Daver11111
New member
If anyone wants to remove their PCB Board, here's my info to look at - I finally did it and wow! what a difference it made.
Let me start by saying I am happily retired and always tweaking things and trying to see what sounds I get. I think tweaking and trying something new is fun and enjoyable. I still play in a garage band now and then, and play at home a lot. What’s really nice is jamming with the same guys in the same band that we had in the 60‘s - 70’s. How cool is that! Back then I played a Gibson LP Custom, Melody Maker, and the favorite was my Byrdland, but sadly sold them all and went (short-lived) acoustic.
If any of the following info helps anyone, then great! And if not, oh well…. I am just saying what improved my 2012 Les Paul Standard from the original factory build.
I bought the new 2012 LPSTD PP Trans Amber a few years back. It had the Printed Circuit Board, Quick Connect Burstbucker Pro Pickups and 4 push pulls. It always played as though it sounded too bright at times or too muddy or too muffled or like playing through a blanket, or something I can’t explain. Therefore I started tweaking. I soon found out the factory Plek setup was bad…. Frets needed re-ground here and there. Bummer…. I had it re-pleked and also installed a new bone nut. This helped.
Over time I tried ‘many’ caps, treble bleeds, resistors, more caps, adjustments, 50’s wiring, strings and more strings, pedals, etc. The best cap sound for me was .033 NTE mylar caps for bridge and neck. I also like the GHS 10-46 strings. I also determined it had a bad volume pot, so I soldered two new (stewmac) CTS SPST volume pots onto the PCB (which are the same pots Gibson used by the way). The new Pots did actually help a lot, but still something did not sound quite right. I tried 57 classic QC and 57 classic plus QC pickups….hmmm… they were only so-so to me, but still not quite right. I returned the Plus pickup but I still try the 57 classic in the neck every now and then, but keep going back to the BB Pro pickups that seem to match each other better. I wanted to try other pickups as well, but always thought there must be some other problem that I was determined to find.
I bought a HotRod Deluxe III Amp, tried various tubes and a new speaker. Eventually sold the HRDIII and bought a new 68 Custom Deluxe Reverb Amp. I installed my Cannabis Rex Speaker which I now use and like… but something was still not quite right with the guitar.
Started researching, got a schematic from Gibson which was ok, but only shows partial info. They were not very helpful to answer questions via email about parts and such for ‘My Guitar’. I scoured the web for info to learn about pickups, wiring, out of phase, coil shunt, coil cut, reverse magnet polarity, etc… which got quite confusing. So, I finally made my own drawing of what I actually had inside this LP guitar.
Then I sorta got fed up with this guitar and wanted to buy something else – or, could I fix it first by replacing everything? I decided to try and fix it first….
I removed the Quick Connect Printed Circuit Board, Toggle Switch with QC plug/wiring, and Jack with QC plug/wiring. I wanted to keep the original parts with the quick connects. I bought all new 500k PP Pots, toggle switch, jack, wire, QC to Pot wire adapters, caps, etc.
MY NEW INSTALL – I’ll post (if it works) the link of ‘my drawing’ of what I did. Was too large to attach. Worked perfectly for me and it sounds great! You all can let me know otherwise.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...authkey=!AByiJW0w8YUMJJg&v=3&ithint=photo,jpg
I made this drawing of what I needed to do and how I wanted things wired to be exactly like the original controls. Except - I always thought the bridge tone push-pull for True Bypass was not that good and it wasn’t really truly bypassing everything. So I added series/parallel with a coil shunt or cut option for the bridge pickup in place of true bypass. I like it a lot – more sound combinations.
I can say this as my own proven opinion – Remove your PCB and see what you think. It made a tremendous difference to me. The sound difference is just amazing. The Burstbucker Pros came to life, especially the neck pickup is sweet. And… I really like the ‘added’ parallel and coil cut option for the bridge pup. The sound opened up in a new and very good way as opposed to before. These Burstbucker Pro pickups are now sounding very good! The tone controls are also workable. Why the PCB hindered things, who knows.
Now I’m wondering if some other pickups might sound even better, but right now I don’t think so. I was thinking I might try the SD Custom SH5 in the bridge for the first test. But, I’ll have to give the BB Pros some more play time since they now sound so much better.
