Yes, I could do with some of those on my LP too. You didn't lose any of the quirky little tones with the new pots did you? I have thought about getting a more gradual taper, but wondered if the old on/off pots actually contributed in any weird way to some special tones that you might lose by replacing them. This is probably not very scientific of me...
What about the caps though? How do you go about choosing one cap over another? Do you know how they will sound, or do you just experiment?
If you are into experimenting, you might be interested in some pots I've got on order from a small company in the UK. These are a different take on tone pots combined with a progressive coil tap. I can't say anything about them yet because I haven't fitted them, but you might want to have a look:http://www.rothwellaudioproducts.co.uk/html/music_products.html _________________ 'Think of a note, then don't play it' - Miles Davis on the art of improvisation. Or, as adapted for my own use: 'Think of a note, then realise you can't play it.'
Joined: 28 Feb 2004 Posts: 19 Location: Cleveland, OH area
Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 12:29 pm Post subject:
With the caps some guys like to experiment, but I just went with what came in the RS kit. I went back and forth between the old and new caps and foud the new caps to give me more air to the tone if you follow. More open sounding.
I actually found more tones with the new pots because I could find those small changes in the volume pots. The small increments were easier to get at if that makes sense.
Still all of these things really only add up to different, not necessarily better. I liked the changes and thought they were a positive. Someone else may have liked it before I messed with it better. _________________ I'm not sayin'...I'm just sayin'
Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:09 am Post subject: Complete transformation!
FWIW if anyone's interested, I've got a happy ending to this tale of frustration. I had the original pickups replaced with a set of Bare Knuckles (PG Blues neck and bridge, and a Mississippi Queen P90 in the middle), and the selector rewired to give neck, neck and bridge, and bridge, like a LP. I had one of the tone pots changed to do the volume on the middle (P90-style) pickup, so it can be brought in regardless of the position of the selector. I also had a TonePros bridge fitted.
It's so different now, I can hardly believe it's the same guitar. It plays really nicely now, with a lively feel under the fingers, and lots of clear, ringing sustain. (It might also have helped that I found the lyre virato tailpiece was not screwed down tightly to the body, and fixed that).
The sounds out of the BKP pickups are just wonderful. Whereas the original Gibson pickups managed to combine sounding muddy and thin at the same time, these are open, clear and full of body and character. The PG Blues set is supplied with reversed polarity so the neck and bridge are out of phase (PG is for 'Peter Green') and with the middle P90 style being in-phase with the bridge but out of phase with the neck, this gives a whole palette of quacky vowel sounds and I can dial in any degree I want. In fact, because the wiring I've got on it means I have to have all three pickups on all the time even if one of them might be only on 2 (if I turn it off altogether, it cuts the top end of the other(s) that are on), what I end up doing is a three-way or two-way mix between the pickups, whatever the selector position. Without a handy quadrilateral equation, I can't say how many different tones that gives, and I suppose since they are continuously variable it's theoretically infinite...calculus is not my strongpoint though. It's SO much better than the original wiring, which really wasted the potential of having three pickups. This is a pretty distinctive sounding guitar now, with a huge palette of bluesy sounds. For finding a special tone, three humbuckers with this continuously-variable in/out of phase balancing is really something. There aren't all that many guitars with three humbuckers and perhaps that's because you'd need to festoon it with knobs if you wanted a vol and tone for each, but this seems to me to be a great way round that problem. It takes a bit of getting used to dialling in the combinations, but as long as I don't try playing it while drunk, I think I've worked out a set that I can use live.
Anyway, all I can say is I'm a happy camper. A guitar I thought was a dud is a complete beauty now. I would heartily recommend a look at Bare Knuckle (bareknucklepickups.co.uk) for anyone considering new pickups. Tim there recommended this set for me after I told him my woes, and he wound them to order with four conductor wiring in case I wanted to add a phase switch, and a beautiful aged finish to match my guitar. Saved me from being an SG-hater! _________________ 'Think of a note, then don't play it' - Miles Davis on the art of improvisation. Or, as adapted for my own use: 'Think of a note, then realise you can't play it.'
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