gutting g400 need some advice on setup

[megalo]

hi, first off i would like to say that this forum has been very helpfull in helping me to decide what to get but i do have a few questions

I have an all mahagony Epiphone G400 (SG copy) rosewood fretboard. Ive decided to install
a SH-5 bridge and a 59 in the neck.

First question about pots. Do the volume and tone pots have to be the same value? I was thinking of going with 4 1M pots. I figured they would help me get that extra boost to make the pickups a little hotter if thats what i needed while also still being able to get warmer tones by turning tone/volume down a tad. Is this too much? Was thinking maybe 1M pots bridge and 500k neck also.

Second question was about installing a push/pull switch to cancel out half the HB for that singe coil sound. Would i need to install a push/pull on both tone controls? I will be wiring it myself so a litle explination on that whole process would be helpfull. I know i need short pots but ive only seen the push/pull pots come in long.

Any other suggestion would be appreciated. Im trying to put together a guitar that is probably used more for hard rock/metal but still warm sounding and versitile that i can still play other kinds of music. I like warm heavy tones that are still agressive and not blurry.

Thanks
megalo

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: gutting g400 need some advice on setup

Well, 1m Pots aren't going to increase "volume" so you won't be getting a boost. See every value pot is pretty much just a resistor (variable resistor). And by turning the pot one way or the other you are increaseing or decreaceing the resistance, there for shorting a certain amount of signal to ground. Now the main difference between a 250k, 500k, and 1m ohm pot is the amount of resistance they have at they're peak level (i.e. pot fully up to 10). With a 250k pot even at the peak its still going to have some resistance sending a small amount of signal to ground. This is usally in the form of "treble bleed off" (i.e. It steals yer high end). Now a 500k pot will bleed of less treble in the peak possition, but will still bleed of some treble as you turn it down. hence treble loss as you adjust volume. Now a 1m pot will bleed of the least treble (I know this seems to work backwards but it does). So You will not gain increased Volume, or boost yer signal. You will gain increased Treble. whice can be good or bad depending on a number of factors (the eq of the pup, body wood, finger board playing style etc...). So a 1m pot will not give you more volume. The one advantage you will gain from a higher pot value is less treble loss as you turn yer volume down. Some people use smaller value pots (250k) and solve the treble loss problem by stringing a small value cap across the hot terminals. So if yer looking to minimize treble loss I would suggest doing this. Rather than changeing pots (its easyer cheaper and alot safer as far as resale goes). But your not going to gain a Boost or anything. If you want more output get hotter pickups or buy an Eq pedal.

As far as the push/pull pot thing. No you don't have to use one on both tone controls. Just try to get the same value pot fer the p/p as the non p/p one. and if your going for single coil tones. Theres two ways to go. You can, get a single dpdt p/p pot and wire it to cut a coil in both the neck and Bridge pup. So that by pulling a single knob you can split both pups. And yer 3-way toggle will still work the same. But the disadvantage of this is, you can't have say The neck full hum and the bridge cut at the same time. Ya know. If you wanna be able to spilt both puts individually you'll need seperate switches. Either way has its advantages and disadvantages. I personally prefer the single switch method. Mainly cause its easyer to only have to worry about one switch. But then again I hardly ever use the coil splitter.

As far as the Long shaft vs. short shaft. I'm not to sure about the depth of the cavity on yer guitar. But odds are you could use long shaft if you have to. All ya do is take and get an extra set of Nuts and a lock washer. You take and set one nut below the surface of the guitar (i.e. inside the cavity). Set the height on it so that with the lock washer setting above it you have just enough height comeing through the top of the guitar to set the washer and other nut on it and bolt it tightly in place. (easy huh) and provided you tighten both nuts really securely. you'll have a tighter Pot that needs less retightening than if you got the right shaft height.

Oh one last thing. The volume and tone pots do not have to be the same value. Most humbucker guitars actully have 500k volume and 250k tone. So you could probably use a 1m pot and a 250k pot together. But I'm not really sure. I've never much liked 1 m pots so I don't have much experiance with em. But theres no reason why it shouldn't work.

 

[megalo]

Re: gutting g400 need some advice on setup

i see, what you are saying. This guitar is a little dark sounding and I would like to brighten it up a bit, so i think the less treble bleed the better. So maybe i will try 500K tone pots with 1M volume pots. That would make matching the push/pull with the non p/p tone pot easier.

i think the one switch to split both humbuckers at same time would probably be easist and serve my purposes well enough.

Also .022 caps would be about normal right?

lastly, i have a 3 way switch. first postion is for bridge pickup and middle and up position both control only neck pickup. the midle position seems cleaner and less bassy. Can anyone tell me what its doing to give me those 2 different sounds from same pickup?

megalo

 

[TattooedCarrot]

Re: gutting g400 need some advice on setup

If you go with a 1 meg volume pot and totally bypass the tone pot, you'll get more treble bite and a little more grit. But the SH-5 is already abundant in both, I'd just go with some CTS 500k pots all the way around and quality caps (the stock ceramics are crap).

 

[megalo]

Re: gutting g400 need some advice on setup

thanks for your thoughts. I did end up going with just the 500k pots and .022
OD caps. grabbed a few feet of wire too just in case.

I ended up changing my mind (again!) and went with the A2pro in the neck
instead of the 59 and the Custom in bridge. I figured since the bridge is hot and crunchy having a smooth warm neck would be a nice balance. My only concern was that the crappy stock neck pickup thats in it now is really muddy and bassy so I was worried about putting in another high bass pickup
like the APH-1. My guitar is also mahogany neck and body with rosewood fretboard wich is suposivly darker sounding. My thinking here is that i should probably be ok and that its just because the pickup and pots are so poor that makes it sound muddy. Any thoughts?

Also i heard that if i wire these up differenly 50's mod that it will open up the neck. Is this the way to go and maybe why my neck pups sound poor now?

Also TattooedCarrot, your avatar is strangley hypnotizing for some reason! :32:

megalo

 

[Low_fidelity2100]

Re: gutting g400 need some advice on setup

In certain guitars haveing Chrome covers will lead to some muddyness. At least in my experiance (others may tell you it has no effect). So I suggest after you put in yer new pups seeing how it sounds. If its still to muddy fer yer likeing. Try takeing the covers off the buckers. (sometimes it helps sometimes not only trying will tell). If yer still haveing muddyness issues. Try turning the neck bucker around (screw coils towards bridge). Cause the main reason the screw sides point oppisite is purely cosmetic (seth lover himself says so in "Gibson: the first hundred years"). And I have found that even that small amount of change will often brighten up a muddy neck pup. I have all the neck pups in my guitars this way and I prefer the sound. But its all about tastes ya know. So just keep trying different things till you get it sounding the way you want. If no matter what you try the APII doesn't sound good. Try swaping the mag fer an alnico V (slightly brighter sounding) and that may help. If none of this does the trick. Then you may just have to kick in the bright switch on yer amp fer clean sounds.

Oh and also as for the whole "Only two sounds on yer three way switch" Sometimes this is due to the height of the pickups. The trick is to select just the bridge bucker and set the volume (height) where you like the sound. Then switch to just the neck bucker and adjust it so its slightly lower/quieter than the bridge. So when your in the middle they balance more evenly, and you'll get a more distinct middle possition tone.
I used to have that same problem, but I read here on the forum about the above mentioned fix. And it worked wonders. Odds are if you look you can find that post. It goes into way more detail than I did.