Sir Loin
New member
Wow! I've been thinking about ways to brighten up my guitar and have seemed to opened pandora's box.
I've got a '07 Gibson ES 335 (satin finish) that has the stock '57 Classic pickups in it. The guitar plays really nicely and has a beautiful natural resonance that I love. My only problem is that it's kinda dark, tonally. My initial thought was to replace the pickups but then had something else suggested to me. Apparently my guitar came stock with 300K volume pots and that an upgrade to 500K pots would brighten things up a bit. To make matters even more complicated, I've read that it also makes a difference what kind of caps I have in there. I'm guessing there's a certain amount of treble roll-off that happens when turning down a volume knob.
So... now I'm left deciding which avenue to begin with. Do I start by changing pickups or changing pots? I'm pretty technically challenged but I'm really trying to learn about what's going on here. I'm also fairly inept with a soldering iron, therefore any job will likely be handed to a guitar tech (I've found that work on a 335 might not be cheap). Any opinions, suggestions, or observations would be helpful.
I've got a '07 Gibson ES 335 (satin finish) that has the stock '57 Classic pickups in it. The guitar plays really nicely and has a beautiful natural resonance that I love. My only problem is that it's kinda dark, tonally. My initial thought was to replace the pickups but then had something else suggested to me. Apparently my guitar came stock with 300K volume pots and that an upgrade to 500K pots would brighten things up a bit. To make matters even more complicated, I've read that it also makes a difference what kind of caps I have in there. I'm guessing there's a certain amount of treble roll-off that happens when turning down a volume knob.
So... now I'm left deciding which avenue to begin with. Do I start by changing pickups or changing pots? I'm pretty technically challenged but I'm really trying to learn about what's going on here. I'm also fairly inept with a soldering iron, therefore any job will likely be handed to a guitar tech (I've found that work on a 335 might not be cheap). Any opinions, suggestions, or observations would be helpful.
