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Now that I think about it, I’ve never really played a bad sounding gold foil - I have a certain model of Silvertone/Harmony that is a particular fav, but they were often the best thing about bad guitars - maybe not bad guitars, but I owned some in terrible condition. The pickups were always cool, though.

They’re their own thing for sure, I don’t think you can really compare them to lipsticks, P90s, etc. They had their moment, so I’m sure you can find a million demos on youtube, hopefully without some lumberjack looking dumbass in slim cut jeans expressing hisself. They better not to do that

Not sure where to post this, but I have to. Normally I think sharing settings for pro audio gear is dumb as shit, but unfortunately the famous 1176 settings tend to work pretty well - Nigel Godrich, Dr Pepper - I’m sorry they just sound good. I’m sorry everything sounds good through those compressors. Even if you ruined a track with one, I bet you it would sound good mixed with a dry mult.

This one is cool because I never would have tried that knob position in a million years otherwise - the slow attack/fast release thing is sort of compression 101, but this one looks off:

“Bones Howe”

Attack 6
Release 7
Ratio 12:1
(Input/output as necessary)

w/ typical 1176 numbering and speed settings, that means the attack and release knobs are almost at 100% or their fastest settings.

Supposedly the knee of 1176s changes with the ratio, so it kind of seems like its acting like a limiter, no idea if it actually is or not, but it makes DI bass appropriately growly even at low GR settings - not subtle tho it does sound good to push the needle a bit… just tapping it like I like to do on 4:1 didn’t cut it. I never really used ratios other than 4 or 8 unless I was fucking around on percussion or going all buttons in, but I’m going to keep trying this on everything.

Usual caveat - when I talk about using a ‘1176,’ I have an Audioscape 76D, but judging from people who would actually know (I don’t), those units seems pretty interchangeable with the real ones, at least for the day to day stuff I do. I wish I had more of them.

I bought a new sidecar rack so that I didn’t have to slum it with my crappy racks anymore. My genius idea to take advantage of the new space was to point the compressors - which is all that has meters aside from my mixer - to the tracking area and have the eq pointing at the normal monitoring position. With the way the two rooms are situated I can still adjust the compressor settings from the mixer, but cant see the meters easily. From the tracking area, I can see the meters, threshold lights, etc. so I can tell if I’m pumping out too much level. We’ll see how long it actually lasts, but I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time - my wife got good at setting the input gain at the 610 while I was whacking on a snare or whatever, but hopefully this will work without having to bother her.

Ovation Magnum

Bought this project Magnum recently. There was a break in the headstock that had been glued and screwed, but never cleaned up. Somebody had tried to make new brass bridge saddles with hand tools, and hadn't really succeeded. Looked like it hadn't been cleaned in 30 years. Worst case of fingerboard gunk I've ever seen. Large finish chip on the body at the lower bout.



I started sanding the headstock to get it cleaned up before filling in the crack with a mix of clear epoxy and sawdust that I tried to colormatch as best I could. Cleaned up the fingerboard with naptha and steel wool.



I was able to sand out the edges of the finish chip on the lower bout as it hadn't gone through all the layers of poly. I filled in a couple of holes in the wood, drop-filled the spots with new poly, sanded them flush, then hit the body with heavy, medium, and fine-cut polish. I also shielded the cavity. Did a sanding and polishing of the pickguard. Pickups were completely disassembled, rusty hardware was soaked in evaporust. Pickup ring and bridge would have originally been anodized black. I stripped/sanded them and then wiped with Super Blue gun bluing chemical stuff to get them closer to black, but still have that aged look. Cut a new piece of foam for the bridge mute.



I defretted the neck (ebony is a bear to work with, wants to chip like crazy), masked the fretboard, then shot it with 6 coats of gloss oil-based polyurethane, then 4 coats of satin wipe-on poly.



And that brings us to today. Still need to have new frets installed and dressed. That's not something I want to tackle myself. Need to find a shop first.
I drew up some replacement brass saddles in Autodesk and am waiting for them to arrive from the manufacturer overseas. If they work out, I may organize a group buy of new saddles. The Ovation Magnum fb group always seems to have somebody looking for new saddles.

