Jan Cyrka - preamp

Haych

A long winded roundabout story why, but I got briefly talking with somebody on a Facebook group last night regarding Jan Cyrka and particularly his style and a bit of gear.

I always wondered how Jan managed to get such incredible sustain and I learned that he apparently uses some kind of on-board preamp to boost the signal.

Purely out of curiosity does anyone know what kind of preamp Jan uses?  I'm not about to go out and buy one, it's just to satisfy my need to know and how they shape tone etc.

DLM

I remember from old Guitarist interviews that he used a sound very close to feedback. For rests, he'd have to kick off his drive pedal. 

Are you thinking of tunes like The Migrant? That might actually have been a Sustaniac system, I'd have to see if I can find the right issue.

YouTube comments from JamTrackCentral have the following:

"He has a preamp built into the guitar which boosts the output signal by around four times. This has a low pass filter on it to get rid of the fizzy highs. Combined with the Boss OD-1 and the Laney, and the way he strikes the strings of course, is how he gets that tone."

"It's not another pedal. It's a circuit that is inside the guitar. He made it himself, so sorry but it's not on the market for sale. "

"Yes you can do that if you wish. It should be quite easy for someone with a little knowledge of electronics to build one of those circuits. I imagine that the components wouldn't cost much more than 20 dollars at best. Good luck!"

I've just turned this up, too, I'll watch it later:

The video only has 15 comments, but three are Laurie Monk, Jack Thammarat and Sam Coulson!

Haych

Ah right, so it's a DIY job!  I see.

It was actually his tune In the End on which I think he used the same Kramer as in the video above.  He's able to sustain even very high notes for seemingly ages when usually (for me at least) they decay very quickly.  So I was just curious how he did it - I assumed it was compressor into an OD into an already saturated amp but seems I may have been wrong about the compressor if he's using an on-board pre of some sort.

digitalscream

I seem to recall that it's some variation of the standard 741 op-amp reference circuit. The only reason this occurs to me is that I remember my dad and one of his mates making something like this when I was (much) younger, and his mate referred to Jan Cyrka using a similar circuit in his guitar a few years later.

hubobulous

From memory, didn't he call it the Hoodlum Circuit? Might be worth searching around for that?

Van_Hayden

The Hoodlum pedal was mentioned on one of the CD sleeves iirc

Haych

Couldn't find anything on the Hoodlum circuit but there's plenty on the 741 op-amp circuit.

I've never really built any pedals/circuits etc, although I did mod an amp once with great success so might break out the soldering iron and try something out just for the hell/fun of it.

I've got a Bosch ECU to socket soon so may as well make a day of it

thermionic

Most on-board boosts like that seem to be single transistor amplifiers - Fuzzdog has a few which look like the pcbs may be small enough to fit under a pickguard (you could build it in a pedal box as well of course). There's a couple there which are opamp based.

Haych

@thermionic - is there any advantage of having the preamp mounted in the guitar as opposed to built into a pedal?  I can't really think of any unless there's some significant signal degradation between the guitar and pedal. 

thermionic

No, just that your OP mentioned "on-board preamp" and that's what many 70s Strat players did. Having the circuit in a pedal is obviously a lot more flexible.

olafgarten

Haych said:

@thermionic - is there any advantage of having the preamp mounted in the guitar as opposed to built into a pedal?  I can't really think of any unless there's some significant signal degradation between the guitar and pedal. 

The only thing I could think of would be a guitar mounted control for the circuit, a pedal would be easier to power as well.

Haych

thermionic said:

No, just that your OP mentioned "on-board preamp" and that's what many 70s Strat players did. Having the circuit in a pedal is obviously a lot more flexible.

Thanks bud.  I only mentioned it as on-board as that's what I understand Jan to have been using.  If I were personally using one I'd have it in a pedal for the reasons you and @olafgarten mention. 

I'm more interested in it for education purposes than actually needing to use one, bit like how Les Paul said he needed to know what happened between flicking the switch and the light turning on.

guitarcookie1

I have the Di Marzio Shockwave system that has the pre-amp built into the jack socket. Combined with the HS3-alike pickups you can have a pretty traditional sounding Start (pre-amp off) or something quite humbucker-like with the pre-amp on.

Rocker

TBH I never heard of this guy until a few minutes ago.  I am not a fan of 'guitar music' as such but the track 'Brief Encounters' sounded nice.  Pity about the confused backing track - a simple drums and bass would have suited this better IMHO - but who am I to comment about his music.  

Pete24v

That's a name I've not heard of for a while! I have 3 albums of his on cd some where, from memory he had amazing technique and great melodies. And an amazing wah tone. 

Into the loft I go

siraxeman

I wonder how far off you'd be with the fender active mid boost 25dbs via an internal 9v battery.ive had that put in 2 strats in the past...it's a simple off the shelf mod. No need to route for a battery you can squeeze it in just fine under the scratchplate....definitely not recommended for regular noise you single coils though...as I learned !! It adds extra noise.....I realised that's why fender only put it in  with noiseless pups. 

digitalscream

siraxeman said:

I wonder how far off you'd be with the fender active mid boost 25dbs via an internal 9v battery.ive had that put in 2 strats in the past...it's a simple off the shelf mod. No need to route for a battery you can squeeze it in just fine under the scratchplate....definitely not recommended for regular noise you single coils though...as I learned !! It adds extra noise.....I realised that's why fender only put it in  with noiseless pups. 

You know...it occurs to me to wonder why nobody's using batteries from mobile phones for this purpose. They're much flatter - they could easily fit in a trem cavity without touching the strings. Hell, you can even buy the credit card-sized rechargeables; a step-up to whatever voltage is necessary, and they'll still comfortably put out enough current for a preamp circuit.

digitalscream

While we're on the topic of Jan Cyrka...does anybody remember the awesome intro music for Hoodlum Corner on the Guitarist CD? One month he put the whole thing in his column, probably in the mid-90s. I've been trying to find it for years...even tried to get in touch with the man himself, to no avail.

siraxeman

For such an amazing guitarist I'm surprised he's not done more than his 3 albums...seems to make more of his living from his studio and also that jam track central thingy he's doing.

Haych

siraxeman said:

For such an amazing guitarist I'm surprised he's not done more than his 3 albums...seems to make more of his living from his studio and also that jam track central thingy he's doing.

Think he does a lot of music for film/TV too.  I think the theme to the Jeremy Vile show is one of his IIRC, not that I'd ever watch it.

thermionic

Wasn't he in Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction for a time?