UNDER THE HOOD
Unsurprisingly, the electrics are just as different as the guitars themselves
Opening up the Figured, its Modern name is reflected in what we see: a very tidy-looking array of PCB‑mounted pull-switch pots connected to the pickups, toggle switch and output jack with no-solder, push-in Quick Connect plugs. The circuit board has a ‘LPSTAND REV.2’ identifier. Pots are the high-quality CTS PCB style, the tone caps are brown mylar .022μF (223k), and the taller (what look like Mallory) caps are .01μF (103k) and are used to simply filter one coil, to provide the ‘coil-tap’ switching.
There’s no coil-split involved as the DCR doesn’t change when you pull up the ‘coil-tap’ switch, although on the bridge pickup, when you pull up the pure bypass switch it does change to a higher reading.
The ‘Modern’ designation doesn’t really apply to the Lite’s circuit. Unscrew the recessed rear cover and we see a completely unscreened cavity with traditional hand-wired components. Unlike the outgoing LP Tribute, for example, it’s PCB-free. No surprises, then. The Gibson logo’d 500k pots are wired modernstyle, each tone with a very small blue .022μF capacitor. The pickup leads are vintage-style single conductor, so if you fancy adding any coil-splits, you’ll need new pickups. Still, with a cavity depth of between 23mm and 29mm, you’d struggle to use a standard pull-push pot.
The different flavours of Gibson humbuckers help shape what we hear. The long-running 490R ‘Modern Classic’ and 498T‘Hot Alnico’ will be very familiar to Gibson fans. The 490R uses an Alnico II magnet with a published DCR of 8kohms; the 498T uses an Alnico V magnet with a DCR of 14.2k and probably a thinner coil wire. We stay with Alnico V for the Burstbucker Pros: the neck ‘rhythm’ pickup is advertised with a pretty classic PAF-style DCR of 7.8k and the Pro +, which Gibson tells us is “the hotter/overwound version of the Burstbucker Pro Lead/Treble pickup”, measures at output 8.36k or 8.5k in pure bypass mode without the volume and tone control in circuit.