ESQUIRE WIRING

[Gstring]

Also must not forget the sometimes under rated sound made by Malcolm Young when talking about one pickup guitars. About 3 years ago I picked up an affordable pre owned TV Jones Classic Bridge with the intention of putting it into a suitable guitar in a middle position..OK middle may not be strictly Malcolm but I think it might be good to get pup under a bit more string movement. Just have not yet found quite the right guitar on the second hand market. A strat with just a middle pup just does not look visually correct . Thinking of possibly another Tele but would need to give the bridge and pickguard a bit of thought..

I have noticed that over the past months there seems to be a bit of pro active marketing of the Esquire with various "new" models being promoted in various price ranges.Suspect the 70th anniversary of the guitar may have something to do with it.

 

[Artie]

It is fun to have at least one. I have the cheap-ish Peavey Rockmaster, (non-tuner, non-DC Comics version), and I love it. I did an import Hipshot bridge, setup, and the JB Perpetual Burn pup, and it's probably my most played guitar.

 

[Gstring]

I actually had the Rockmaster shortlisted but don't think anybody is stocking them new in the UK and have not seen one second hand for a long while

I keep looking at the guitar below wondering if it would mate well with a TV Jones. Would need a tone bypass and probably some TLC on the fret ends. I don't necessary believe reviews but these are not that bad.My interest in a one pup guitar has definitely been rekindled.


https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_ben...faded_blue.htm


A buddy has a dirt cheap Harley Benton PRS copy which he is over the moon with . He has gigged with the stock pups.

 

[ItsaBass]

The only reason for the blower position in addition to the tone bypass position would be to allow him to use a pre-set volume rolloff in the other two positions. If he's not doing that, it's a wasted switch position, as it won't sound appreciably different than the tone bypass position in a real world mix.

If that's his plan...great. If not, he's wasting a possible tone preset. The Custom Shop Eldred 3rd position is very useful IME. It's just like running a tone pot on 0, but with a very low valued cap. it rolls off only the high end and high mids, leaving your bass and a good deal of mids intact. Snarly, aggressive, warm tone, and great with overdrive. Much more useful than having both a blower and tone bypass, unless, as mentioned, he plans on keeping the volume knob down a bit.

 

[Gstring]

ItsaBass I am pretty sure you are on his wavelength. Having the 3 presets is the only logical explanation.

Do you know what value cap the CS uses.

I have another possible Tele to Esquire conversion coming up and the Eldred wiring seems very popular.

 

[ItsaBass]

IIRC, it's a .0033 uF (more commonly referred to as 3300 pF by electronics folks) cap in my stock '02 CS Esquire, which came from the factory with the Eldred 3rd position.

On the backup that I built for that guitar, I used a .0022 uF. It sounds great too. A bit more thin and less affected sounding than the .0033...but then again, the two guitars also have different pickups and different pot values. 500Ks and a Duncan Broadcaster pickup on the backup, and flat poled Fender pickup and 250Ks on the Fender.

 

[Lewguitar]

ItsaBass I am pretty sure you are on his wavelength. Having the 3 presets is the only logical explanation.

Do you know what value cap the CS uses.

I have another possible Tele to Esquire conversion coming up and the Eldred wiring seems very popular.

I posted this earlier in the thread if it's the Eldred wiring you're after. It's what Premier Guitar said was the Eldred wiring. Haven't tried it myself.

 

[Gstring]

Hi Lew...I actually did have the wiring although I have a possible mod in mind.Thanks for posting anyway. What I was really interested in was the cap value.in pos 3 The diagram suggests 0047. ItsBass says CS are using 0033 and that 0022 is a possible option. Have just spoken to owner.. Pup is a Ken Rose Buckeroo with an A8 mag. Is anybody famliar with this Tele bridge pup? Suggestions as to which of the 3 might be best, would much appreciated.Trial and error would be OK if it was my guitar.

