? Well, kinda' cool, in their own way. First of all, echo, whirlwind, wah and tremelo are all pretty much the same thing, as far as I can tell. When Fred (amprepair.ca) handed it back to me, it was with a certain amount of frustration, as he'd put five hours of his life into fixing it and thought he'd only partially succeeded. Well Fred, as it happens, your work was successful. It's just that the difference between the four effects is so subtle that it's east to miss. I haven't tried yet, but I suspect that using a different style battery (alkaline vs. my standard carbon fuzztone engine) might make a difference in the intensity of what I suspect is essentially a subtle trem-y phaser circuit with a couple of tone capacitors to modify it into the different "effects". The good news is that it's a pretty cool effect with a natural tendency to overdrive and a pleasantly oblique and organic wobble. It seems to vary in intensity a bit if I turn the the volume knob switch on and off a few times(?). You can hear it's eccentric oscillations pretty clearly at the beginning of the demo. The modulation circuit on gives up a fairly dynamic and touch sensitive grind that loves to take off at the extreme ends of the sine wave, which also makes me think "phaser circuit".
The fuzz makes me think Muff, with its thick, smooth and dark distortion. It's almost disappointingly refined and wears it's '80s era heritage on it's sleeve. A Fuzzface this is not, giving up neither gating nor splatter, but rather amping things up with a healthy volume boost and a thick-as-molasses dose of woodwind-like lower midrange beef. Using the pickups out-of-phase with the fuzz tempered it's darkness and evinced some honk and snark, pushing the unit more into real fuzz territory.
I'm a sucker for weird and vibey guitars and will forgive a bit of tuning instability or buzzing to get at tones that are otherwise impossible to achieve ("your strat isn't gonna' do this anytime soon"), and this oddly beautiful beast certainly fits the bill. I've seen comments trashing these instruments, but I would have to beg to differ: they are exactly what they advertised - weird, cheap and available in the Sears and Roebuck. It's never a bad idea to have one absolutely wacky instrument in your arsenal, particularly if you record a lot. Sometimes the magic tone to fill in a track is the one that all the conventional instruments are no good at producing.
I put a little tune together for the video that I though would show off the fairly subtle modulations and the grit. As usual, the recording was done direct into my cheapass DAW. I used analog delay (because the guitar's echo isn't really echo) and a Gore Codpiece booster, as well as an EBow. All the other signal processing came courtesy of the guitar's onboard array. Surprisingly, there's quite a bit of grit with the fuzz turned off and the mod section on, as evidenced by the solo guitar at the beginning of the tune. It's weird - the effects and their accidental overdrive seem to affect completely different parts of the eq, and some frequencies seem to escape unscathed...strange, but very cool. I'm very happy that my brother owns this thing and that it is in the stable for short notice borrows.
- Huge Lot Of Hand Wired Custom Guitar Pedals In Oshkosh Wi Area - At Good $
This seller has been building some nice pedals and he is offering them for a pretty good price. Note that he doesn't do any screening on the pedals so the knobs are not marked and there are no logos - still he's got some cool DIY pedals...
- My ,uh, Funky Fuzz Factory Clone.
Fuzz Factory clone: note the radically cross-threaded DC jack...oh, dear. I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took...
- The Memphis Roto Phase - Give Yourself A Swirlie!
The Memphis Roto Phase: groovy and chewy rotations from Japan via Tennessee. My good buddy over at amprepair.ca (the gentleman who brought life back to the ultra-eccentric Univox/Kay Effector guitar, twice!) was kind enough to lend me this groovy...
- His Latest Flame Pt. 2, The Video/demo
Disaster DIY - Frankentele Cabronita Edition So recently I made a trade and acquired a frankly pretty dodgy DIY take on the Fender Tele Cabronita (you can read more about it here and here). Although there is much to be desired about the workmanship...
- More Updates And Ephemera
The echo and trem remain elusive, whirlwind ineffectual, but the fuzz, ooh, the fuzz. Oh dear, my ears are ringing from too much time mixing demos under the headphones. It's really a terrible way to mix, but my boy is asleep in a room...