Jerry Garcia Wolf and Tiger Guitar Schematics

CJ · Mar 11, 2019

jus a throwdown on a jpg,

taken from here>

http://dozin.com/jers/guitars/wolf/schematic.htm

pickups changed over the years, signal gets buffered by the jfet preamp, sent out to effects, returns to guitar so you can control the on/off from an on-board switch, this keeps the effects sounding the same regardless of master volume setting,

no out of phase sounds, just series/parallel on pickups, so humbucking takes place regardless.

kind of a large pixel count

CJ · Mar 12, 2019

Here is the Tiger guitar schematic,

differences between the Wolf are unity gain buffer instead of 10 dB gain preamp, caps are wired above ground, humbucker split coil pickups only use one coil in single mode which means no humbucking action.
Also the effects loop jack has been simplified a bit (no contact switches).

you can google the circuit for the buffer and come up with various options,

taken from here>

http://dozin.com/jers/guitars/tiger/info.html

Jarno · Mar 12, 2019

A bass player myself, so I never looked at the guitars, but because of the similarity, I figured they were made by Alembic as well. Apparently not, which explains why these do not have the low pass filters for tone controls, probably.
But that buffer might be the Alembic Stratoblaster
Slightly different schematic: http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_sbb_sc_i.pdf
single FET-thingie

Tubetec · Mar 12, 2019

Didnt Phil Lesh have a bass with each string on a different line output ,in the old days the dead had central cluster type pa where each instrument had its own dedicated cabs vertically stacked , the PA was directly behind the band ,so they used pairs of directional noise cancelling vocal mics to try and reduce spill .

I didnt see an effects loop in a guitar before , I prefer passive personally , but the idea of a switchable send buffered by the preamp I like , Id still want to be hitting the input stage on a tube amp directly with the pickups though .

abbey road d enfer · Mar 13, 2019

Tubetec said:
I didnt see an effects loop in a guitar before , I prefer passive personally , but the idea of a switchable send buffered by the preamp I like , Id still want to be hitting the input stage on a tube amp directly with the pickups though .

The design of these guitars was very much under the influence of their SE, who, if he had his ways, would have the instruments low-impedance and balanced, somewhat in continuity with Les Paul's Recording guitar. He probably didn't relish the idea of high-impedance pick-ups interacting with meters of cable and the non-linear Miller capacitance of a triode.

Tubetec · Mar 13, 2019

I worked with a band one time on their album , they had the big money record deal , no expense spared , they even brought in a vintage Les Paul recording on hire for the sessions , took a bit of work to get a sound out of the LPR and it still wast much use in the end. I'm more sound and electronics than any kind of guitar player , but I do personally prefer the passive ,
LPJr(Gordon Smith) ,Dimarzio Paf low output Humbucker bridge , Kent Armstrong p-90 neck is my set up , no coil taps, no out of phase .

abbey road d enfer · Mar 13, 2019

Tubetec said:
I worked with a band one time on their album , they had the big money record deal , no expense spared , they even brought in a vintage Les Paul recording on hire for the sessions , took a bit of work to get a sound out of the LPR and it still wast much use in the end.

Agreed; I've never heard a LPR sounding good. I heard Les Paul at the Iridium with an LPR once, and didn't like it, although he admittedly had gutted it of its low-impedance stuff.

I'm more sound and electronics than any kind of guitar player , but I do personally prefer the passive ,

I dabbed a little with on-board preamps and buffers. I was never convinced it made a huge difference. Today I always use a wireless system, which eliminates the interaction with the cables and input stage, but the advantages largely overcome the cons.

no out of phase .

When I was into on-board electronics, I figured out out-of-phase is a waste of time. It was all the rage at a time when people who should have known better described the in-between Strat sound (positions 2 & 4) as out-of-phase, which they aren't.

Tubetec · Mar 13, 2019

Gibson L6 was another attempt to rewrite the book , a buddy of mine owns one ,horribly low output , best thing you can do is ,ditch the rotary switch ,wire in a couple of regular Gibson pafs in LP config ,

Looking back , I think I used a passive Di in reverse to get the LPR 600ohm output back up to High(ish) Z ,allowing a few feet of cable between amp and DI so mains Tx wasnt causing interference .

CJ · Mar 15, 2019

Ron Wickersham was the guy behind the onboard preamp, and the first guy to put active electronics in an instrument, although Les Paul had a lot of gimmicks going on way before that,

Ron worked at Ampex before starting Alembic.

Alembic was probably kick started with LSD money from Owsley.

http://www.alembic.com/family/history.html

Jerry Garcia was the guy who wanted the effects loop installed.

Snippits from the book "Grateful Dead Gear" >

https://books.google.com/books/about/Grateful_Dead_Gear.html?id=SiTGAQR-W3YC

spinoffs from Alembic include Furman and Turner Guitars.

Ron >

abbey road d enfer · Mar 15, 2019

CJ said:
Ron Wickersham was the guy behind the onboard preamp, and the first guy to put active electronics in an instrument

http://www.alembic.com/family/history.html

As often, there's exaggeration in this assertion. According to Wickersham's wife, he started dabbing with on-board electronics in '69.
There are some examples of commercial products (not one-offs, experiments or prototypes) earlier than that.
From Wiki: "In 1967 Vox introduced a series of guitars that featured built-in effects such as Distortion (fuzz tone), Repeat Percussion (percussive tremolo), Treble/Bass Booster and a wah-wah operated by the heel of the picking hand pushing on a spring-loaded lever over the bridge. The Delta phantom style guitar and bass, the Starstream teardrop 6-string, and Constellation teardrop bass had such effects. "
Actually, the V251 "Guitorgan" came one year earlier.
I own a 1965 Supro Tremolectric that has on-board tremolo. Using a pulsing bulb (like the ones used in Xmas garlands) and a shunt photoresistor, it hardly qualifies as electronic, though.
I would think there are several other examples.

CJ · Mar 15, 2019

I think Brian May might have put a booster in his ax before then,

Jerry Garcia Wolf and Tiger Guitar Schematics

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