HISTORY / INFO:
This is my twelth project - The Star Guitar. Not sure where I picked this one up at. I think I picked this up at the Salvation Army for 99 cents.
This guitar in interesting that it contains 4 different timbres to choose from. Not sure who laid out this odd little guitar, but it looks like they went with whatever the engineers labeled them on the blueprints, especially for the timbre settings. The button to change the timbre is simply marked 'TIM'. And then LEDs on the head of the guitar are marked 'TLed1' and 'TLed2'. Nice. There are 15 different types of rhythms, 15 different 'chords' and 15 different 'solos' that the guitar can play. When using the 'ABC' button, you first select the rhythm that you want and then select what key/chord you want the guitar to play in. The 'solos' are only used when the guitar is in 'DUAL' or 'DEMO' mode. Actually, either I don't know how to use it, or the DEMO and DUAL modes are the same... or one of the buttons is toast... which is very possible since one of the rhythm/chord buttons on the neck doesn't work.
Was hoping for more bends on this one, but sadly I only found a pitch bend and a mild distortion.
PRE-MODIFICATION PICTURES:
MODIFICATIONS:
1) Pitch mod - Added a toggle that switches between the original resistor and a 500K audio taper pot. Cool thing about this guitar is that it has its own tempo controls, so just when you think it can't go any faster because you have the pitch bend up all the way, you can up it even more using the tempo controls. Stable as can be too. I added an in-line resistor to stop it from crashing.
2) Distortion mod - Used a diode for this bend (a IN4001 I believe). Funny thing with this bend is that when the distortion mod is on, the volume switch (low-mid-high) controls the amount of distortion that is added. Even more amusing is that the volume control doesn't work when the mod is off (and I don't believe it ever did).
3) Audio out - Added a 1/4" phono jack
4) Volume control for audio out
POST-MODIFICATION PICTURES:
front view
SOUNDS:
star-guitar.mp3 - Just me goofin' around with the Star Guitar
FUTURE MODIFICATIONS PLANNED:
Not sure what else I would add to this one. I poked around quite a bit when trying to bend this one. I even tried replacing one of the electrolytic capacitors with a couple different values but it didn't seem to have any effect on it.
Last Modified: February 13, 2005