Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: Lezard on February 22, 2011, 04:46:56 PM
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Hi all.
I recently installed an AII stormy monday neck in my Epi Lp ( don't think i need to mention the spectacular improvment it made).But i'm having some problems with rolling the tone off, the tone pot seems to be acting more like a volume pot.
Is there anything I could do to have the option of darkening the sound of the pup? the clarity it has is amazing, fantastic for most jazz applications but i'm having trouble getting a wooly/mellow bebop-ish tone from it .
the guitar has modern les paul wiring (for now) w/.022 tone caps.
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Hiya, :)
I would urge you to re-check the wiring ( including solder joints / splashover at the 3 way toggle ) and the 'offending' tone pot for heat / soldering iron damage to it's track - as I have had the same pickups as you in a Les Paul Standard, a 335 copy - and an Ibanez AF75 - and in all guitars the problem you describe never occured. I could / can always roll the tones to the sounds you describe by about '5-6' on the tone pot.
I was however caught out in a very similar way whe 'transplanting' my Mississipi Queens between guitars, all looked well, but when I replaced the pot(s) all was well. I have also encountered self inflicted short circuits as the earthing braid / star grounding was re-seated in haste. :)
The other option ( which I tend to do for different reasons ) is to roll the volume pot or pots back to 8 or 9 - especially on the bridge pickup if 'blending'.
None of the above is meant to sound patronising, nor does it assume you would not ( like me at the time ) professed to have checked . It's just that my own fault finding improves markedly after a good filter coffee ! :)
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vintage wiring and paper-in-oil caps will make the tone control massively more usable, and for not much money
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vintage wiring and paper-in-oil caps will make the tone control massively more usable, and for not much money
+1
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@Fourth Feline
nothing came off as patronising,your input is much appreciated and the filter coffee is now in hand :) . I'm glad to hear that it isn't something systemic in the pups, I was starting to think that it was a symptom of having lower out-put pick-up with relatively low mids.
@Gwem
All epiphone components/wiring shall be torn out (with pleasure) as soon as possible.
Thanks guys.
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Hiya , :)
Upon coming back to this thread, I was also reminded ( Doh ! ) that I had ( back in the mists of time ) - re-wired all my tone pots to the 'Vintage' wiring spec that gwEm and Jonathan mentioned. I however, went 'cheap' and used good CTS pots - but with modest Sprague 'Orange drop' caps.
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me too,the cts tone pots bkp do have a good useable range , make my sm 11/ vh 11 all the more likeable.
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It's Definitely on the top of the to do list!
the current epiphone wiring looks to my eyes like they threw some chicken entrails against a wall and copied it verbatum.
(being a tad harsh but although it works alright,it is a very ugly install)