Post by borsanova on Dec 20, 2006 10:13:34 GMT -5
... introducing the BROADBUCKER ... SLASH!
We all know the problem: Modern guitar players are asking for ever more power from their pickups, installing superbuckers, burstbuckers, motherbuckers and similar super distortion pickups, but they pay this race with dull muffled trebles.
What can be done to resolve the contradiction? An original solution has been found by Slash from Guns N' Roses, who has installed a piezo in his bridge, with most appreciable results as we all know. But now there is a new, much easier and more natural way to preserve your trebles while playing your super distortion pickups: the BROADBUCKER™.
What is a Broadbucker? As the name says, the Broadbucker broadens the sound of your guitar. It gives you full power bass and middle frequencies like from a super distortion pickup and at the same time it preserves stingy trebles as if you were playing a single coil.
Never seen one for sale? In fact, the Broadbucker has not yet been built, at least by big companies. And maybe it will never go into production, because a broadbucker actually consists of two standard humbuckers wired in series in a particular wiring scheme. All you need to produce a broadbucker is rewiring a standard Les Paul configuration by putting both pickups in series, first in line the bridge and then the neck, and between them a simple tone control.
The configuration is as follows:
hot > volume control > bridge pickup > tone control > neck pickup > ground
When you put your tone control in this configuration to zero, you'll have indeed a Broadbucker.
With the tone control at ten you get a well-known super distortion sound, but what happens, if you put it to zero?
In this case the signal passes the bridge pickup regularly, but when it comes to the tone control it divides. The lower frequencies will continue passing through the neck pickup, but the higher frequencies will leave your guitar through the cap and go directly to the amp, without passing through the neck pickup. In fact it is like playing 1½ humbuckers in series, and this is why the Broadbucker conserves both benefits, of a super distortion pickup and a brilliant bridge pickup. The more brilliant your bridge pickup the more you will hear the difference and for this reason the effect will be even bigger when you wire up your bridge pickup in a dual sound (parallel) configuration instead of standard humbucker. In any case the result is a broadened sound with more power and distortion in the lower frequencies and brilliant trebles, that allows you to achieve those incredible Slash sounds even on a small Fender combo. Moreover the tone pot which works like a kind of treble booster gives you total control over the amount of trebles you want in your mix.
A wiring schematic for a Les Paul with a built-in broadbucker (contemplating the bridge pickup in both, standard humbucker and dual sound configuration) is in the "Jimmy Page with 42 sounds" thread in the schematics forum. Go and have a look and if you like it don't forget to vote!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and keep on rocking!
We all know the problem: Modern guitar players are asking for ever more power from their pickups, installing superbuckers, burstbuckers, motherbuckers and similar super distortion pickups, but they pay this race with dull muffled trebles.
What can be done to resolve the contradiction? An original solution has been found by Slash from Guns N' Roses, who has installed a piezo in his bridge, with most appreciable results as we all know. But now there is a new, much easier and more natural way to preserve your trebles while playing your super distortion pickups: the BROADBUCKER™.
What is a Broadbucker? As the name says, the Broadbucker broadens the sound of your guitar. It gives you full power bass and middle frequencies like from a super distortion pickup and at the same time it preserves stingy trebles as if you were playing a single coil.
Never seen one for sale? In fact, the Broadbucker has not yet been built, at least by big companies. And maybe it will never go into production, because a broadbucker actually consists of two standard humbuckers wired in series in a particular wiring scheme. All you need to produce a broadbucker is rewiring a standard Les Paul configuration by putting both pickups in series, first in line the bridge and then the neck, and between them a simple tone control.
The configuration is as follows:
hot > volume control > bridge pickup > tone control > neck pickup > ground
When you put your tone control in this configuration to zero, you'll have indeed a Broadbucker.
With the tone control at ten you get a well-known super distortion sound, but what happens, if you put it to zero?
In this case the signal passes the bridge pickup regularly, but when it comes to the tone control it divides. The lower frequencies will continue passing through the neck pickup, but the higher frequencies will leave your guitar through the cap and go directly to the amp, without passing through the neck pickup. In fact it is like playing 1½ humbuckers in series, and this is why the Broadbucker conserves both benefits, of a super distortion pickup and a brilliant bridge pickup. The more brilliant your bridge pickup the more you will hear the difference and for this reason the effect will be even bigger when you wire up your bridge pickup in a dual sound (parallel) configuration instead of standard humbucker. In any case the result is a broadened sound with more power and distortion in the lower frequencies and brilliant trebles, that allows you to achieve those incredible Slash sounds even on a small Fender combo. Moreover the tone pot which works like a kind of treble booster gives you total control over the amount of trebles you want in your mix.
A wiring schematic for a Les Paul with a built-in broadbucker (contemplating the bridge pickup in both, standard humbucker and dual sound configuration) is in the "Jimmy Page with 42 sounds" thread in the schematics forum. Go and have a look and if you like it don't forget to vote!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and keep on rocking!