[NOTORIOUSLY LITIGIOUS GUITAR COMPANY] Copy

https://imgur.com/a/y8iFZu2

Thanks to some new GFS NYIII humbuckers, a wiring harness and my guitar work area, the Totally Not A 330 rides again. Took a good deal of patience to get everything put together—with the wiring harness in place I was getting dead outputs. One Tylenol and a hot cup of tea with my girlfriend later, I re-mounted the wiring harness, this time making sure everything was untangled and all the pots were oriented the same way. Boom, I was getting signal from the Kwikplug leads.

Everything was pretty academic afterwards. Gonna hook up my pedalboard soon so I can make sure everything sounds proper, and see if I can get a comparison to my G&L ASAT Special. My hope is that with the NYIIIs I’ll get a chimey, aggressive tone with slightly more bottom end (and no hum would be a plus). Will report back once I’ve been able to put it through its paces.

Alright, so:

The Good: sounds reasonably close to the G&L. I’m no longer tempted to get a set of Not-MFDs in a toaster shell… for now. The MFDs still have that certain je ne sais quois I’m chasing. Still, cranking “In The City” through my Tech 21 Liverpool sounds pretty much like what you’d expect, which is what I was going for in the first place.

The Not So Good: not like I ever use it much at all on the bridge pickup but the bridge pickup tone knob no worky. Additionally the volume knobs have a weird taper and seem to go totally dead when it’s still at 3 out of 10. Again though if I’m gonna use the tone knob for something it’s gonna be on the neck pickup, and I rarely ever ride the volume knobs so I’m not too bothered.

The Crap: boy, those sympathetic strings behind the bridge sure are a motherfucker, huh? They sound especially heinous picking behind the B and G strings. I don’t want to have to put some dorky bullshit mute behind the bridge to deaden them, plus it’d be nice to sound like Sonic Youth sometimes. Still though I forsee this possibly being a feedback problem live (which is likely where this guitar is gonna see most of its action) so if anyone’s got any ideas I’m all ears. (Yes, including if I have to put some dorky bullshit behind the bridge.)

Last post I’ll make on the guitar. Was able to get the action pretty low without buzzing on the fretboard and I’ve got it playing pretty fast. It does take a little getting used to since I think the fretwire is not as high as the ASAT’s which seem to have taller frets which I am very well used to by now.

In any case the guitar just passed muster in last band practice and with my two Tele-shaped objects is now the third I feel comfortable with taking to a gig. Also, the issues I pointed out last comment seem to have taken care of themselves to some degree—the bridge pup tone knob magically works now, and with everything in my rig set up as it is now, I did not get any feedback at least at times when I did not want it. In fact hitting the strings behind the bridge and then turning on another OD pedal seems to be a pretty nice way to summon a little bit of it that is easy to turn off at will.

Nate Dort wrote: Fri Dec 26, 2025 9:10 pmCut a new piece of foam for the bridge mute.

Great post. What did you use for the foam? How did you seal it to the mute?

I’ve got to do this - mine works except for the E and A strings, which I’ve adapted to, but I really need to fix this and don’t trust the local guys to do something like this as I use the mute a lot.

That ovation looks great. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one IRL.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Mon Dec 29, 2025 11:17 pm

Nate Dort wrote: Fri Dec 26, 2025 9:10 pmCut a new piece of foam for the bridge mute.

Great post. What did you use for the foam? How did you seal it to the mute?

I’ve got to do this - mine works except for the E and A strings, which I’ve adapted to, but I really need to fix this and don’t trust the local guys to do something like this as I use the mute a lot.

I got a $3 sample of this closed-cell foam: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155340821860

3/16" thick. They sent me enough to cut about 20 of these mute pads. I used DAP Weldwood contact cement to secure it.

I don't know if it's going to work or last until I get this thing strung up. It seems like it might not be sturdy enough. I might make one out of something denser, like neoprene mousepad material or something.