Rewiring my guitar

[liv_rong]

Well, I am not doing the work lol.

I am dropping it off tomorrow and dropping all of the push/pull shit and boost and kissing the circuit board goodbye in my 2014 LP Traditional Pro II. I rarely use any of that shit.

I know I want 50’s wiring and orange drop capacitors, but I don’t know anything else, specifically pots.

What do you have to say? Any recommendations?

[Greg_L]

I'd say use CTS long shaft 500k taper audio pots everywhere and the capacitors don't matter. The capacitor value matters, if you use your tone controls a lot, but the type doesn't matter. You can use Orange Drops if you want, but you could also use ceramic discs which cost pennies. You won't "hear" a tone capacitor.

[WhiskeyJack]

Well, I am not doing the work lol.

lazy.

[Greg_L]

lazy.

Of all the electronic work a musician can do to his own shit, wiring a guitar has to be the easiest.

[liv_rong]

I’m intimidated with wires. Always have been. And I know it’s easy because everyone tells me all the time lol

[WhiskeyJack]

I’m intimidated with wires. Always have been. And I know it’s easy because everyone tells me all the time lol

I was bustin your chops. while Gerk is right it is probs the easiest thing we can do for ourselves it can still be pretty intimidating i 100% get that. When i did mine and few guits for my friends i am overly cautious. Like nauseatingly overly cautious. takes me a day or two to do what greg or Mutt could bang out in hour or less.

[Greg_L]

Since you're basically gutting the control cavity, it's a good time to do 50s wiring cleanly and effectively. It's really just moving capacitor legs and grounds on the pots. That's all there is to it.

When the Gibson folk wire up guitars in the factory, they just kind of throw them together with a modern one-size-fits-all approach. It works fine, usually, but you can do better. IMO 50s wiring with audio pots makes the guitar controls behave and respond better.

Since you're getting rid of the coil splitting you can really simplify and tidy things up. If you can solder and have eyes that work you can do it yourself.

[liv_rong]

Why does it change it? What are the technical reasons?

[Lt. Bob]

For those feeling like they should be able to do this ..... well you should.

lol

I learned how to do this shit when I was 12 years old ..... sure, we did electronic kits and such back then for fun because there wasn't else much to do other than sports.
For those not sports-minded, electronics were a good alternative and they also went along with my music playing since amps and guitars and stereos (which I was also way into) were all evolving at that time.
So building electronic kits was one of my early hobbies ....... I rewired and tore apart and rebuilt all my stuff from around the age of 12 so it's not that hard.

And really, as teh gerg will attest, it's freakin' fun!!






.

[Greg_L]

Why does it change it? What are the technical reasons?

Very generally speaking, with 50s wiring the capacitor and tone pot load is moved to the output of the volume pot instead of being applied to the pickup itself at the input of the volume pot. With the 50s setup the tone control is more interactive with the volume control instead of just killing the pickup signal before the volume control. It's more subtle, but also more transparent and easy to fine tune.

[JD01]

I’m intimidated with wires. Always have been. And I know it’s easy because everyone tells me all the time lol

It's not working out where the wires go thst bothers me. It's the soldering. I could probably do with a new soldering iron and a lesson off someone with a clue.

[muttley]

For those feeling like they should be able to do this ..... well you should.

lol

I learned how to do this shit when I was 12 years old ..... sure, we did electronic kits and such back then for fun because there wasn't else much to do other than sports.
For those not sports-minded, electronics were a good alternative and they also went along with my music playing since amps and guitars and stereos (which I was also way into) were all evolving at that time.
So building electronic kits was one of my early hobbies ....... I rewired and tore apart and rebuilt all my stuff from around the age of 12 so it's not that hard.

And really, as teh gerg will attest, it's freakin' fun!!






.

I was into talking stuff apart and putting it back together from a very young age. My mum tell a story from when I was about two, She went next door for a cup of tea and a chat one day and as I was in tow she took me along. They left me in the front room with a pile of toys while they put the kettle on and when they returned I had take the back off their new colour TV and had all the valves out.

Sure people should be able to do this stuff but some people simply don't want to or just have a block about it. There is loads of stuff I can do but don't for a variety of reasons but most of those reasons would be about my time being better spent doing other stuff or really really not liking doing that shit any more.

I do think if you have a chance you should try to do stuff like this at least once if only to get a better grasp of it and to understand how it is done.

[Greg_L]

I do think if you have a chance you should try to do stuff like this at least once if only to get a better grasp of it and to understand how it is done.

THAT ^^^^^^^^^^^

At least try it. You can't fuck it up so bad that it can't be fixed. And if you try it and decide it isn't for you, then fine, no problem. At least you tried.

[liv_rong]

I do think if you have a chance you should try to do stuff like this at least once if only to get a better grasp of it and to understand how it is done.

THAT ^^^^^^^^^^^

At least try it. You can't fuck it up so bad that it can't be fixed. And if you try it and decide it isn't for you, then fine, no problem. At least you tried.

I agree. I am actually a pretty handy person and enjoy doing things myself. I just am not into electrical and can’t wrap my head around it. I have soldered before, my buddy helped me make this xlr patch at thing like 15 years ago, but I wasn’t very good and it didn’t quite spark a desire to get better or pursue it more.

And yes, like Mut said, I also want to spend my time doing other stuff. I mowed my lawn and my in laws for years until last year when I finally said fuck it, I make enough now that I can hire somebody instead of spending two+ hours a week doing it lol. I know that’s a different thing though.

Anyways, getting this done! Then building a new board and rebuilding my secondary board. I have some cool recording ideas floating around in my head.

[liv_rong]

Got guitar back, sounds excellent. Plugged straight into amp and I love it, maybe I don’t need the EP a booster on all the time.

Also am finding one setting of amp to have issues, have to explore more.

But the guitar, before and after got shots:

[Lt. Bob]

so much tidier!

[Greg_L]

50s wiring, the way to go.

[JD01]

The original wiring didn't look very traditional.
I like guitars to be pretty basic too, I want to just play not spend ages dialing a tone in.