andys
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Post by andys on Dec 12, 2012 16:22:17 GMT -5
Folks, I have been asked to repair the inside of a late 1950ish, early 1960 Melody maker. The inside was ravaged by some previous owner. He lost the original pup and attached some weird, weak pup with four screws (through the pick guard!!) I just got an original single pole Melody Maker pup and was looking at this link at Stew-mac: www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Electronics/Wiring_diagrams/i-1800.htmlAnd it looks like it may work. There was no cap inside the body when I opened it, but then again, it had the odd pup put on it. It may have been discarded at that time. Anyway, thought I'd run it by the experts and experienced ones and see what ya think. Didn't want to start soldering and working on it and then have it be noisier than it should be, or not work at all. Thanks!
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Post by newey on Dec 13, 2012 0:05:54 GMT -5
andys-
The diagram will work just fine and shouldn't be particularly noisy. It's a single-coil pup so it won't be silent, but with only one of them it shouldn't be too bad.
The only issue is the question of the values of the pots and the value of the capacitor. Stew-Mac's diagram is for an LP Jr., which this is not. And I'm sure there were probably changes in the Jr. over the many years it was (and still is) sold.
Stew-Macs values may be right on the money for all I know. But since this is a vintage piece, and since you went to the trouble to get a vintage pickup, you want it to sound the way a Melody Maker sounded with that pickup, back in the day. Or, at least you should want that.
So, given that the tone cap is gone, you may want to do some research to get the original value for that. As for the pots, if the "inside was ravaged", I suspect you'll be wanting to replace those as well. While you could measure the ones that are in there now to get the values, no guarantee those are original, although it may be possible to tell visually.
The original MM pickups were pretty bright-sounding. Some people loved 'em because of that, others hated the things because of that. Many MMs had pickup swaps performed for that reason, as yours apparently did.
Using 2 250K pots, instead of one 250K and one 500K, as Stew-Mac shows it, would knock the brightness back a little bit if that was desired.
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andys
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Post by andys on Dec 14, 2012 22:35:34 GMT -5
Newey,
Thanks for the info. I checked the cavity and found the original (very small physically!) cap. The Values on the pots were 500K and 250K. The owner was glad I found the pup. But, he doesn't care about restoring it too much.
He runs a pawn shop and was going to give this as a gift to his brother. I hadn't even taken a close look at the frets or nut, but they frets need dressed and the nut is in really bad shape.
With just a little work, this thing could be a real joy to play and worth a lot more than he paid for it. ($65!!)
But, if he doesn't want to have the work done, Oh well!!
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andys
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Post by andys on Dec 17, 2012 23:15:19 GMT -5
Ok, Had to put a new output jack on it, too. It all seems to be working, sort of. I used an audio taper pot, 500K, for the volume, but it has a very limited curve.
Meaning, it's on, you start to roll it off, and about a 1/4 turn and it's darn near off. The Tone control works well, nice smooth roll off. Good tone, but, I may as well put in an Off-On switch instead of this volume pot.
Think I should switch to a linear taper? Or, is that what should be in there?
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