Lucille wiring issue..

Re: Lucille wiring issue..

astrozombie said:
which is hilarious because he does not use the fine tuners or the varitone.
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So, Glenn, you HAVE been reading your Dan Erlewine books. :D

If/when you get around to cleaning your jack socket and selector switch contacts, you will discover that the stock Epiphone '57 Classic humbuckers are sh!t. You are going to want to change them, right?

For a while, I enjoyed my Lucille with SD PGn and Brobucker pickups. These sounded fine but their zebra open bobbins looked wrong. (I also could not help thinking that the American pickups would be better deployed elsewhere.) I decided on gold covered pickups BUT without going to the expense of pickups worth half as much as the (pre-owned) guitar itself.

Second time around, I opted for Tonerider. IMO, their Alnico II Classic is spot on for the neck position - very touch sensitive. I went with the Rocksong model for the bridge/Treble position. If I ever decide that this is too much of a Rock beast for the semi-hollow, I would happily get another A2 Classic.

One other argument in favour of Tonerider is that their gold plating is not quite as lustrous as most American pickups. This "shortcoming" makes the TR pickups fit in better in their Epiphone surroundings.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Funkfingers said:
So, Glenn, you HAVE been reading your Dan Erlewine books. :D

If/when you get around to cleaning your jack socket and selector switch contacts, you will discover that the stock Epiphone '57 Classic humbuckers are sh!t. You are going to want to change them, right?

For a while, I enjoyed my Lucille with SD PGn and Brobucker pickups. These sounded fine but their zebra open bobbins looked wrong. (I also could not help thinking that the American pickups would be better deployed elsewhere.) I decided on gold covered pickups BUT without going to the expense of pickups worth half as much as the (pre-owned) guitar itself.

Second time around, I opted for Tonerider. IMO, their Alnico II Classic is spot on for the neck position - very touch sensitive. I went with the Rocksong model for the bridge/Treble position. If I ever decide that this is too much of a Rock beast for the semi-hollow, I would happily get another A2 Classic.

One other argument in favour of Tonerider is that their gold plating is not quite as lustrous as most American pickups. This "shortcoming" makes the TR pickups fit in better in their Epiphone surroundings.
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thanks.

i like this guitar but I'm put off by the same thing that made me sell my other epiphone: something about it doesn't feel "right".

I've come to realize that my Fender, like high end acoustic guitars, resonates very well and that the sound I hear when I play it involves much of the wood.

the epiphone, like a lower end acoustic, is more "strings by themselves" than everything working together..
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

astrozombie said:
I've come to realize that my Fender, like high end acoustic guitars, resonates very well and that the sound I hear when I play it involves much of the wood.

the epiphone, like a lower end acoustic, is more "strings by themselves" than everything working together..
Click to expand...

Typical Fender propaganda.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

the guy who invented fire said:
Vintage Stereo Gibsons did/do require a Y cord to use in mono but that was "corrected" years ago with a slightly different wiring set up, the "neck" out if used alone is mono.

As for the Varitone, BB does uses it, all the time in fact...he rarely changes it but his tone can't really be had w/o a Varitone.

Fine Tuners...he used 'em several times last time I saw him...just saying.
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I've seen him sweep through the different Varitone tones for effect. And you can hear him do it on live recordings. He uses it all right.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Vintage Gibson guitars with the stereo wiring harness had a single Tip-Ring-Sleeve (TRS) jack socket. The "Y" cable had a TRS jack plug at the guitar end and two regular TS jack plugs at the amp end(s).

The Epiphone B. B. King Lucille model has two jack sockets. One is regular TS mono. The second is a normalising jack socket. The latter works as a mono output when a cable is connected OR redirects the pickup signal to the overall mono output jack socket.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

the guy who invented fire said:
I am convinced that either your father smacked you around with a Telecaster or one drunken college night you were violated by a Strat...which is it???
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Actually, my ears have been 'violated' by countless fools who don't know how to EQ their Strats. God bless the ones that do, too bad there's not more of them.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

astrozombie said:
thanks.

i like this guitar but I'm put off by the same thing that made me sell my other epiphone: something about it doesn't feel "right".

I've come to realize that my Fender, like high end acoustic guitars, resonates very well and that the sound I hear when I play it involves much of the wood.

the epiphone, like a lower end acoustic, is more "strings by themselves" than everything working together..
Click to expand...

I know this sounds like gear snobbery and i know a lot of cool dudes here who love their mid and low priced axes, and also in the end its all about your choice of notes and how you touch the string that makes a good guitar part, but i know exactly what you are talking about and i agree 100%. Bad workmen blame their tools of course, and a good guitar wont make a good player, but master tradesmen always use the best tools they can get their hands on.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Vasshu the humanoid typhoon said:
And there are less Gibson users in that particular category??
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Oh God yes. It's the unleashing of avalanches of treble that can easily ruin a song, or a gig, or CD. The culprit is almost always a Strat. Not to say Gibson/Epi players are necessarily tone geniuses by any means, but it takes much more work to make their instruments sound like nails on a chalkboard, and fortunately most of them aren't that ambitious.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

blueman335 said:
Oh God yes. It's the unleashing of avalanches of treble that can easily ruin a song, or a gig, or CD. The culprit is almost always a Strat. Not to say Gibson/Epi players are necessarily tone geniuses by any means, but it takes much more work to make their instruments sound like nails on a chalkboard, and fortunately most of them aren't that ambitious.
Click to expand...

