Re: Best Vintage HSS set up
Wow, you really thought it out and did your homework! Very cool that you used both cap values. It's good to see another fan of Luxe's work. I got the 57-58 phonebook cap and was very impressed with the quality of work they did.
So how do you like the superpot?
Do you like the BB split?
$6700? Oh c'mon don't be like that! The wear looks soooo, sooooo, authentic!
I'll take two!
Luke
I love the superpot, it has a nice stiffness without seeming "stuck" and it stays where you put it. There is no play in it, you turn it somewhere, it stays exactly where it is. The audio taper for the superpot has a nice taper that doesn't have any jumpy spots, that is to say it doesn't go "dead, dead, dead, "fulltilt at 8!". If you want an amount of volume, it's there and because of its consistency and quality, it can in some cases negate the need for the "treble bleed mod". (Yes, they actually do retain a LOT of the high-end as you roll down the volume.) The tone knobs aren't superpots, but let me also say they have a very smooth, jumpless taper to them. There is no "dead before 8" and "sudden drop to mush at 4" that many CTS pots suffer, and whatever amount that you want to roll off can be rolled off (within the limits of the "k" value of the pot). What this means is that with the single coils, you can get anything from a buddy holly clean-fest at 10 on the tone, to hendrix's "red house" tone by turning down much of the high end.
The brobucker was an interesting case because I wanted to do a vintage HSS, but I wanted to do more than "just the surface". To me, it's analogous to restoring a '32 3-window to "original spec" and then dumping in a 427 SOHC under the hood. If you're going to get close to the PAF sound, some of it does come from having a bumblebee cap and a 500k pot. What I wanted was to get a LP-style sound out of a mahogany strat, and I think I got fairly close, even if I'll never quite get that famed sound. As far as it goes being split, it sounds fairly close to a normal strat in position 2, but with a bit of PAF grunt and extra sparkle mixed in. It really likes being split, however if 250k is used for it, it WILL choke the HB as a whole even only one coil is split. (Hence the "Lonestar wiring".) It really though works quite well with the RSGW kit, the 280k superpot (clocked at 300k), and its bumblebee cap both as a whole and when split. As far as using both phonebooks and bumblebees, it was simple... keep the parts vintage even if the end result is a little odd, gives it some more individuality, and gives it a little extra "vintage flavor" as well.
(It also doesn't hurt that I put in a callaham kit for that extra "vintage flavor" in the bridge :approve
As for that HSS Masterbuilt strat... If it wasn't given the "blackie treatment" (why does Fender do this to all their "heavy / super relics"?), it had a NOS charvel bridge, and was a closet classic / light relic, i'd be ALL over it. Fender has a nice idea combining some vintage aspects with overwound versions of "vintage pickups", but at that price and that amount of relicing, I'd rather have an HBS-1 and an absolutely devastating amp.
That's just my .02
Jason
updated previous post with all the goodies i used for HSS setup.
