Rethinking Les Paul Wiring?

[asdaven]

So I kindve want to rewire my Les Paul to have a master tone and master volume instead two. In fact, I may just delete a tone control for the neck pickup all together because its always on 10 and would be on 11 if I could set it there.

Im thinking making the other tone control a master bass cut. Then maybe the other volume some sortve balance or bleed knob for the middle postion. Dont know if they make a pot with a center detent so in the middle you could dial in more of the neck or more of the bridge? Or I could just keep the 2 volumes in tact to accomplish this if thats better.

Anybody wire their Les Paul this way?

[JohnH]

I reckon blend pots can be tricky to achieve without them bring quirky, or loading down the pickups and so dulling the tone.

But using the current parts, assume 4x500k log pots, how about master volume and tone, then either two spin-splits (gradually bypass each pickup to a single coil), or, spin-a-split on neck and a master bass pot? Bass pots are a bit more effective with 1M and reverse log taper though.

[asdaven]

Im thinking ill keep the two volume and convert one of the tone pots into a bass cut pot. That way I can just balance the pickups that way with two volumes. Then ill either make the other tone pot a master tone or delete a tone control from the neck and make it strictly a bridge tone control. Not sure yet. Master tone would probably be more easy to wire.

[bluemurder]

Good idea, I am also mostly a master volume, bridge tone guy. Neck tone is mostly wide open.
The bass contour is also very useful, especially in guitars that are darker acoustically.

In the end, it is personal preference. There is no rule that says "guitar X" (insert any model here) has to have "Y" (insert any pot/switch configuration here).

Cheers Stephan

[tubejockey]

I wired a Les Paul to have a master volume, master PTB, and a fourth pot that is yet to be determined.  I plan to try out a number of different mid notch controls.  I had a "tuned tap", (lower coil bypassed with a cap) on a spin-a-split for a while but found I didn't use it much at all.  I still may end up with a 6-position Freeway switch so I can set up one of my favorite positions, bridge screw coil HOOP parallel with neck slug coil.  With two vintage-type PAF humbuckers, this can be dialed in to give a very useful strat N+M sound.

Too many guitars to work on.

[jandesign]

Hi everyone!
I have to admit I am a HH guy too. Recently I have come across with this solution: master volume, master tone, and the other two holes filled with rotary switches to achieve the four modes a humbucker can offer (north coil, south coil, the two coils in parallel and in series).
In addition I have installed a 6 position Freeway switch (model 3X3-08), so you can also have the two humbuckers parallel out-of-phase, series out-of-phase, and in series.
So the guitar looks just like a regular LesPaul, but with extended tonal palette.

The cons? None for me, I love this wiring! but I'll make a list below anyway ;p
1) Single coil modes are noisy (who could tell?)
2) With too many positions you soon get lost if you don't know what you want.
3) Some positions are pretty much the same, some others are not conventional at all, especially the out-of-phase modes.
4) In a live stage you may prefer to go for the usual neck and bridge stuff.

And so on... I will try to draw a wiring diagram for those still reading this post, so I can show the many benefits I have encountered so far.

What do you think about?

[newey]

May 16, 2023 18:27:52 GMT -5 jandesign said:

2) With too many positions you soon get lost if you don't know what you want.

There are any number of us here, myself included, who have built the "do-it-all" axe. But because of the "switchiness" such an axe requires, we end up building another with just those combinations we find useful, so that favorite combinations can be more easily accessed "on the fly". the first build is more of a technical exercise, satisfying to do. The second becomes the more practical one.

For example, while (depending on the pickups) I can sometimes here a difference between the North coil alone and the South coil alone at the bridge position, I've never really heard much difference between N versus S coils on the neck pickup. So, splitting the neck HB to only one coil or the other can simplify things there a bit. Also, when combining the two HBs together when both have N coils selected, or both S coils, the combo will not be hum cancelling, so by focusing on combinations which are hum-cancelling can reduce the number of seldom-used options.