Projects for Guitarists (Anderton, Craig)

Rating: 5
Year: 1995
Genre: Music, Electronics
Read again? Yes

Of my three project books, this is the one I never really cracked open. By the time I got this one, my interest in building my own guitar effects--and my interest in electronics--went on a back shelf in favor of other things.

This isn't a re-packaging of Anderton's "Electronic Projects for Musicians"; he does give some basics in the first couple of chapters, but the 35 projects in this book are all new, many gathered from Anderton's columns in Guitar Player Magazine):

Wall-wart tamer (mini extension cord with switch)
AC adapter hum-buster
Making crossfade & pan-pot pedals
Effects-order switcher
Power/Status indicator monitor
Stereo/Mono breakout box
Buffer Board
"Clarifier" On-board preamp/EQ
Beat the DI blues with IGGY (direct-injection box)
Frequency Booster
Phase switcher
AC power supply/battery eliminator
AC-powered practice amp
Signal switcher
Volume pedal de-scratcher
Cheap & Cheerful (Guitar) tone mods
Humbucking Pickup Tricks
Pots & Pans (pan-pot add-on to guitars)
Telecaster Rewiring
Balanced/Unbalanced Adapter
Direct Injector
Tape Recorder to Echo-unit conversion
Building a Better Bypass
Restoring Vintage Effects
Vintage Effects de-hisser
Adding Presets to Vintage Effects
Go/No-Go Cord Tester
Testing Impedance
LED Level Meter
"Tri-Test" Cord Checker
Designing an on-board (in-guitar) pre-amp
Octave-doubling fuzz
Quadrafuzz
Rocktave Divider
"Stack in a Box" tube preamp

One very helpful section helps you translate between American and International capacitor values (this information would have been useful in Penfold's book).

Well-written, with plenty of drawings and parts lists. There's no "sound page" as with Anderton's other book, but I won't quibble over something like that.