 

[ItsaBass]

Not sure of the pickup, but .0033 uF is indeed the "correct" Eldred cap. Mods can be made, but that is the original way to do it. I would start there. The more bassy the pickup (i.e. overwound/high output), the lower the cap value I'd use.

I have an Esquire that uses a Gibson toggle switch to pick between three capacitance values for the Eldred position. I have .001 uF when down, .0022 uF when up, and since capacitors in parallel are additive, the middle position gives you .0033 uF. Slight tweaks that are mainly useful to fine tune the cocked wah sound to different amounts of overdrive that you have dialed in. Can't imagine using .0047 uF myself. .0033 uF is already as warm as I'd ever like (but still a good sounding value for the cap IMO).

 

[Lewguitar]

I can't explain the conflicting specs, but this might help with the wiring. If it was me I'd experiment with cap values anyway.

 

[ItsaBass]

Not hard to explain at all. You posted a diagram from Premier Guitar, not Fender. Different sources use different diagrams. But Fender uses 3300 pF at least some of the time, as evidenced by the stock Eldred wiring Esquire that I own. Many online say 4700 pF for Eldred...including Premier Guitar, which claims that Eldred himself chooses that value...and that's fine too. But IME it isn't actually what Fender uses, and Premier Guitar often posts information and diagrams that are flat-out wrong.

Different cap values are fine, but the Eldred mod only sounds like the Eldred mod with low valued caps, not caps in the range that you would use on a typical tone control. You want to mess around with caps that have a "3" as the last number of the numerical code. Typical tone control caps end with a "2." Use those on the Eldred mod, and all you get is the equivalent of running a typical tone control on 0.

Fender does not post, TMK, a diagram of their Custom Shop Esquire Eldred wiring. So everything we read about it online is filtered through additional parties...and hopefully we all know what that does to the integrity of information. But I can tell you that my '02 CS Esquire, which I have owned since new, and is still stock, uses a 3300 pF cap.

Bottom line: Try caps that have a "3" as the last digit of the numerical code, and you will get the intended Eldred effect. The exact value to use is a personal choice. IME, you can't go too wrong within the range of 1000 pF to 4700 pF.

 

[ItsaBass]

P.S. Since you are doing this for another person, I would rig up a 4-way switch in place of the Eldred cap, hanging out from under the control plate. Each position can go to a different cap: 1000 pF, 2200 pF, 3300 pF, 4700 pF. Have him bring his amp to your shop and choose a cap. Then you take the switch out and hard wire the selected cap in as he waits.

 

[Gstring]

Many thanks for the responses guys. Appreciate your imput. ItsaBass you made me smile with your reference to my shop! Sadly I am just a person with basic amateur soldering skills who has quite happily helped others over many years.

Your suggestion re the caps makes sense but think I will just go for the 3300 option.

May have my own Esquire project soon. I have just made a sucessful bid on an unfinished project involving a Far Eastern made guitar.. Am thinking about doing something with a 5 way to get both Arlo and Eldred options . Will probably start a new thread on the wiring . A tapped pup might also be nice.

This looks very affordable


http://www.irongear.co.uk/irongear_pickups_015.htm

 

[ItsaBass]

May have my own Esquire project soon. I have just made a sucessful bid on an unfinished project involving a Far Eastern made guitar.. Am thinking about doing something with a 5 way to get both Arlo and Eldred options . Will probably start a new thread on the wiring . A tapped pup might also be nice

If you don't want to spend the money on a super switch, or the time figuring out how it works, then you want a 4-way blade switch instead of a standard 5-way. The reason is that a standard 5-way is just a 3-way that bridges the outer throws to the middle in positions 2 and 4. In other words, it proves difficult to get five totally independent functions; positions 2 and 4 are always tied to other positions. WIth a 4-way, each position is independent, so with a single pickup, you can easily wire each position to do a certain thing, independently of what you have wired in the other positions.