ASAT project completed

I'm a lousy player but a devoted modder. With a 250k pan pot, a 250/1000 pan pot and a 250k push/pull pot, I wired a middle pickup into my Tribby. I get blendable bridge and neck, switchable middle, and treble and bass contours, all on three matching knobs. The sweeps are nice, positions 2 and 4 sound great. Now all I need to do is find the right adjusting screw for the middle pickup and practice more.

I'm a lousy player but a devoted modder. With a 250k pan pot, a 250/1000 pan pot and a 250k push/pull pot, I wired a middle pickup into my Tribby. I get blendable bridge and neck, switchable middle, and treble and bass contours, all on three matching knobs. The sweeps are nice, positions 2 and 4 sound great. Now all I need to do is find the right adjusting screw for the middle pickup and practice more.

Hi Noah,

This is a very cool project you have done. Kind of an ASAT Special Deluxe Carved Top 'S'+.

Can you post some sound samples of each position (after putting the rest of the strings on )?

Thanks for posting it (I did move your post to The Project Page sub-forum).

Very cool project and it looks perfect. Thanks for posting and let us know how you like it when it is complete. -- Darwin

Craig, sorry I posted this in the wrong forum -- thanks for moving it. I'm going to get a friend of mine who can really play to do some samples, and if anyone wants a wiring diagram, I can draw one up! I read about the concept (maybe in this forum) a while ago when an Ohio G&L dealer talked about how he experimented with an S-500 middle pickup in that spot, liked it so much that he had G&L make him a bunch of them and even had it branded the "ASAT Cat." He's a nice guy, but when I asked him for the particulars of the wiring scheme they used, he said, "That's my secret, brudda!" Love it! His guitars don't have the blend pots -- just a regular switch and a regular tone pot. I was just curious to solve the logistics puzzle -- how many features can I pack into three knobs. I'm scouring the internet right now to see if there's a way to add time travel to its features and perhaps a "Make Jennifer Lawrence Materialize in My Living Room" feature.

I'm going to get a friend of mine who can really play to do some samples, and if anyone wants a wiring diagram, I can draw one up! I read about the concept (maybe in this forum) a while ago when an Ohio G&L dealer talked about how he experimented with an S-500 middle pickup in that spot, liked it so much that he had G&L make him a bunch of them and even had it branded the "ASAT Cat." He's a nice guy, but when I asked him for the particulars of the wiring scheme they used, he said, "That's my secret, brudda!" Love it! His guitars don't have the blend pots -- just a regular switch and a regular tone pot. I was just curious to solve the logistics puzzle -- how many features can I pack into three knobs.

Hi Noah.

Cool mod. I think the sweep is the most interesting part. It'll be great to hear the samples.

I'd like to offer one small correction about the ASAT Cat. The dealer is from State College, PA. It's Alley Cat Guitars. I also remember seeing something about him being from Ohio -- not sure who first got that idea. Not that it matters much, but I know the guy and like him a lot. Well, also because I own one of his 'Cats! It's my avatar shot. The only lefty 'Cat sold (so far).

What I want to know is which Trib did you start with? The knobs seem to indicate an ASAT Deluxe Carved Top, but I would have thought that the humbuckers would have left too big a hole. Your neck and bridge MFDs are a perfect fit.

Thanks and Play On!
TBill

TBill, you're so right -- I brain-farted on the location of Alley Cat Music. In fact, I just saw a new eBay posting for another set of Cats.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/G-L-Asat-Cat-/2 ... 3cd9fa6d86

The guitar I started with was a Tribute ASAT Special Deluxe Carved Top -- G&L made them for a couple years a few years ago (but don't any longer). Like this one:

http://www.studiogears.com/G&L_Tribute_ ... origin=pla

So the only mod I had to do to the body itself was adding the middle pickup route. The rest was coming up with a wiring diagram that would cram all the functionality into 3 knobs.

Thanks for correcting me on Alley Cat. Nice guys -- and clever! Is there anything notable about their wiring inside? I notice they have the middle pickup closer to the neck than I do, also.

very cool

Hey Noah,

Not only a sweet looker buts oh dislike a cool set up. Any chance you can share schematic or is that's "Trade secret"?

I always liked those guitars and could see it even more as project now with yer options. Maybe I can find one on the "bay".

Post sound clips if possible.

Noah, thanks for clearing up my confusion.

Regarding the ASAT Cat wiring: I know there's something special about it, but I couldn't begin to tell you what it is. I've never been curious enough to open it up myself and look. Funny, Mark (the guy you talked to at Alley Cat) gave me the same answer that he gave you (it might even have been word-for-word the same!). I can tell you how it sounds, though. [This is all in comparison to my S-500.] The volume pot is more linear. When the tone pot is closed down, it rounds off the high end without sounding dull. When the tone pot is open it plays the high end without sounding tinny. The ASAT Special MFDs have a warmer sound than the S-500 MFD that's in the middle position, and when the two sounds are mixed (neck/middle or bridge/middle) it's a really complete sound. This is where the tone control lets me roll some of that off, if I want to.

Another interesting feature is where they put the humbucking positions. Instead of putting them in the standard neck/middle and bridge/middle positions, they put them in the neck/bridge and bridge/middle positions. When I asked Mark why they did it that way, he said that in the prototyping process their experiments led them to the conclusion that those positions would be the most useful for hum cancelling. That definitely turned out to be true for me.

My overall conclusion is that the whole of the ASAT Cat is greater than the sum of its parts. I don't feel like I have to sacrifice anything if I want to carry only one guitar.

One final clarification: I still love my S-500. It was my first G&L. Sometimes it pretty convenient to have one at the ready with an alternate tuning or a particular fx config. And let's face it, ya really can't have too many guitars, anyway!

Regards and Rock On!