Enhanced possibilities: Active Guitar-Electronics
In our third installment of articles by Helmuth Lemme, we go – compared to the last topic of low impedance pickups and a lot of tricks to get various sound out of passive guitar electrics – completely the other way: we are looking at the possibilities that active guitar electronics offer. Once we get over […]
A vintage story: restoring an old Burns Bass
Helmuth Lemme is not just an expert in electronics but also a true hands-on craftsman who loves working on guitars and basses. He has a particular knack for bringing derelict instruments of lesser well-known makes back to life, actually not just restoring them but often making them much better in sound and playability than they […]
Potential trouble-makers in the amp: Passive Offenders
In the last articles posted here, author and guitar & amp expert Helmuth Lemme has been looking at pickups and circuitry in guitars … now we switch to the partners of these instruments, the amplifier. There is a lot of continued discussion about tubes vs. solid-state devices, and indeed these active components are what drives […]
Under the looking-glass: Measuring Pickups
Magnetic pickups for electric guitars really are very simple devices: a magnet, some wire wound as a coil within the magnetic field … that’s it. However, due to the specific circumstances around the electric guitar and ist amplification as it has historically evolved, these pickups have some idiosyncrasies that give them their sound. Of course, […]
So many options: wiring electric Double-Neck Guitars
Electric double-neck guitars are very special beasts … not easy to wield but very impressive in several ways – especially in a live-setting. If you own one, chances are that you have thought about about modifying their circuitry according to your own special needs, or have even already taken corresponding action. I certainly have modded […]
Low-impedance pickups – Les Paul’s favorite … but a generally neglected kind
In our second installment of articles by Helmut Lemme, we turn to a special kind of pickup that was favored by Les Paul but for a number of reasons never made it big in the guitar world: the low-impedance pickup. In fact, it has all the right features and should be the go-to type of […]
No more interference … how to decrease noise and hum in electric guitars
I am quite excited: Helmuth Lemme, honorary GITEC-member and well-known expert in “all things electric guitar” has made some articles available to us for publication. Helmuth has published books on the technical background of electric-guitar circuitry since the early 1970’s – among those interested in the topic in the German-speaking community, these books have legendary […]