ELECTRONICS
The electronic components inside your guitar are ripe for shrewd, Tone-enhancing upgrades. here are some of The best...
Pot Values
Your volume control is simply a variable resistor that gradually sends your signal to ground. wisdom says to use a lower value 250 kohm pot with a single coil and a higher value 500k on a humbucker; the higher the value the more brightness you’ll hear. an in-between value pot, 300k, can be a good choice for lower output humbuckers.
it’s not unusual to find a good quality 500k pot that might read 520k or 470k. you can measure the pot with a multimeter and use those values to fine tune your sound. with a four control layout you can use different value pots for the neck and bridge pickups.
treble bleeds
As you reduce your volume control you may hear a loss of treble – some like it, some don’t. one fix is a treble bleed circuit between the input and output lugs of your volume control. Typically, a 0.001microfarad cap is used but if the result is too bright or dark, choose a larger or lower value capacitor respectively. capacitors are also quoted in picofarads and nanofarads which can get confusing. so 1000pf (picofarad) equals 1nf (nanofarad) equals 0.001µf (microfarad).
some prefer to add a resistor in parallel with the capacitor, which stops the circuit sounding thin as you turn down. stew mac’s treble bleed circuit pairs a 0.001microfarad cap and a 150k resistor; dimarzio suggests a lower value cap (560picofarad) and a higher value resistor (300k).
bass control
Reverend used a ‘Bass Contour’ control, which effectively adds a third control to the standard volume and tone. This 1 mega-ohm pot has a treble bleed cap (0.001microfarad) and functions as a high pass filter as you turn it down – irrelevant of volume control settings. it’s an effective way of creating a thinner, more single coil sound.
Vintage Vs Modern wiring
Think of this as another way to retain highs as you turn down your volume but without adding a cap and/or resistor. it’s simply a slightly different way of wiring your volume and tone as used, for example, by gibson back in the day. it will make the two controls a little more interactive and compared to conventional (modern) wiring might take a little adjustment. it’s totally reversible and there’s no reason why you can’t wire ‘vintage’ on your neck vol/tone and ‘modern’ on your bridge controls on a four control layout. plenty of companies offers pre-wired controls for a variety of guitar styles; emerson is highly recommended.
Tone Caps
The emotive subject of tone capacitors is a simple concept: while a treble bleed cap creates a high pass filter (highs are passed, lows are attenuated), a tone control passes the signal through the capacitor to ground creating a low pass filter.
wd music give us the basics: “0.047-microfarads is a very common value especially for the tone controls on fender strat and Teles. a 0.022microfarad cap is normally used on guitars equipped with humbuckers, this value of capacitor is associated with gibson instruments. Try a 0.033microfarad if you find that a 0.047 is too dark and a 0.022 is not offering quite enough tonal variation, as it’s the capacitor to use to get somewhere in between the two. The standard rule- of-thumb is as the capacitor value gets smaller, the less ‘dark’ the sound is when the pot is turned to its lowest setting.”
The emotive bit is the sound of different types of capacitors, which can range in price considerably. one school of thought is that it’s simply the value that is important; others swear that paper-in-oils sound superior than cheaper ceramic caps, for example.
a simple way to experiment with both value and type is to cut a couple of leads and solder a crocodile clip at one end of each. solder the other end to the points in the circuit where the capacitor should be. Then buy a selection of the same value caps of different types, clip them one-by-one to those croc clips and listen. record them. experiment. go with the one that works for you. Try the same with different values but make sure they’re of the same type.
switch Options
The classic Gibson three-way toggle pickup selector switch and the equally classic fender three- and five-way lever switches are employed in the majority of guitars we play. but there are plenty of other options, especially for the later fender-style like ‘super’ or ‘mega’ switches that expand your wiring options, not least if you’re switching humbuckers and want to employ some pre-set coil-splits.
a new oak grigsby six-way lever switch allows you to simply link the neck and bridge pickups like a Telecaster, but on your strat. a simple mod that adds a mini switch (or a switched pull/push tone or volume pot) and one wire can create a seven-sound strat adding neck and bridge plus all three pickups together.
“As well as the classic three- and five-way toggle and lever switches there are plenty of other options”
no-load tone control
Removing a pot from your circuit will have the effect of a slight treble lift. The ‘blower’ switch concept, which sends the bridge pickup directly to the guitar’s output, is one example. The ‘no-load’ tone control is another. The modified pot, at its full-on position, is effectively bypassed but as you turn it down it acts as a conventional tone control. in the uK the original gordon smith circuit employed a similar device. again, a no-load tone pot can be used as a pickup-specific tone in a four-control circuit, as one (or both) of the two-tone controls in a strat, or as a master tone on a Tele or a gretsch.
fatter strats
By design stratocasters are bright sounding guitars and, dependant on the quality of the guitar and its pickups, can be too bright –with the original wiring, the brightest bridge pickup doesn’t have a tone control. Thankfully, just by adding a jumper wire to the switch you can configure it so the first tone control works on both the neck and middle, and the second affects the bridge. some like one tone on the neck, one on the bridge and leave the middle without one – adding a little sparkle to those mixed pickup sounds. others simply wire the second tone as a master tone control and leave the first tone out of the circuit.
