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Tone Kicker - Guitar Preamp

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--------------------------------------NO LONGER AVAILABLE-------------------------------------- The TONE-KICKER is an internal guitar pre-amplifier designed for electric guitar, its small enough to fit into the control cavity of your electric guitar and is powered by a nine volt battery.
The Tone Kicker is designed to work with passive pickups & will give you benefits by enhancing your sound while keeping the natural tone of your passive pickups. 

Benefits Include;
-Clean Boost
-Retains a full sound
-Drives long cable runs without losing top end or treble
-Retains treble when rolling down the volume knob on your guitar
-Increased Sustain
-enough gain to overdrive the front end of your amp

Basically the Tone Kicker will take your original sound and enhance it for a much fuller tone.

To hear the Tone Kicker in action click on one of the links below.

Custom Made SuperStrat with Tonekicker Video Demo

Original Demo Video

ToneKicker in a box demo (not for private sale)

------------------OUT OF STOCK------------------

To purchase a ToneKicker Internal Guitar Preamp send an email with your request & mailing address to the email address in the "Contact" page. All emails receive a reply ASAP (usually within 24 hours).

Payment is only via Paypal, The Paypal I.D (email address) will be provided via email after your request has been finalized. Once the payment has been received your ToneKicker will be on its way. Whilst in stock your ToneKicker can be posted withing two business days. if the alfalfasprout69 Custom Shop is out of stock the turn around time is approx 2 weeks due to ordering the necessary parts.

The cost is just $22 USD, This Price includes postage to anywhere in the world, postage is by standard international mail from Sydney Australia, Due to the distance of overseas country's the arrival time is hard to estimate, however customers in the USA usually get there items after about 2 weeks from the postage date.

NOTE: Due to the customer self installation & low selling price the ToneKicker is NOT Refundable.

Your ToneKicker will arrive with the following items:-
-ToneKicker Preamp
-9v battery Snap (clip)
-small piece of Heatshrink tubing

 

LIMITATIONS:- The ToneKicker was designed for humbucking pickups or silent single coil pickups & works great with these types of pickups ,however if you play single coil or P-90 pickups that hum like crazy the ToneKicker will amplify the hum. a unity gain tone kicker can be made on request if desired which will not give you a boost in signal but you still gain all the benefits of having a preamp in your electric guitar. 



Note: if you do not know how to use a soldering iron DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT. it may be easy to install, however, you will need experience in soldering and use a low power soldering iron. INSTALL AT YOUR OWN RISK.

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Installation guide

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STEP ONE

Locate your control cavity & get familiar with it

If you have a scratch plate like on a fender Stratocaster you will have to remove the entire scratch plate on the front of the guitar

If you have pickups mounded to the body remove the control cavity (should be located on the back of the guitar)

Find a suitable location for the Tone Kicker & nine volt battery

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STEP TWO

Locate the output jack

If you have a stereo output jack in your guitar then you can use it for tone kicker

If you have a mono output jack then replace it with a stereo output jack

(You will have to supply your own output jack!)

NOTE: there are basically two types of stereo ¼ output jacks.

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There will be three terminals; they are referred to as TIP, RING & SLEEVE

TIP = output signal from your guitar

RING = Switch for Ground

SLEEVE = Ground

NOTE: Closed style output jack terminals vary from different brands; please ensure you know what the correct terminals are by running a continuity test.

The guitar below has a closed style output jack;

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Make a note of what wire's on the output jack are connected to & which terminal's they are attached to. In this guitar there is a shielded wire used for the output wire, the white wire is inside the grey wire which is the ground (shield). The white wire is the output signal from the guitars circuit normally this wire comes from the center lug of the volume potentiometer. It is then connected to the "TIP" of the output jack & the grey ground shield comes from a common ground point (usually from the back of the volume potentiometer) and connects to the "SLEEVE" of the output jack. Please note your wires in your guitar may be different colors but they serve the same purpose. Your wires may not use the shielded kind like in the picture above, if your guitar does not use shield wires just use the ground & signal wires as they are, you do not need shielded wire. 

STEP THREE

Remove the wires from the output jack making note of which wires are connected to what terminals on the output jack.

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STEP FOUR

Start by connecting the Black wire of the battery snap to the "RING" terminal of the output jack.

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STEP FIVE

Connect the input, output & ground wires of the tone kicker

Black Wire from the tone kicker is connected to the "SLEEVE" terminal of the output jack along with the original wire that was connected to the " SLEEVE " terminal of the output jack, or you can connect the Black Wire from the tone kicker to any common ground point in the guitar's circuit like the back of the volume or tone potentiometers (but NOT the "RING" terminal of the output jack). Please note that the original wire that was connected to the output jacks "SLEEVE " terminal must still be connected to it. In the picture below the black wire from the tone kicker was first soldered to the original grey wire that went to the "SLEEVE " terminal, then both wires are soldered to the " SLEEVE " terminal of the output jack

White Wire the input (White wire) from the tone kicker connects to the output of the guitar circuit (this is usually the centre lug of the volume pot).

Blue wire is the output of the tone kicker and is connected to the "TIP" terminal of the output jack.

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CLOSE UP OF WIRING CONNECTIONS

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FINAL NOTES;

1.     Insulating the battery

You can use a small piece of cloth to wrap around the battery, or a better method is to wrap the battery in electrical tape. 

(note: you will have to supply your own battery).

The reason for this is to ensure that the metal casing of the battery does not "short out" any part of the guitars circuit


2. Using heat shrink or electrical tape;

If you need to join any wires to install the Tone Kicker you will have to make sure each join is insulated. You can use small pieces of "Heat Shrink" or wrap each wire join with electrical tape.

With every wire join if possible start by;

-Slipping the heat shrink over one of the wires (if you choose to use heat shrink)

-Making a Mechanical connection

-Solder the wires together neatly 

-Slide the heat shrink over the connection & apply heat to shrink, or wrap the join with electrical tape

(IF YOU DO NOT INSULATE YOU'RE JOINS THE CIRCUIT COULD "SHORT OUT" AND THE TONE KICKER WILL NOT FUNCTION LEAVING YOUR GUTIAR WITH NO OUTPUT)

-To order a TONE KICKER (Internal Guitar Pre-Amp)

-For all enquirers 


Email: alfalfasprout69 at gmail dot com



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