50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

[sumitagarwal]

Hi guys, I like to 50's wire my Les Paul's (mostly so I can dial down my neck for a brighter clean tone and go to dirty bridge with a switch flip). On my 5 Les Paul's I've always seen the tone cap in between the Volume and Tone pots, and so switching to 50's wiring has simply been me aping the many diagrams out there.

So I was very surprised and confused when my 1995 Orville by Gibson ES-175 had the tone cap connected to ground on the Tone pot! As I understand it, there's no disadvantage to this arrangement and its simply less traditional. So I thought I'd try adapting the usual 50's wiring diagrams to this setup. However, I'm pretty sure its still functioning as "modern" wiring (losing treble when turning down Volume). Its kind of a pain to pull the pots out of the f-holes, so I want to make sure I have it 100% right before I give it another try. Diagrams below... what did I do wrong?

[Chistopher]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

What your doing is fine. It doesn't matter if the cap is before or after the pot.

[sumitagarwal]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

Thanks... and I put the tone cap in the right place? I really feel like I did something wrong because leaving Tone at 10 while dialing down Volume doesn't seem to be working the same way as on my LP's.

[sumitagarwal]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

Wait!! Sorry, I think I forgot a little detail that I noticed when I had the pots out of the guitar... if I remember correctly, the ground on the Volume pot was soldered to the opposite pin compared to what I'm used to. Do I need to change this too??

Updated diagrams below:

[Lewguitar]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

The crucial difference in 50’s vs. modern is whether the tone control is connected before the volume pot or after it.

There’s three terminals on the volume pot.

1. The input...where the pickup is connected...either directly or via the selector switch
2. The output...which is the middle terminal
3. The ground...usually soldered to the back of the pot

Connecting the tone control to 1. (the INPUT) places the tone control before the volume control. That’s “modern”.

Connecting the tone control to 2. (the OUTPUT) places the tone control after the volume control. That’s “50’s”.

And that’s really all you have to know.

[sumitagarwal]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

The crucial difference in 50’s vs. modern is whether the tone control is connected before the volume pot or after it.

There’s three terminals on the volume pot.

1. The input...where the pickup is connected...either directly or via the selector switch
2. The output...which is the middle terminal
3. The ground...usually soldered to the back of the pot

Connecting the tone control to 1. (the INPUT) places the tone control before the volume control. That’s “modern”.

Connecting the tone control to 2. (the OUTPUT) places the tone control after the volume control. That’s “50’s”.

And that’s really all you have to know.

Thanks Lew. So if I'm understanding you correctly: if we call the pins "left", "right", and "middle" it shouldn't really matter whether "left" or "right" is attached to the pickup or to the ground as long as one gets the pickup and the other gets the ground?

[Lewguitar]

Re: 50's wiring my ES-175: tone cap on pot?

Thanks Lew. So if I'm understanding you correctly: if we call the pins "left", "right", and "middle" it shouldn't really matter whether "left" or "right" is attached to the pickup or to the ground as long as one gets the pickup and the other gets the ground?

The middle terminal is the output of the volume pot and goes to the output jack eventually. It might go to a selector switch first or it might not. Depends on the guitar.

In a guitar with one volume control it would go directly to the output jack.

It does matter whether the pickup is connected to #1 or #3.

It needs to go to #1.

Otherwise the rotation of your volume pot will be reversed.