Non-muddy volume rolloff for Les Paul?

[scelerat]

I just ripped the (broken) electronics out of a '70s Aria Pro II Les Paul copy. I think the original wiring mimicked "vintage" Les Paul wiring. In re-wiring the guitar, I followed the StewMac instructions for a three-way switch and chose to use their "Alternate volume control wiring," since the instructions say it prevents volume controls from affecting one another while in the middle position.

Main problem is when I roll off volume, it sound like the tone is also being rolled off, too. I don't like that.

I've never really used a Les Paul style guitar before, so maybe I should have wired it standard first. What can I expect from the standard/vintage wiring vs. the StewMac alternate?

I think I was expecting the pickups to interact like a Jazz bass, since that's all I know about blended pups.

[walterw]

that's the price you pay for the "independent" volume controls. wire them correctly (pickups to clockwise lug, center lug going to switch) and you'll be back in business.

jazz basses do it the other way because they have to (no switch).

[Phishy4]

You can do a treble bleed cap/resistor, or you can also follow Jason Lollar's '57 wiring instructions:

From Lollar's website:

How do I keep the treble from bleeding off when I roll the volume down?
For Gibson type wiring use the 57 Les Paul custom wiring schematic included in the installation instructions or on my website. You can adapt this to fenders with a little creative adjustment. I do not recommend using a volume bypass capacitor. If you have one on your fender—it's usually a very small cap and resistor located between two of the lugs on the volume control pot. Treble bypass caps roll off the bass and accent the treble as soon as you roll off the volume. The more you roll off the more it sounds like you are playing through a little tin can. This scheme can also degrade the bass and volume when the volume is all the way up if it is leaking. I have had many times where someone called me commenting the pickups sound trebly and weak. Once they got rid of the volume bypass cap the pickups sounded fuller and stronger to an amazing extent. I recommend that you never use that, instead put a smaller tone cap on—fenders use .047, try a .022 which can really improve the volume and tone control action and if needed rewire it to look more like the 57 LP custom schematic.

[scelerat]

Thanks for the tips. I think I will go back and re-wire it "standard" and live with the volume issues in the middle.

One last question: in the middle position, is the volume supposed to roll off smoothly when one of the knobs is turned or is there a kind of notch when one pup goes from 10 down to <10?

Latter behavior is what I noticed before I tore everything out, but there were other problems too -- the bridge pickup was extremely weak &c, at this point I'm just ascribing that to faulty/old wiring since I don't hear it after starting from scratch.

Thanks.

[otaypanky]

To my ears 50's style allows the tone pots to work as a gain reduction control for the first part of the travel, before it starts muting tone.

[Jef Bardsley]

Originally Posted by walterw

that's the price you pay for the "independent" volume controls. wire them correctly (pickups to clockwise lug, center lug going to switch) and you'll be back in business.

+1

I really think it's a disservice to post 'independent wiring' schematics.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by scelerat

Thanks for the tips. I think I will go back and re-wire it "standard" and live with the volume issues in the middle.

One last question: in the middle position, is the volume supposed to roll off smoothly when one of the knobs is turned or is there a kind of notch when one pup goes from 10 down to <10?

The only "issues" are when you turn one volume all the way off, at which point everything cuts off. anything above that works just fine.

as for the dropoff from "10", that's an "audio vs. linear" thing. audio pots have that dropoff when the amp is clean, but roll back smoothly with distortion. linear volumes roll back evenly when clean, but stay loud, get muddy, then drop off suddenly when distorted.

[Bob V]

Good questions, and good answers.
1. The "alternative" volume control wiring is sometimes called "independent" wiring and now that you've tried it you see why it never caught on. You can't turn the guitar off completely to put it down to take a break with the amp on. Ok so wire the pickup to the outer lug and the switch to the center lug. 'nuff said.

2. treble bleed mods suck. try a tiny cap across the volume pot and see for yourself.

3. "Fifties wiring": This is a simple variation of the tone controls. The stock layout has the capacitor (or wire) running over to the tone control from the outer lug of the volume pot (the same one that the pickup is connected to). Some players notice a rolloff of treble when using the volume knob. SO lots of us prefer the 50's mod where you just move that cap or wire from the outer lug to the center lug. Now the tone control is connected to the selector switch, after the volume control. Gibson markets the "Memphis tone" on the ES339 as having the tone control after the voltage follower (how's that for techno mumbojumbo used for ad copy?). Hype aside, it works. It's subtle, and it makes the controls a little more interactive so you'll be twiddling more, but that's okay.