Have you ever posted any clips??

Do you ever gig at all in any context?

Based on your personal pickup and guitar mods I have to assume you hate treble?
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

gibson175 said:
I know this sounds like gear snobbery and i know a lot of cool dudes here who love their mid and low priced axes, and also in the end its all about your choice of notes and how you touch the string that makes a good guitar part, but i know exactly what you are talking about and i agree 100%. Bad workmen blame their tools of course, and a good guitar wont make a good player, but master tradesmen always use the best tools they can get their hands on.
Click to expand...

I agree, my comment wasn't about my skills but about the guitar's qualities.

It just feels a lot better in my hands when I feel the whole instrument breathing as opposed to feel the strings moving.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

hey, glenn, my boy, there's nothing at all wrong with being a "fender guy".

could i interest you in a baritone tele?
93173_p.jpg
:firedevil
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Okay, zombies of all persuasions, here is the solution.

1) Eyeball the two jack sockets.
2) Observe that one is bigger than the other. (Imperial versus Metric. USA versus SE Asia.)
3) Check that the larger (Imperial) socket is labelled Stereo/Bridge PU.
4) Check that the smaller (Metric) socket is labelled Mono/neck PU.
5) If everything thus far is correct, try refreshing the solder joints on the signal contacts. (The ones with white insulated wires.)
6) While the jack sockets are accessible, clean the sprung leaf contact faces on the Switchcraft socket.

Some photographic evidence…

image.jpg

EDIT - Please note that the two sockets do not come away from the guitar still attached to the plastic plate. I merely positioned things this way to make them easier to photograph.
 
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Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Funkfingers said:
Okay, zombies of all persuasions, here is the solution.

1) Eyeball the two jack sockets.
2) Observe that one is bigger than the other. (Imperial versus Metric. USA versus SE Asia.)
3) Check that the larger (Imperial) socket is labelled Stereo/Bridge PU.
4) Check that the smaller (Metric) socket is labelled Mono/neck PU.
5) If everything thus far is correct, try refreshing the solder joints on the signal contacts. (The ones with white insulated wires.)
6) While the jack sockets are accessible, clean the sprung leaf contact faces on the Switchcraft socket.

Some photographic evidence…

View attachment 36896

EDIT - Please note that the two sockets do not come away from the guitar still attached to the plastic plate. I merely positioned things this way to make them easier to photograph.
Click to expand...


thank you for photographing your guitar, it will surely help when I get to the major surgery.

I haven't given the guitar much attention recently, my temporary fix was to push the second contact on the stereo jack into a position where the lead touches both of them and that way the pickup switch works.

Ill try this out.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

blueman335 said:
Oh God yes. It's the unleashing of avalanches of treble that can easily ruin a song, or a gig, or CD. The culprit is almost always a Strat. Not to say Gibson/Epi players are necessarily tone geniuses by any means, but it takes much more work to make their instruments sound like nails on a chalkboard, and fortunately most of them aren't that ambitious.
Click to expand...

but gibson guitars are a mid scoop away from sounding like crap.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

astrozombie said:
I think what hasn't been clear about this whole thing is the fact that there is one output jack designed for MONO operation, it enables you to use both pickups as if it were a 335. my problem is that said jack isn't working for both pickups, just the neck pickup (which is it's stereo purpose... but not it's mono purpose.) i ended up making the stereo jack work with both pickups by making it so that both "teeth" touch the cables tip.. but the guitar isn't working properly and I should be able to figure this out, I've been sick lately and doing lots of home recording and it's a pain in the butt that the outputs don't work how they are supposed to.
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Your problem is the stereo jack switch is corroded or bent out of shape. Did you buy this guitar new? If it's a used one, maybe someone has messed with the wiring to do the varitone bypass mod. I had exactly the same problem with my 25 year old Lucille, corrosion at the stereo jack switch (If you look at the stereo jack inside the guitar cavity, you will see a smaller strip of metal running up alongside the long metal connector. As you push the cable end into the socket you will see the metal surfaces separating, this is the so called jumper switch on the stereo jack wiring to the mono jack. Here's the diagram showing the switch circuit.
thinline.jpg

The fix is easy, just clean the contacts and bend the metal bits towards each other more so they make contact.
 
Re: Lucille wiring issue..

Ok guys . . . just a couple of observations here, using Funk's photo and Rake's diagram. (Perhaps this is just semantics.)

Neither of those jacks are "stereo". You would never use a stereo plug into either of those jacks. No matter what mode of operation you want, you always use a standard mono guitar cable. So, you essentially have:

1. Mono plug into neck jack for "normal" operation. Pickups are selected by the 3-way.

2. Mono plug into the bridge jack for bridge-only operation, and then only if the 3-way is in the bridge or middle position. Placing the 3-way into the neck position will kill the output.

3. Mono plug into neck jack with mono plug into bridge jack for genuine dual-channel operation.

Hope that helps. :)
 
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