Manland Adventures in 50s Wiring and PIO Caps

[benecol]

Dear reader, do you ever have one of those moments of pure manland, wherein you think to yourself: "this must be how Fran feels, all the time"? Well that was me rewiring my Firebird last night. And I took some photos while I was doing it.

Lenghty TLDR preamble:

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So, there were a few reasons behind me busting out the soldering iron. Firstly, much as I love my Firebird, the pickups in them are shocking: OG 'birds have alnico pickups wound in an unusual way (they're effectively covered blade pickups) that measure about 7.5K. Gibson has put 18k ceramic pickups in all the reissues. These are not subtle pickups. I've ordered some replacements, and was chatting to another Firebird owner who recommended replacing/checking the stock pots and caps while I was at it (the Firebird is a bit like Gibson's equivalent of the WHRB Fenders - they stick an approximation of the pickup in there, then back them up with pot values that aren't quite right either). Rather than change out the wiring and the pickups at the same time, then run the risk of not knowing how/where I'd fucked up if something didn't work, I decided to change the wiring with the stock pickups in while I'm waiting, then drop the new ones in when they arrive.

Secondly, I wanted to try out 50s wiring; several people had recommended it, and a change is as good as a rest. This video had helped make up my mind, too:

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I worked from an adaptation of this layout:



Thirdly, I wanted to try dropping some paper-in-oil caps in there to see how they sounded. I'd always thought of the fuss about PIO as hokum, but the one in my old SG Jr. I'm sure contributed towards its fantasticness. Plus a) they look cool and b) I knew it would annoy Mike. My Firebird-owning chum recommended some cap values.

Fourthly, and finally, I wanted to swap round the controls: unlike most Gibsons, vintage Firebirds had both volumes 'up top' (as you look down at the guitar) with the tones beneath. This sounded like fun, and seems to make sense ergonomically, so I figured "while I'm in there...".

So, after having been up for 20 hours straight, and a couple of glasses of Matteus down, I figured "what better time to break out the soldering iron?".

Deirdre's photo casebook:

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So this is the standard wiring. As you can see, you're really getting next level quality when you buy a Gibson... Hoiked most of it out, to be replaced by 500k CTS pots, a .015 cap at the neck and a .022 at the bridge.



Midway oh-fuck-what-have-I-taken-on stage; that .022 cap is the size of a roman candle, and it was a bit of three dimensional chess to suss out how to get it all in there sensibly*.



Wired back up. I'm really quite proud of this; previous guitar wiring jobs have resembled when you have to sit on the lid of the suitcase to do it up: that's me with the scratchplate/cover.

Plugged it in and to my amazement, it worked fine first time †. Put the cavity cover back on, and it went weird; turns out the wires from the caps were fouling the edge of the pots. Fixed this, and everything's lovely

.

Embarrassing coda:

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* Take a bonus point, eagle-eyes, if you've just spotted that my wiring of the caps doesn't correspond to the layout I pictured above. I didn't spot it until writing this up this morning. Fixed it now.

† Except clearly not. See above.

[benecol]

Right, I'll deal with your questions one at a time.





Oh...

[Mike]

Looks fabola mate - really well done

You bloody corksniffer

[Thom]

Excellent. So how do you like the change? Noticeable difference?

[Mike]

'course not, it's all a lot of bollocks.

[benecol]

SORRY THOM, NO TIME FOR QUESTIONS.

[benecol]

Just being silly.

I like it. The 50s wiring is quite clever, with some odd side-effects. Effectively, as you roll off the volume control, you keep most of your treble - it's kind of the opposite of what happens when you roll off your tone control (except the volume goes down a bit). So you can balance between the two controls pretty well and in interesting* ways. There seem to be some odd side-effects when using both pickups at once, but nothing terrifying.

The caps/values are good - nice honk from the bridge when rolled off, neck sounds good too. You can really hear that paper and (snake) oil. They look pretty too.





* not actually that interesting unless it's you playing, really.

[Gabriel]

I'm not too keen on the CTS audio taper pots, I guess they'd work well on distorted sounds but for me they change way too much between 8-10 on the dial. The linear pots are really nice though.

I'm a fan of big caps though, I had a .022 in my JJ Electra (PRS Singlecut a-like) but it didn't take enough treble off until the control was basically off, so I'm about to fit a .047 that should do the job.

I have been interested in PIO caps, but considering the price and the size I don't think it would be worth it for me.

[benecol]

Ah, y'see, they are linear taper pots; meant to say, if I had my time again, I'd use audio taper pots.

[serfx]

despite the flack yer getting from mike, i really dig this.

I'm usually not paying enough attention when i grab a new pot to put in, outside of said pots Value..

so i'll end up with audio atper on my tone, lineier on audio..
just liner..
who knows..

so i'm glad there is someone who is the EXACT opposite of me when it comes to picking out their parts.