Les Paul standard grounding plate issue

[Mikelamury]

I swapped a set of pickups from one of my other Les Paul's into my Les Paul standard and I noticed it's missing some of the upper mids and treble that the same set of pickups had in my other Les Paul, both Gibson satin Les Paul's but the standard has the grounding plate and the other one doesn't. I thought it might be like a capacitance thing, if running through a small wire can cause sound degredation I think running the signal through this big ass grounding plate may be causing some of the same issues. I don't know why I'm losing some upper mids and Treble in the standard that was present in the other Paul... What are your guys thoughts on this?

 

[AlexR]

Its a different guitar....thats your issue.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Yah, grounded is grounded. Wood varies - sometimes quite a lot, even within the same species.

 

[Mincer]

I doubt it is the grounding plate, but that is easy enough to experiment with. Most likely it is just different woods.

 

[GuitarStv]

You can get variation from a variety of things. Even slight variations in the values of the pots that you use will make a difference - grab two 500K pots +/- 20% and you could get a 400k and a 600k pot - and that will make a hell of a difference in how the guitar sounds. Pickup height adjustment (even changes as slight as half a millimeter) makes a pretty big difference to the sound you get through an amp too. Different pieces of wood (even the same species) will have different resonant frequencies and will emphasize/absorb some parts of the spectrum more than others.

Internal cable routing can add capacitance, so it's possible that the ground shield is making a little audible difference as well - but I've found that the above things often play a bigger role.

 

[Mikelamury]

Ok thanks for the input guys. I'm going to remove the grounding plate and just connect/ground the switch to the back of the pots. I was thinking it might be the grounding plate because the switch connects to it and the signal from the switch goes through the whole plate to get to the pots so that will be easy enough to test. It very well may be any of the above mentioned factors. Thanks everyone, I'll report back when I get done rewiring (again!)

 

[NegativeEase]

Hey Mike, I gotta ask -is the poll height and pickup location and orientation identical?

 

[Chistopher]

Your ground won't affect your tone

 

[NegativeEase]

Your ground won't affect your tone

Well, technically a poor ground scheme or loop can add some noise (any sort of accidental antenna condition) which makes the "tone" less clear, but affect the "tone itself" no. agree.

 

[Mikelamury]

Well, technically a poor ground scheme or loop can add some noise (any sort of accidental antenna condition) which makes the "tone" less clear, but affect the "tone itself" no. agree.

I'm aware the 'ground' won't affect the signal but I thought that the signal travelling through that plate(where the switch connects go) to the pots might have lust something along the way, idk probably not but I don't like the signal having to travel through the plate so I'm going to remove it and use another(slightly hotter)498t.

Is there any advantage to having the switch connecting to the grounding plate vs attaching to the back of the pots like usual (or vise versa)?

 

[Chistopher]

Whichever's easiest so long as everything is grounded.

 

[uOpt]

There is no way to build up capacitance in a relevant range with the ground plate, or even the ground enclosure that Gibson once used. You can measure it if you disconnect the pickups.

 

[NegativeEase]

Is there any advantage to having the switch connecting to the grounding plate vs attaching to the back of the pots like usual (or vise versa)?

Well, Gibson does it due to manufacturing efficiency and a plate can shield EMF interference with your pots -which Im sure Gibson touts -but honestly -with LED lights on stage now -it's less of a problem anyways.

For me I shield me cavities on guitars that are giggers and ground the pots with a lead that is single path to the jack -And I tie that cavity shield to the output jack

 

[beaubrummels]

The shield is there for a reason. I would not make changes that aren't related to your problem. I've put the same pickups in multiple guitars and while they have the same pickup signature sound and output, they always sound slightly different because of differences in the guitar. The minimal ways to resolve it are pickup height, pole height, and tone controls.

 

[Mikelamury]

The shield is there for a reason. I would not make changes that aren't related to your problem. I've put the same pickups in multiple guitars and while they have the same pickup signature sound and output, they always sound slightly different because of differences in the guitar. The minimal ways to resolve it are pickup height, pole height, and tone controls.

That's probably a good idea, I'll probably leave it in there, I guess it's just the difference in woods, thanks for pointing that out to me guys