RMC/Warr string mods on Megatar 'Hammer of Thor'

Started by LPHovercraft, June 18, 2011, 03:39:46 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

LPHovercraft

Hey folks just wanted to share a bit of what I've done to tweak my Hammer of Thor setup. I found that the cross-talk in the Ghost pickups was a bit of a distraction. It probably is due to my primitive-to-non-existant technique (being a beginner) but I thought I'd go ahead and do *everything* I could to control every factor that I could in order to lower the learning curve. So after some research and a bit of asking around I selected RMC saddles. When I received the them I noticed that they were delivered with much more robust wiring, and thought that would be an issue with connecting them to the Ghost system. Fortunately, RMC had a prototype mounting board that allows you to bridge those connections into the jumper cable to Graphtech's Hexpander input. They call it the UM-GT01.



You'll see that it makes the bridging of the six leads from the saddles into the connector a breeze.



I simply wrapped the completed boards with vinyl tape and connected the jumpers.



There's not much open space inside the body of the Hammer of Thor, but I found just enough to lash the UM-GT01s to the 13-pin sockets.



Here's a view before re-dressing all of the cabling inside the unit (I also took the opportunity to replace the MIDI volume controls, as both the guitar and bass side had broken pot stems).



Once everything was reassembled, I went down the line to check that I had wired correctly, and that I had a reasonable signal level. I used a single guitar string successively across each pickup, held taut with my hand and plucked the string to see it register on the VG-99. Thankfully, I hadn't botched it up to this point.



For stringing the instrument I had chosen Warr guitar medium gauge strings, and it's a good/lucky thing that I did. The RMC pickups have a small 'dimple' in them that made me think that the bass strings would be too wide to properly 'sit' in the groove. As it turns out, since Warr uses RMC pickups on their instruments, they designed strings that actually taper to the core strand before making contact with the saddle. Pretty brilliant.



The one last 'wrinkle' to this process was dealing with the 'fat' bass strings that Warr provided. The holes/ports at the bottom of the instrument are fine for passing the strings through - although the bottom string was a *tight* fit. It was the tuner eyelets at the headstock where things got really gnarly. Those oddly stranded strings just wouldn't fit through the first two posts. So, I bit the bullet and bored them out with a hand drill, which was quick and relatively painless. I have to admit, this was a little bit scary, since I hadn't planned on taking a drill to the instrument. Working with electronics is one thing, but this had a feeling of permanence to it that I hadn't considered until I was confronted with the situation. That said, if I had really botched it up I could always replace the tuner - which would have been a P.I.T.A. but I had already gotten this far. In the end I only had to drill out the bottom two tuner posts, and it was just a *smidge* bigger than the hole that was already there.



Notice that the 'taper' at the top of the first few strings actually lay over the nut. It doesn't seem to affect the tuning stability and of course the corded portion of the string is lying on/above the damper, so it's a non-issue. I suppose it's a function of the fanned fret arrangement making those strings exceptionally long.

Once everything was fully assembled, I reset the pickup type in the VG-99 and VB-99 from "G" to "R", reset the input sensitivity to the baseline values and then spent some time tuning the strings. I noticed that the tuner on the VG-99 tracked exceptionally quickly even without tweaking the individual string settings. The pitch for each string pulled in relatively quickly and has been remarkably stable. I still have some "second octave" tuning to do on one or two strings, but it's really minor nits. I was shocked at how quickly it all came together - and at how well the instrument has performed after the upfit was completed.

The down side - if there *is* one - is that my chops are shot. That's not the fault of any part of this instrument. The blame lies solely with me and my schedule. I had to send in the Ghost pickups in order to get the RMCs back at a discount - a great policy of theirs - but I happened to do it *right* before the time that I was planning a move to a new apartment. By the time I got the pickups and then the UM-GT01s in, I was right in the middle of my move. It had been a few months since I had broken down the instrument and taken off the Ghost saddles by then - bad planning on my part. By the time I moved, got set up enough to do the install/upfit, I felt like what little technique I had was lost. That said, starting over again on an instrument that's *so* rewarding is a pretty spectacular experience.

When looking at the input sensitivity meters on the VB and VG units, I immediately noticed better pickup performance in rejecting crosstalk. I like the feel of the Warr strings and overall the instrument has a really amazing quality to it. I'm ecstatic that I chose the Hammer of Thor, and that I added the mod and new strings to the instrument. When I'm not playing the instrument, I'm thinking (and sometimes dreaming) about playing it. *This* is what I had imagined when I bought my first tapper, and now the only left to do is practice, practice, practice.
Houston Haynes - LPHovercraft

Elantric

WoW!:)

Thanks for sharing the full details! This will surely help others seeking to venture down the RMC Piezo Saddle installation route!