Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

[ronno]

After all your recent help regarding the Jimmy Page wiring mod I thought I would give some feedback on how it went. The tech used CTS SPST pots on the volumes (to avoid routing) and Allparts DPDT pots on the tones. All were 500k log taper. He also put a treble bleed capacitor on the volumes to avoid muddying when the volume is turned down. (This works well). The switching options work exactly as the original Page signature model. Generally, I知 happy with the results as it does what I expected and produces a tonally versatile Les Paul. Interestingly, my guess that the 498T and 490R pickups might beef up a thinnish acoustic sound on the Studio Lite hasn稚 really worked out. I知 still tending to keep the pickups a reasonable distance from the strings so as not to muddy things and have achieved an acceptable balance of balls and clarity.
This seems to confirm that the acoustic sound of the guitar is dominant rather than the pickups. Having said that, the neck pickup, which was always muddy on my Les Paul Standard (even when set well away from the strings with the polepieces raised) is now very clear and usable. ( I値l have to think hard about the best neck pickup to put in the Standard given it seems acoustically very warm/rich).

The only thing I壇 still like to improve is the usability of the tone controls. As the guitar is quite bright acoustically I知 tending to use the bridge tone control on 3 to try and get a warmer sound. I find that the tone control only seems to make any difference when turned down to 3, or at 2, where it gets overly muddy.
Would changing the capacitors on these 500k tone pots make any difference? I知 stuck with the pots that are in there.
I noticed that Allparts in the UK is selling Sprague Orange drop caps.
Would putting these in make the tone pots more usable with graduated control over the tone?

thanks in advance for any suggestions

[jeremy]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

i like orange drops.

what value tone cap do you have now? since you have audio taper pots i think we can do it with a cap

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

The only thing I壇 still like to improve is the usability of the tone controls. As the guitar is quite bright acoustically I知 tending to use the bridge tone control on 3 to try and get a warmer sound. I find that the tone control only seems to make any difference when turned down to 3, or at 2, where it gets overly muddy.
Would changing the capacitors on these 500k tone pots make any difference? I知 stuck with the pots that are in there.
I noticed that Allparts in the UK is selling Sprague Orange drop caps.
Would putting these in make the tone pots more usable with graduated control over the tone?

thanks in advance for any suggestions

Not familar with what All Parts is using these days? If you want to get a bit more range from the bridge tone pot (and since it's to bright), you can put a resistor across the CCW and W lugs of the tone pot, this will knock it's value down (which will warm up the instrument some) , and make the resistance drop off more sharply as the control is turned down.
Ronno, do you know if the tones are linear or log taper, I know what they *say they are*, but really take a meter and measure the resistance from the CCW lug of the tone control to the CW lug with it turned to 0, (Don't worry about it being hooked to the rest of the circuit), what do you get? Okay know turn it to 5, measure from the wiper to the CW lug what do you get? lastly, tell me how far down you can turn it from ten before it starts to effect your tone (in other words how far down can you turn it, and still live with it as a on ten tone), measure the resistance from the CW and wiper again, what does it read? I know I'm having you measure it from the other side, but just go with it.

[ronno]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Jeremy the cap is .022 ceramic.
Kent - thanks again for your help. Unfortunately, I can't answer your questions. A tech did the job for me and lives some distance away. I'm going to have to get a bit more self sufficient about these things. I'll get a meter this weekend and get back to you. How do I recognise which are the different lugs?

thanks again

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Jeremy the cap is .022 ceramic.
Kent - thanks again for your help. Unfortunately, I can't answer your questions. A tech did the job for me and lives some distance away. I'm going to have to get a bit more self sufficient about these things. I'll get a meter this weekend and get back to you. How do I recognise which are the different lugs?

thanks again

CW means clockwise lug, CCW is counter-clockwise lug, W mean wiper.
CW is the lug that W connects to when the pot is turned fully clockwise (10),
CCW is the lug that W connects to when the pot is turned fully counter-clockwise (0) ... This is from a right-handed perspective of course. The CW is also called the hot lug, the CCW is also called the cold lug.
If left-hand pots were used it's the exact opposite as to whick is the hot and whick is the cold, but the terms CW and CCW remain the same ...
Put another way ... CCW would be the hot lug, and CW would be the cold lug for left-handed pots, but their direction of turn is the same.

Holding the pots when the shaft pointing down and the three lugs pointing at you, the CW is one the left, the W in the middle, and the CCW on the right ... Same for looking down on them when mounted in a guitar, looking at their backs, with their lugs pointed at you.

[ronno]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
I bought a multimeter on the way home from work tonight. If I've understood you correctly. these are the measurements on the treble tone pot
CCW to CW with tone at 0 = 521
Wiper to CW at
10 =525
9 = 525
8 = 499
7 = 418
6 = 330
5 = 248
4 = 172
3 = 96
2 = 32
1 = 0

As I can't play the guitar at any volume at home its difficult to say what is the preferred treble tone. the other night at rehearsal (on full humbucker setting I was using settings between 10 and about 4 dependent upon the song.
When I go to a single coil sound I probably put it down to 3. At all times the volume was at 10, but I do like the .001 treble bleed capacitor keeping the set treble tone constant at all volume levels

Hope this helps and thanks

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Okay, Let me do a bit of figuring ... Is there a maximum LOW setting that yoiu use, in other words ... do you want the control to (sound wise) still be able to go all the way to *0*, or do you (for example) never turn it down past 3?

