my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

whitewave

New member
Hi,

the guitar is a 2002 PRS CE-22 maple top, the pickups are an Alnico II pro on neck and a Custom Custom on bridge.
I bought this guitar used, and it had a RS Guitarworks kit installed and a three way switch mod.

I chose this PUs because I want a warmer guitar, but I have too many highs in my sound. Playing it not plugged in an amp show a guitar very well balanced acoustically, so now I'm thinking the problem could be in the electronic.
This is what I've now inside my guitar:

my_wiring.jpg


Yesterday I wanted to sold a resistor between first and third lug of volume pot, to decrease it from 500k to about 300k, just to hear the difference, but I noticed too many caps, no?
Do I have two treble bleed mod installed?
If I want to decrease the value of volume pot now do I have to sold a resistor between the third lug and ground on the pot itself?
What else should I do?

I know I don't have a Les Paul, but I didn't look for a Les Paul when I bought this guitar, I want only to do some mods to have a warmer sound, fuller on basses and taming the highs.
I play a dark sounding Orange amp.

Thanks.
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

Unsolder the cap leg that is connected to the #1 volume pot lug and re-solder it to ground. That will pass a little of your top end to ground instead of out of the guitar.
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

Thanks.
Which cap? Both are soldered to the first lug of the vol pot.
I guess the big hovland one, right?

Comparing my wiring from the one I can find on Seymour Duncan web site maybe I'm understanding something.

The 180j ceramic cap on vol pot is the simplest treble bleed mod. I can try there a resistor in parallel with the cap.

The Cap between vol and tone pots usually goes from center lug of tone to ground.

Why is mine soldered like this? To have more treble?
Why do I have a 0.22 uF cap while SD suggests here a 0.47uF? Differences in tone?

Thanks a lot.
 
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Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

You'll want to do something like this: (this is only the knob section)
poop.jpg
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

BTW, the higher the value of cap, the treble it will roll off.
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

I've just done what you described. I'm reading some infos, I had a '50 wiring and now I have a standard wiring.
I've used a 100k resistor in parallel with the ceramic 180pf cap, and a 470k resistor from lug to ground.
But I soldered it to the first lug, where all the connections are, and from there to ground, while the third lug is soldered to ground too.

my_wiring2.jpg


Is it a mistake? Everything else now is the same as the suggested diagram on SD web site, except for the different value of tone pot.

I couldn't test it at reasonable volume, but the guitar is darker sounding. The volume pot is not useable as before, it gets muddy in the middle while before I could sound also at 1 or 2 on it.
But there less trasparent highs coming out, it's not dull sounding, but before it had this chimey highs at every level.

What else should I do? It's incredible how few mods can radically change the sound of the guitar.
Are there any way to have to '50 wiring, but to make it sound dark?

Thanks a lot.
 
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Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

try taking the 470K resistor off. I've never seen that used.

As for the 50's wiring but darkersound; try using larger value capacitors or lower value pots with the 50s wiring.
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

The resistor used there should give me a lower value of the pot, instead of using a 250k pot in this way it should be possible to stay in the middle, here's an article.

I'll try different cap values, from the 0.022 uF I've now to....?
0.047 is enough? Or would it be better to try larger values too?

As for pot value, I guess that article is corret, this is why I've soldered the resistor from lug 1 to ground.

Thanks.
 
Re: my so confused guitar wiring, schem inside

.047 is pretty much the top end. The other one I can think of is .1 but that cust a pretty darn big amount of treble and, IMO, won't be very useful because of it. I believe it's mostly used for basses. Wait for some other opinions
 
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