“i have a love/hate relationship with the strat,” comments adrian Thorpe (ThorpyfX), “because i detest the typical ‘ice pick’ bridge pickup that’s generally too harsh. in my strats the middle tone control is changed to a master tone and the other tone control is converted to a blend pot (it must be a no-load pot) to introduce some of the neck pickup into the mix of the bridge. This gives a much fatter sound and is ultimately more enjoyable to my ears.”
Split… or not?
Coil-splits on humbuckers, where one coil is completely shunted to ground, is a time honoured extra, typically achieved with a mini-toggle switch or pull/push switched tone or volume pot.
“for humbucker guitars i like to ensure the controls are as versatile as possible,” says adrian Thorpe. “This means i always add a treble bleed network (a 1,000picofarad cap in parallel with a 100 kohms resistor). however, this mod is coupled with a partial coil-split to leave some of the second coil still active. i use a 2 kohms resistor for the bridge pickup and a 1.5 kohms resistor for the neck. This method gives a much more convincing single coil sound, is fatter and more useful than fully dumping that coil to ground which often sounds weak and uninspiring.” This partial split is used by prs on numerous models (a 2.2 kohm resistor on the bridge pickup, 1.1k on the bridge), for example, the mccarty, in tandem with a treble bleed capacitor (180picofarad) and, typically, a 0.033microfarad tone cap.
“A No-Load tone pot has a variety of uses depending on the circuit you add it to”
IDENTIFY THE RIGHT PICKUP
“You’ve got to remember that a pickup doesn’t generate frequencies, it reproduces them very much like a microphone,” says Tim Mills of Bare Knuckle Pickups. “I think that’s a mistake a lot of people make. They tend to think that, ‘I’m going to use X pickup because it’s going to give me more bass.’ Well, the pickup itself won’t generate that, because nothing comes out of it until a string vibrates in its magnetic field. So, it’s about what frequencies does that pickup listen to?
“If we’ve got a player that wants a very dynamic tone, a very vintage tone, then we’re going to be looking at lower output pickups. In humbuckers, for example, we can put a loose DC resistance to that: we’re going to be looking at things around about the 8 kohms ballpark. They can be powered Alnico V, Alnico IV, Alnico III, Alnico II and so on.
“Take a humbucker wound with 42-gauge wire as a benchmark. With an Alnico II magnet, it would have a warm, soft bass response, a very sweet high end and a slightly pronounced midrange. Alnico III, funnily enough, is not quite as strong as Alnico II, so the highs tend to be more muted and rounded. Probably the best way to imagine the sound of Alnico III is to think of the early 1950s when this form of magnet was very common. Think of the sounds of the jazz and clean guitar tones from that time – that plummy roundness.
“Move up to Alnico IV and the power rating comes up and the frequency response flattens out – you get a balanced and natural sounding response from the coils, but not so it’s boosting the treble. The mid-range stays quite constant as well. And then you go to Alnico V, which has the highest power. Then the bass and treble do get boosted and the sound starts to get more aggressive – more ‘rock ’n’ roll’, for want of a better term.
“Ceramic is a much more powerful magnet again [than Alnico V]. The bass and treble get boosted significantly. A lot of people think ceramic magnets scoop the mids out, but when you analyse it you find the mids tend to stay where they are – it’s just that the bass and treble get boosted so much you get a vee-shaped taper in the EQ. Ceramic pickups tend to suit players who need a very fast and percussive pick attack.
“A ceramic magnet is very efficient and powerful, basically. So, it drives the coil very, very hard. As a general overview, you’ll get a very fast-tracking bass response, with the bottom end being pushed very hard and a very bright sibilant high end. Mid-range, as mentioned, usually tends to smooth out a lot.”
Hot or Not?
It used to be the case that if a player upgraded their pickups it was generally because they wanted something hotter and louder. But a new appreciation of the sensitivity and dynamic range of loweroutput, vintage pickups means that increasing numbers of players are considering low-wind pickups as an upgrade option. So what are the pros and cons of hot versus low-output pickups?
“Going hotter will emphasise the bass,” says Marc Ransley of Mojo Pickups. “You’ll also get a volume increase as well. But if you go too hot, you can end up overpowering the other pickups – and you’ll probably lose some clarity. I personally think a loweroutput pickup might be a better option because it gives you more flexibility. They’ll also tend to be brighter and clearer. You can always roll that off on the amp if it’s too bright, whereas if you have a hot pickup that’s too muddy it’s much harder to sharpen. Once it’s muddy, it’s muddy. I personally would rather have a nice pickup that is bright and has great clarity, because if you put a good drive or EQ pedal after it, you can make it do whatever you want.”
“The dynamic range of lower-output, vintage pickups means more players are considering them as an upgrade”
A MusculAr Mod for strAts
“When it comes to modding Strat pickups, I like to install a zinc-plated steel baseplate,” says Tim Mills of Bare Knuckle Pickups. “I do this on the bridge coil of my Strat sets in all my own personal guitars, and I know some players like to put it on all three coils. You’ll hear this kind of plate referred to by all sorts of weird names: induction plates, grounding plates, etc, but they’re not really working that way.