4. Last thing to think about is the taper of the pots. The general rule is to use audio taper pots for things like passive volume and tone controls, but as Emeril would say - who makes up these rules? Okay, one rule is a strict one - always use an audio (log) taper pot on a tone control. BUT the volume control, counterintuitive as it may seem, doesn't behave if you use an audio taper pot. On a Les Paul, an audio taper pot would jump abruptly as you turn the volume knob down from 10 to 8, then doesn't do much at all for the rest of the trip until you hit close to zero. For some reason it bothers me a lot more on a Gibson with two volumes than it does on a Fender with a master volume knob. This is the reason why for quite awhile now Gibson has used 300K LINEAR taper pots for the volume controls (Epiphone, too).

So my advice, for what it's worth, is to try Gibson 300K linear taper pots for volume controls. An alternative is the Superpot from RS Guitarworks which is neither log nor linear.

5. Okay that wasn't the last thing. Last thing to think about is the value of the pots. Convention is 500K for humbuckers and 250K for single coils, but remember Gibson likes 300K on their volume controls. I think, for some guitars, 300K bleeds off too much treble and the neck pickup gets muddy, so I prefer 500K for the volume controls as well as the tone. In fact many many Les Paul owners are thrilled with this mod alone. That pushes me over the edge to chose the RS Superpots which are 500K for volume controls on a two-humbucker guitar, as opposed to the Gibson 300K linear taper pots for volumes.

You might want to look at the original pots to see if they're long shaft or short, and to check to see that you won't need to ream out the holes to fit the larger CTS pots (please use a tapered reamer by hand rather than any kind of drill bit) and you may need to replace the knobs for the new shafts (the knurling is different on imported pots and lets face it, they crack when you take them off and put them back once too many).

[Eagle1]

If you use gain 500KA all round as it better matches the character of the way distortion saturates making your volume still function as a volume and a gain control.

[walterw]

Good points about the great "300k vs. 500k, audio vs. linear" debate.

Linears make sense if your primary way of playing the Gibson is to have both pickups on and subtly vary the blend between them. If you're just rocking one pickup with distortion and want to control the amount of crunch with the volume knob, you want audio tapers.

as to why audios don't have that big of a drop on fenders, it seems like the higher the value of the pot, the bigger that dropoff from "10". the 250k audios on fenders are just a little more even. You can always put a resistor across the two hot lugs of the volume, flattening it out to taste.

[Tone_Terrific]

Originally Posted by Bob V

2. treble bleed mods suck. try a tiny cap across the volume pot and see for yourself.

treble bleed mods are great. try a tiny cap across the volume pot and see for yourself.
Another YMMV moment.

And despite Lollar's opinion I can see NO way that there could be any 'leakage' (leakage??) when the pot is maxed, unless the pot was bad, but that is a separate issue.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by Tone_Terrific

treble bleed mods are great. try a tiny cap across the volume pot and see for yourself.
Another YMMV moment.

And despite Lollar's opinion I can see NO way that there could be any 'leakage' (leakage??) when the pot is maxed, unless the pot was bad, but that is a separate issue.

i hate treble bypass caps too, but the key if you do want one is to not use so big a value cap. i always see .001uF as a suggested size, and that IMO is way too big, causing a nasty brittleness when turned down. it should be more like .0003uF.

you can also further "turn down" the effect by putting a resistor in series with that little cap. (the resistor in parallel just flattens the taper of the pot, a different issue.)

[Tone_Terrific]

My take:
If you are primarily a clean player and like the sound of your guitar on 10, you will like a treble bypass configuration, of some sort. Having bass rolloff as one turns down is great for funk and other styles that use a scratchy rhythm tone. Modding the bypass to suit is the answer.

If you are a dirty player, and like to roll the pot back for 'cleaner' tone you probably do not want any extra top end as the distortion at lower drive levels tends to thin out the tone too far, too fast.

[dmc777]

Do a treble bleed mod on your master volume. I wired mine parallel but I don't think it really matters. You'd be amazed at what this simple mod will do for your tone though.

[walterw]

Originally Posted by Tone_Terrific

If you are a dirty player, and like to roll the pot back for 'cleaner' tone you probably do not want any extra top end as the distortion at lower drive levels tends to thin out the tone too far, too fast.

i'm using a 2203 marshall exactly that way, so yeah, +1.