50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

[Swampy]

How are your Les Paul's wired? 50's? Modern? Jimmy Page? Other? What do you like about how yours is wired?

I'm installing new pots, jack and switch on my Les Paul tonight and I'm up in the air on how I want to wire it. As I understand it, when wired 50's, you don't lose as much treble when rolling down the volume. Correct?

 

[blueman335]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Always modern with independent volume controls, with some combination of push-pulls and with spin-a-split on the neck (which clears up any mud in that slot, something LP's are prone towards). I like independent volume controls to be able to blend either PU in any increment I want, lots of tone-shaping available, further expanded by spin-a-split. Those two mods take minutes wire, and don't require any new parts.

I was curious about 1950's wiring and did some reading on it to see the pros and cons. There are diehard fans, but there are also plenty of players that dislike it for being too bright. Since I prefer warm, full tones I don't feel the urge to try it.

 

[dystrust]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

I have 50s wiring in most of my guitars (even my Strat & Tele) as I like how brightness is retained when rolling down the volume. I also like a .015 cap for the neck pickup and .022 for bridge pickups or master tone controls.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

I do a lot of 50s by request, but I'm not a major vol and tone turner. instead, I go for switching for many similar tones... Spin a split already mentioned, parallel/ series, out of phase. Also use parallel coils or partial shunt more than coil cut. I find these are more usable tones and you can keep some humbucking.

Out of phase is good for me, half out of phase works on some Les Pauls and I love bass cut or roll off pot to thin out bass heavy LPs.

To me, it's all about reasonable variety at the flip of a switch.

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[Mincer]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

I use the knobs a lot, but I actually like modern wiring better. Maybe I don't have enough experience with 50s.

 

[chadd]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

I use the knobs a lot, but I actually like modern wiring better. Maybe I don't have enough experience with 50s.

Modern sounds a lot better to my ears. My R7 came with 50s wiring that sounded muffled with a weird cocked wah tone until I switched it to modern wiring.

 

[AlexR]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

50's for mine - clarity.
In fact the above example I'd say had some sort of fault as 50's sounds clearer than modern for the most part.

There is always a compromise whatever you do. There will be some tonal downfall for every scheme.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

My Studio test bed guitar has 50's wiring. My Standard has stock modern wiring.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

50's for mine - clarity.
In fact the above example I'd say had some sort of fault as 50's sounds clearer than modern for the most part.

There is always a compromise whatever you do. There will be some tonal downfall for every scheme.

See, that's the thing. I don't think I ever go for clarity in an LP. My favorite LP players have....unique tones.

 

[blueman335]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

See, that's the thing. I don't think I ever go for clarity in an LP. My favorite LP players have....unique tones.

Same here, I like clarity, up to a point, but you can overdue clarity. At times too much clarity can be sterile without the character and texture that comes with having some gain. For me there's a balance. I don't like muddy, blurred tones or heavily distorted tones either.

But a good player who has a beautiful rich, clean tone dialed in is nice to listen to.

 

[Hank-]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Modern wiring on all guitars here. Some get treble bleeds(180pF cap only).

 

[Dahla]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Always modern with independent volume controls, with some combination of push-pulls and with spin-a-split on the neck (which clears up any mud in that slot, something LP's are prone towards). I like independent volume controls to be able to blend either PU in any increment I want, lots of tone-shaping available, further expanded by spin-a-split. Those two mods take minutes wire, and don't require any new parts.

I was curious about 1950's wiring and did some reading on it to see the pros and cons. There are diehard fans, but there are also plenty of players that dislike it for being too bright. Since I prefer warm, full tones I don't feel the urge to try it.

+ 1

When people say they use bright humbuckers, 500k and above pots and 50’s wiring, I imagine their guitars sound like a ride cymbal: *ping*

I haven’t tried spin-a-split yet, but I suspect I’d like it.


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[zionstrat]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

+ 1

When people say they use bright humbuckers, 500k and above pots and 50’s wiring, I imagine their guitars sound like a ride cymbal: *ping*

I haven’t tried spin-a-split yet, but I suspect I’d like it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I live off of spinasplit... My main 'spun' guitar has cocentric spin on tone shaft because I tune the spin in and leave it alone most if the time.

The bypass is push-pull on the volume- its pulled out to thin for rhythm and ornamental stuff...

So when I push vol in, it bypasses spinasplit, full coils kick in and perfect for solos.

Surprised I haven't worn that push-pull out yet.

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[AlexR]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

+ 1

When people say they use bright humbuckers, 500k and above pots and 50’s wiring, I imagine their guitars sound like a ride cymbal: *ping*

I haven’t tried spin-a-split yet, but I suspect I’d like it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

There is a tone control you know.
But I go for the highest pots for the neck pickup circuit. Bridge pickups can have much lower.

 

[Dahla]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

There is a tone control you know.
But I go for the highest pots for the neck pickup circuit. Bridge pickups can have much lower.

Yeah, I guess. And I agree with neck and bridge pots. I was thinking bridge mostly when I wrote the reply.


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[Dahla]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

I live off of spinasplit... My main 'spun' guitar has cocentric spin on tone shaft because I tune the spin in and leave it alone most if the time.

The bypass is push-pull on the volume- its pulled out to thin for rhythm and ornamental stuff...

So when I push vol in, it bypasses spinasplit, full coils kick in and perfect for solos.

Surprised I haven't worn that push-pull out yet.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

Oh, cool. I need to try something more adventurous than just split.


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[AlexR]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

A lot of the top-end prewired harnesses for those who do the PAF clone LP/1959 clone look do have the values position specific. Of course there are the generic harnesses or stock guitars that go for 4 of 1 value pot too.

 

[blueman335]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Modern wiring on all guitars here. Some get treble bleeds(180pF cap only).

Volumes dependent or independent?

 

[blueman335]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Oh, cool. I need to try something more adventurous than just split.

Yeah, coil cut is the most basic, hum-drum thing you can wire for, which is why it's the one most often seen on factory wiring. I like spin-a-split and use it as a tone and volume control for neck HB's. When the neck is too warm and fat for what you're doing, you can dial down one coil and that starts to add treble and thin out mids, volume starts to decrease too. All the way down it's coil cut, but as soon as you let a little of the 2nd coil come thru, you can hear more warmth and output, but still nowhere near what balanced coils are. Very versatile.

Another interesting wiring is pairing up a screw coil from one PU and a slug coil from another. That creates a 'virtual humbucker' like a Strat in positions 2 and 4 (the coils of the 'humbucker' separated by 2 or 3 inches). It's softer than full HB, but not nearly as bright & thin as coil cut (so it's better-sounding & more useable than coil cut). Plus, it's noise cancelling. You can do this with two push-pulls: one on the bridge for the slug coil to be on in coil cut, the other on the neck for the screw coil to be on. Or you do it with one push-pull using Artie's Coil Swap Mod.

 

[Wattage]

Re: 50's or Modern wiring on your Paul's?

Mostly modern but lately I have been doing some 50's as well