“What’s happening is that the steel plate changes the shape of the pickup’s magnetic field. It actually widens it out a little bit. So, with a bridge coil, in particular, on a Strat, you’re going to get some more output out of it and more depth. It just basically gives it a bit more of a muscular tone. I really like that, and it’s a very simple mod to do. We offer it on all of our Strat coils but a lot of other pickup makers will stick a baseplate on for you when you order a set of pickups, too. It’s not typically a huge upcharge either, but it does make a huge difference, tonally. I would highly recommend it.”
Avoid voluMe droPs
Because guitar strings can vibrate more freely as they get further away from the bridge, you’ll often find that sets of pickups are ‘balanced’ to avoid the neck pickup sounding louder and fuller than the bridge pickup does. This typically means winding the bridge pickup hotter than the neck to compensate for the relatively constricted movement of the strings close to the bridge. If you’re modding your guitar with a mixture of pickups, especially of different types, volume balance is therefore a key consideration.
“A common mistake that people make is that they might come to me and say they have a P-90 in the neck position and they’re planning on putting a relatively low-output pickup like a gold foil in the bridge position,” Marc Ransley of Mojo Pickups says. “And I have to explain to them that they’ve kind of got it the wrong way round: the P-90 will completely overpower the gold foil pickup, especially in that position. There’d be a massive volume drop. So that’s something people need to consider.”
Be Aware of wire
When selecting pickups, beware of judging how loud and hot they are by DC resistance (measured in kohms) readings alone. While most classic pickups are wound using 42-gauge wire, finer wire of 43-gauge and above is used in some pickup designs, such as the fashionable gold foil pickups associated with vintage harmony guitars and others. use of finer-gauge wire results in more turns around the bobbin, which elevates the DC resistance reading. however, the less substantial wire also tends to make for a quieter pickup than the relatively high DC resistance reading would suggest.
“The classic case of this is if you look back at a fender Telecaster from the 50s, the neck pickup was wound with 43-gauge wire and the bridge pickup is wound with heavier 42-gauge wire,” says Marc Ransley of Mojo Pickups. “And in some cases you’ll find that the neck pickup is actually ‘hotter’ than the bridge pickup, purely in terms of DC resistance. But in terms of actual sound, you’ll probably find that they balance up ok.”
So how would two pickups of the same output but different wire gauges compare, sonically?
“If you took a Strat pickup of let’s say 6 kohms, compared with a gold foil pickup with an output of 6 kohms that Strat pickup will still be much louder than the gold foil,” Marc says. “But thinner gauge wire generally has more mid-range and a little less treble.”
INDEPENDENT SPIRIT
Guitarist’s Tone Doctor, Simon law, is the man behind SVl guitars and, more recently, a tech to Jeff Beck. So he knows a thing or two about good pickups. While big names such as Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio are always a reliable bet, he also recommends giving some of the independent makers a try. “lindy fralin has gained huge respect for his pickups over the last couple of decades,” Simon says, “likewise, Jason lollar’s clever takes on traditional pickups are great. however, the uSA is not the only place to find great tone. I myself use Mark foley pickups wound by Mark himself. Mark hand-makes mainly single coil pickups and these are absolutely magical in Strats and Telecasters.
“for humbuckers, perhaps look at OX4 pickups from Oxford, again these pickups are handmade by just one chap in his workshop, Mark Stow makes beautiful re-creations of vintage humbuckers. Of course there are many other uK manufacturers but these two are my faves. Just make your choice and follow the wiring and replace like for like.”
Avoid Uncomfortable Silences
Andy Manners, tech for Ethan Johns and other luminaries, has this cautionary advice to avoid problems when modifying your guitar with new pickups. “With regards to pickup heights, don’t forget the magnets can be strong enough to interfere with the string’s vibration if set too close and can give some nasty overtones – this is particularly pronounced on the wound strings. Also, double check no ‘hot’ circuit parts are touching shielding paint or foil, especially in toggle-switch cavities. That will kill your output too. This simple little tip will reduce the chances of circuit shorts – and help you enjoy the mojo from your juicy new pickups.”
cut with care
“I often hear, ‘I changed my pickups and there’s no sound anymore’,” says Seb Pecchia, who has tech’d for Prince, Royal Blood and Portishead. Seb explains that “cool, repro-type pickups often come with far too much wire on them – and it seems obvious to trim the wire back. But most people forget that the nice silver, braided cable isn’t just there to look pretty: it’s the ground for the pickup! Once the pickup is installed, the cover plate is back on and all that nice wire is out of sight, that ground braid will quite often end up touching a hot part of the circuit, cutting the output – either that or touch a leg of a capacitor and make the guitar sound like the tone is wound out. Therefore, make sure all braid is cut to length and pulled back well away from the ‘hot’ parts of the circuit. I take some plastic or rubber tubing and cover the braided part of the wire.”
“The magnets can be strong enough to interfere with the string’s vibration if they’re set too close”