[ronno]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
I don't think I would turn it down below 3 as 2 sounds rather muddy.

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
I don't think I would turn it down below 3 as 2 sounds rather muddy.

Okay, those numbers still look a little odd ... It looks like either your a left hander or you measured between the wrong lugs (I should have said wiper and open lug (as one will have no connection in a right handed set up that is the CW lug). No matter though, it looks like with a total pot value of 525k that a 50% rotation (5.5 instaed of 5 ... GOD I hate those stupid 1~10 numbered knobs, there ought to be a law 0~10 as it should be! ) you are close to half value ... this indicates you have a linear pot (although it could be a modified linear, or the taper could be off a bit as well, {some deviation is normal in the manufacturing process}, or both) ...even so those numbers don't look quite right. I assume the resistance between the wiper and the CCW lug is 96k at *3*, a bit lower will set the lowest level (meaning I've got that figured out), now how far down do you turn it before it starts to take effect, and how far down can you turn it where it still sounds normal? I know you said (for HB stuff) between 4 and 10, but if you must have it on ten then your only real alternative without sacrificing that is to get another pot with a different taper. However, if you can live with it on say 6 without to much change (so your amp treble sits on 8 instead of 7, big deal ... ) then that's what I need to know also.

[ronno]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
sorry to be causing you trouble on this. there are no connections to either of the lugs, just the wiper. I've taken readings from the other lug ( I think CW) and the wiper as follows:
Tone on:
10 = 0 I hope these readings make more sense. I think I'm
9 = 1 beginning to understand now. At 10 ( with no resistance)
8 = 42 the pot rating of 515k comes through then more and
7 = 128 high frequencies are attenuated as the tone control is
6 = 202 rolled down - is that right? To answer your other question
5 = 274 I think I could live with the current 8 reading as maximum
4 = 358 treble and the current 3 reading as minimum
3 = 425
2 = 491 Thanks for you patience
1 = 515
0 = 515

[Bradster]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Those values indicate it's a "Linear" pot because a "Log" ( aka "Audio") taper pot has a value of 1/10 it's total at the knob's 50% or "5" or 1/2 way mark.

As volume change is logarithmic (as opposed to Linear) an apparent volume drop of 50% (knob reads "5" or 1/2 way) will require a reduction of 1/10th the previous value, hence a 500k "Log" (aka; "Audio") pot will measure in the neighborhood of 50k when the pot is turned to half it's rotation or "5" on it's dial.

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Ronno ...cool, I'll post back later tonight (18hours or so). Thanks, and it's no bother or trouble at all ...Just trying to nail down what you want as exact as I can get it.

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Okay Ronno, here's the bad news, limiting the cut off is no problem, but the problem came in (and I kinda figure it would, but was hopeful anyway) in trying to alter the taper *enough* to give it a audio-like response, problem was that by the time you got enough of a change in the taper, that the full up value was reducing (more so than being on *8*) ... The better thing is going to be and wait until those audio taper push/pulls come out from DMZ (I believe Ryan said they were looking at later September). The overall effect of limiting the maximum cut and spreading the taper out a bit, with the lowering of the top end. Well it produced a subtle change from low to high, and with less high end, while it may have been useful, it wasn't what you wanted here.
Looks like the only real recourse is another pot. At least we gave it a shot though, sorry.

[ronno]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
No need to apologise - I really appreciate your efforts on this.
Let me try you with one other possibility. If I were to change the bridge pickup round so that the screw coils were nearest to the neck would this make any difference to the tone i.e. reduce the brightness a bit. It may also help with the way the coil taps work in the different switching permutations in that they generally apply to the screw coils and I think they may sound better when the screw coils are not next to the bridge.
I don't know whether this is possible or there are any negative consequences from doing this. Just a thought

Thanks again for all your help

[Kent S.]

Re: Feedback on recent jimmy page wiring mod

Kent
No need to apologise - I really appreciate your efforts on this.
Let me try you with one other possibility. If I were to change the bridge pickup round so that the screw coils were nearest to the neck would this make any difference to the tone i.e. reduce the brightness a bit. It may also help with the way the coil taps work in the different switching permutations in that they generally apply to the screw coils and I think they may sound better when the screw coils are not next to the bridge.
I don't know whether this is possible or there are any negative consequences from doing this. Just a thought

Thanks again for all your help

Well, the effect of turning the bridge pup won't do much if anything (depending on the pup and how the poles are adjusted), you could try it though, and as I personally vote for having the inner coil on in a bridge split, you could also turn the neck also, that would give the neck outer coil as being on, which is a bit truer single coil type sound (although the inner coil creates more of a tonel difference when split and is often better for leads, more bite).Yeah give it a shot, if you like it, than try turning the neck also,although there is certainly no need to have to turn it.
Plus you could then raise the bridge pup poles, making it a bit more midrangey (gutsy). Give it a shot, just don't expect a huge difference.