Pickup experiment- bypassing electronics
Speaking with Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe Guitars about possible dog-eared P-90 pickup replacements for the Riviera P93, Pete recommended I first try bypassing the guitar’s electronics to see if they’re sucking the tone away. This experiment requires disconnecting the pickup wire from the electronics, and routing it directly to the output jack. The results are interesting. Read on for pictures, and audio, video before/after.
It felt a bit like open heart surgery! I held the neck volume pot with locking pliers so I could use a soldering iron to remove the red wire from the pot. Old baby blankets and polish cloths came in handy here to protect the finish:)
Rather than fishing out the output jack through the f-hole, I used alligator clips to attach an extra jack hanging off the side of the guitar. The green alligator connects the jack ground to the pickup ground. The red alligator connects to the red signal wire of the pickup. With this setup, I can easily swap the red alligator between the new output jack and right back to the neck volume pot.
Audio Examples
| Through Electronics | Bypassing Electronics |
|---|---|
| Pattern 1 | Pattern 1 |
| Pattern 2 | Pattern 2 |
| Pattern 3 | Pattern 3 |
So, it’s time to find and order some pots and caps! I’ll do a post on installation, and the followup for sound comparison.
A Luthier’s Setup
The factory setup of my Epiphone Riviera P93 was horrible! I had a luthier to do a full setup on the guitar, and it’s much better now. Read on for all the measurements before/after the setup.
Here’s the “Pre-Pack Checklist” that came with the guitar. What a joke! I imagine the inspector works like this:
- Intonation? Sucks, check!
- String height? Crazy high, check!
- Buzzing? Yep, check!
- Fretboard cleaning? Yuck, check!
Video Review of the Epiphone Riviera P93
Just uploaded my first YouTube video ever 🙂 It’s a quick overview of the Riviera P93, along with some demos of the three P-90 pickups individually, and my thoughts on possible mods/improvements.
I’ve got some more videos and audio examples, coming soon, so stay tuned…
Possible guitar mods
There are several things about the P93 that I’d like to change. The pickups seem dull and lifeless. The wire retainer on the Tune-O-Matic bridge rattles and buzzes, so I’d like to change to a better bridge. And I hear occasional pinging in the nut when tuning and using the Bigsby, so perhaps I’ll change the nut to a Graphtech teflon nut.
I often read folks saying that a new nut gave them better sustain, or richer sound. Or how a new bridge gave them less high frequency response, etc. It all sounds a bit wishy washy to me.
I’d like to be more scientific about it. For each mod, I’ll do some before/after recordings and post them here.
Epiphone Riviera P-93
This is an ES-335 style guitar, with three dog eared P-90’s. I bought this in late July from Guitar Center: Epiphone Limited Edition Riviera Custom P93 Electric Guitar
I’m planning some upgrades and tweaks, and I’ll be posting more on this soon.
Here’s a link to Epiphone’s page on this guitar