Antiquity Humbucker Electronics

[Fresh_Start]

Sorry - should have used "Search" function first!

Here's what I did:
500K tone pots
Tone caps to taste - .015 neck & .022 bridge
Cap & 150K resistor in series with 680pf cap for bridge volume and .001uf cap for neck volume.

I really like the .015 tone cap in the neck - much more usable range.
.022 sounds "right" for the bridge.
500K tone pots a BIG improvement, and I can always just roll 'em down.
I'd experiment more with the treble bleed alternatives if it weren't such a beast to get into for modifying stuff.

Kept the following only for general info:

I had to pull the electronics out of my Heritage 535 (335-like) because of a bad connection on the switch. It has Antiquity humbuckers, 500k volume pots, 250k tone pots, and .022 tone caps (unknown brand, yellow cylinders like Mallory 150s).

Since I never want to take the guts out of this guitar again, I only want to change things once. The neck pickup has always seemed a bit dark. The bridge pickup was kind of bright and thin, but that may be because the bridge pickup ring sits so that the top of the pup front-to-back isn't parallel with the strings. The edge closer to the neck tips away from the strings. I plan to sand a bit off the bottom of the pickup ring to fix that while I'm working on the guitar.

Both tone pots made the guitar very dark quickly. IOW less than "7" on the Tone was pretty worthless.

Turning either volume pot down much made the tone very muddy, so I'm thinking about some type of treble bleed.

Questions:

1) Should I replace both tone pots with 500K, just the neck tone pot, or leave 'em alone?

2) Should I replace the neck tone cap with a .015uf?

3) Should I replace the bridge tone cap with a .033uf?

4) What's the best treble bleed mod for the volume pots?

I've messed around a lot with Strat-style pickups and guitars but haven't worked much with humbuckers. For example, I like a .0011uf cap in series with a 100k resistor for treble bleed (Kinman) with a single coil and 250K volume pot but don't know how well that works with a vintage output humbucker.

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Cheers,

Chip

 

[lemonman]

Re: Antiquity Humbucker Electronics

The tilt on the bridge pup will definitely make it brighter. I have a LP with 59s that sounds best with the bridge pup parallel to the strings, which makes it look tipped backwards (because of the tapered pup ring). Everytime I decide to change it for looks, I immediately change it back and wonder why I messed with it...

1) go at least 500K/500K on the neck pup, or even more. I know Wymore guitars sometimes has high limit pots that measure in the 540-560K range, which are very nice in the neck slot and I highly recommend them.

2) yes, definitely.

3) I sometimes use .033 in the bridge, the PGb is especially suited to this. Totally a judgement call for you. If you want to roll the tone off lower in the midrange, this will work for you. The fact that you rarely roll the tone below 7 makes me think you probably don't need an.033 cap.

4) can't help with the bleed circuit, but was it wired up 50's style, with the tone pot on the center leg of the volume pot?

 

[hamerfan]

Re: Antiquity Humbucker Electronics

Yes
Yes
No, with the exception you use the tone pots to create different sound
No, you only need it when you are often fiddling with them.
Check the real resistance of all your pots. Maybe your Bridge is a 550k and the neck is a 450. This would explain a lot!