I’m a happy guy, for now anyway!
Daver
Let me start by saying I am happily retired and always tweaking things and trying to see what sounds I get. I think tweaking and trying something new is fun and enjoyable. I still play in a garage band now and then, and play at home a lot. What’s really nice is jamming with the same guys in the same band that we had in the 60‘s - 70’s. How cool is that! Back then I played a Gibson LP Custom, Melody Maker, and the favorite was my Byrdland, but sadly sold them all and went (short-lived) acoustic.
If any of the following info helps anyone, then great! And if not, oh well…. I am just saying what improved my 2012 Les Paul Standard from the original factory build.
I bought the new 2012 LPSTD PP Trans Amber a few years back. It had the Printed Circuit Board, Quick Connect Burstbucker Pro Pickups and 4 push pulls. It always played as though it sounded too bright at times or too muddy or too muffled or like playing through a blanket, or something I can’t explain. Therefore I started tweaking. I soon found out the factory Plek setup was bad…. Frets needed re-ground here and there. Bummer…. I had it re-pleked and also installed a new bone nut. This helped.
Over time I tried ‘many’ caps, treble bleeds, resistors, more caps, adjustments, 50’s wiring, strings and more strings, pedals, etc. The best cap sound for me was .033 NTE mylar caps for bridge and neck. I also like the GHS 10-46 strings. I also determined it had a bad volume pot, so I soldered two new (stewmac) CTS SPST volume pots onto the PCB (which are the same pots Gibson used by the way). The new Pots did actually help a lot, but still something did not sound quite right. I tried 57 classic QC and 57 classic plus QC pickups….hmmm… they were only so-so to me, but still not quite right. I returned the Plus pickup but I still try the 57 classic in the neck every now and then, but keep going back to the BB Pro pickups that seem to match each other better. I wanted to try other pickups as well, but always thought there must be some other problem that I was determined to find.
I bought a HotRod Deluxe III Amp, tried various tubes and a new speaker. Eventually sold the HRDIII and bought a new 68 Custom Deluxe Reverb Amp. I installed my Cannabis Rex Speaker which I now use and like… but something was still not quite right with the guitar.
Started researching, got a schematic from Gibson which was ok, but only shows partial info. They were not very helpful to answer questions via email about parts and such for ‘My Guitar’. I scoured the web for info to learn about pickups, wiring, out of phase, coil shunt, coil cut, reverse magnet polarity, etc… which got quite confusing. So, I finally made my own drawing of what I actually had inside this LP guitar.
Then I sorta got fed up with this guitar and wanted to buy something else – or, could I fix it first by replacing everything? I decided to try and fix it first….
I removed the Quick Connect Printed Circuit Board, Toggle Switch with QC plug/wiring, and Jack with QC plug/wiring. I wanted to keep the original parts with the quick connects. I bought all new 500k PP Pots, toggle switch, jack, wire, QC to Pot wire adapters, caps, etc.
MY NEW INSTALL – I’ll post (if it works) the link of ‘my drawing’ of what I did. Was too large to attach. Worked perfectly for me and it sounds great! You all can let me know otherwise.
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...authkey=!AByiJW0w8YUMJJg&v=3&ithint=photo,jpg
I made this drawing of what I needed to do and how I wanted things wired to be exactly like the original controls. Except - I always thought the bridge tone push-pull for True Bypass was not that good and it wasn’t really truly bypassing everything. So I added series/parallel with a coil shunt or cut option for the bridge pickup in place of true bypass. I like it a lot – more sound combinations.
I can say this as my own proven opinion – Remove your PCB and see what you think. It made a tremendous difference to me. The sound difference is just amazing. The Burstbucker Pros came to life, especially the neck pickup is sweet. And… I really like the ‘added’ parallel and coil cut option for the bridge pup. The sound opened up in a new and very good way as opposed to before. These Burstbucker Pro pickups are now sounding very good! The tone controls are also workable. Why the PCB hindered things, who knows.
Now I’m wondering if some other pickups might sound even better, but right now I don’t think so. I was thinking I might try the SD Custom SH5 in the bridge for the first test. But, I’ll have to give the BB Pros some more play time since they now sound so much better.
I’m a happy guy, for now anyway!
Daver
