Check my Paul's wiring please

[thebigcheese]

I was looking over an old thread I had started about replacing my pickups and it got me thinking about the capacitors across the knobs in my Gibson The Paul. They are ceramics, and I'm wondering if that has something to do with the brittleness. While building a Big Muff clone pedal, I had asked if it would be okay to use ceramic caps in place of film ones, but people had suggested that ceramic caps tend to be a bit harsher. So anyway, I started thinking that maybe I'd put some film caps in there. They should be more like .047 uf anyway, while they are currently .02 uf.

The point is, I was also noticing that some of the lugs on the knobs aren't actually connected to anything, and I'm wondering if something isn't wired right. It seems to work properly, so I imagine it is, but I'd like some assurance. My guitar has two volume knobs and two tone knobs, then the pickup selector. If you can't quite tell how things are connected from the picture, I can try to explain it. Bottom left knob is bridge volume, bottom right is bridge tone, top left is neck volume, top right is neck tone.

 

[Lt. Bob]

well I can say that it's normal to have a lug not hooked up to anything. The volume/tone pots can work in either direction so if you used the opposite lug then the control would reverse it's action ....... say, the volume would go from 10 to 0 instead of 0 to 10.
As for the caps ....... those are pretty normal caps for guitars ...... I see those all the time. And when the tone is all the way up, which is the usual setting for many of us, the cap's not really in the circuit.
I'm not sure using a film cap would make much difference.
It's not the same thing as in a pedal where the cap is always in the circuit.
The caps in a git are there simply to 'bleed off' some highs when you turn the tone pot down.

I haven't actually tried a film cap so I don't want to say definitely though so maybe someone will be along who has tried it.

 

[slowmotion]

Completely normal; tone caps will often be wired like that.

The caps won't be contributing to the brittleness. When your tone is up full, the caps are doing nothing, when you roll it down, you're actually shunting the treble frequencies (through the cap) to ground. You can change the value (and the material to film or PIO or whatever) all you like, but it will only exhibit a change in the amount of treble rolled off - not the amount of treble apparent overall.

That said I'm a big fan of guitar feng shui; cool caps look nice and give you an impression of quality, but there's no real difference aside from that. I've tried heaps of different types, but it's the cap value that makes the difference, not the construction.

You *could* try changing your pots to 300k pots, that would attenuate some of the highs, they used to be stock in LPs.

Honestly I had a "the Paul 2" which was, realistically, a completely different guitar (more of a thin studio more like an SG than yours), which I found to be shrill too. I replaced the bridge with a SD 59 and never looked back.

 

[Milnoque]

The solder joint on the center tap of the pot closest to the switch looks pretty iffy to me. Could just be the pic.

If I were buying new caps I wouldn't choose ceramics, but I wouldn't change out caps because they were ceramic.

Have you tried your guitar through a variety of amps? I just don't hear lots of people call their LPs brittle or harsh. I wonder if it's your amp that's not suiting you.

2 cents.

 

[thebigcheese]

The pots are all 500k pots, as per Light's suggestion a while back. I think they were 300k originally, and it didn't seem as brittle then, so you could be right. Does it really make that much of a difference?

It's "The Paul," not an actual LP, so the body is made of walnut. I think the brittleness could just be a characteristic of the wood.

 

[slowmotion]

The pots are all 500k pots, as per Light's suggestion a while back. I think they were 300k originally, and it didn't seem as brittle then, so you could be right. Does it really make that much of a difference?

It's "The Paul," not an actual LP, so the body is made of walnut. I think the brittleness could just be a characteristic of the wood.

500k is standard for buckers, 300k was standard in older gibsons, but there are no real standards (even in my les paul standard) haha. Depends on what you like, really. It does make a difference (far more than a cap type swap), but it's so subjective to the instrument and personal taste...

Walnut, I would think (guess), would have a darker tone? Have you tried a different pickup in there?

 

[thebigcheese]

Not yet. I don't have a lot of spare cash, but I am planning on putting some other pickups in there eventually. Anfontan said he had the same guitar and put different pickups in it, but it didn't get rid of the brittleness, so... I dunno.

 

[thebigcheese]

Hey, just a quick thought. My guitar is about 31 years old, still with the original pickups, so I'm wondering if the bit of rust/corrosion on the magnets of the pickups could have anything to do with the brittleness (or any sort of change in the sound).