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Wire It Up

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At last, after what seems like an eternity of video editing, I’m ready to roll out this new series of videos about wiring up guitar electronics.   In these videos, I demonstrate how to lay out the components, select wire, strip and tin shielded wire, solder the backs of the pots, arrange the bundles of wires inside tubing, wire up the pots, the switch, the tone capacitor and the jack.

Here’s the first part of the video, covering initial preparations, component layout and wire selection and prep.

Relax, Take a Load Off

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In this video I demonstrate how to modify a tone pot to be no load, for true bypass.  The change in brightness is subtle, but worthwhile.  Don’t be afraid to open up your pots and have a look – it’s pretty easy to do.  But be forewarned, some pots are easier than others to put back together!  These Bourns pots are a bit dodgy, as you can see in the videos.  In contrast, the CTS EP086 is very nicely constructed and easy to reassemble  (as I showed in How Pots Work: Disassembly and Exploration).

Pots, Wafers, Wipers, Shafts, Dimples

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How do potentiometers actually work, and how are they built?  In preparation for my tutorial on how to make a no-load tone pot, I dissected a couple pots (the same Bourns and CTS pots I’ve been looking at in my other videos).  In this video, I explore the details of pot construction and how they actually work.

Correction: in the video at 6:25, I said that the narrow part of the wafer had less resistance than the wider part.  That’s backwards! For the same length, a thinner wire has more resistance than a thicker wire.  Similarly, at 4:37, when I said “more stuff to go through, more resistance”, it would have been clearer to say “longer length, more resistance”.

This is not a drill!

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Next up in the series on guitar pots, I demonstrate how to enlarge the holes in your semi-hollow body top, to accommodate the larger diameter 3/8” pot shafts.  Import guitars appear to use slightly smaller 8mm or 5/16” shaft pots.

In the video, I demonstrate using a Unibit stepped drill bit to cut very clean holes. Note you can also place some painters tape over the surface before drilling, to help produce clean edges.

The step bit helps enlarge a hole, step by step, but it’s also useful to have some fractional calipers on hand to confirm the hole size.

When a pot is really just a pot

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I’ve read stories of people saying how their guitar sound miraculously better after just changing to a different brand of pots.   Are they just imagining it?   Let’s investigate.

In my earlier post Pickup experiment – bypassing electronics, I determined that entirely bypassing the electronics on my Epiphone Riviera P93 did marginally brighten up the sound.  However, we need some volume knobs and a tone control – we can’t just remove them all!More

What the Bleedin’ Treble!

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In part one of this, video I explain what treble bleed is, and how to evaluate and select the right cap.  I demonstrate my G&L ASAT III which has a treble bleed cap on the master volume, and I compare that with my Epiphone Riviera P93 which has no treble bleed caps (yet).

Silver Mica, Ceramic and Orange Drop Capacitors

The caps I tried are (as shown left to right): Silver Mica 100pf, 390pf and 1000pf, a tiny 1000pf ceramic cap, and Sprague Orange Drop (polypropylene) 1000pf, 3300pf, and 6800pf.

The tolerances on the caps are a bit all over the place.  I measured the 1000pf caps on my DMM and all were closer to 1250.  The 100pf silver mica was over 250!  This is assuming I can trust my Mastech DMM.

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Epiphone Riviera P93 Video Review, Part 2

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This time in high definition, and more importantly, with a high quality microphone instead of the webcam mic.  I just run through a bunch of riffs, both clean and distorted, with the pickups alone and in combination, and also demonstrate the sound of the tone knob.

I’m using a large diaphragm Rode NT1 mic, positioned about 4” away from the grill of the Vox VT30 amp.   These recordings will serve as the “before” examples for my upcoming mods.

Incidentally, I had to make a lot of changes in order to record high quality separate voice and guitar audio, instead of using the crappy webcam mic.  Windows Movie Maker just doesn’t cut it.   So I downloaded a free trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum.  It’s so much better than Windows Movie Maker!  Has really nice audio editing features, and full HD support.

Next up will be treble bleed…

A new series on guitar electronics

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This is part 1 of a new series on guitar electronics.  In the video, I demonstrate how to get the electronics out of a semi-hollow body guitar, with some useful tips and tricks.

Once the electronics are out of the guitar, it’s relatively easy to try some experiments on the circuit to see how it sounds.    I’m planning a number of upcoming experiments including:

  • Experimenting with replacement pots
  • Adding treble bleed to the volume pots
  • Trying different tone capacitors to see how it changes the sound
  • Replacing the jack with one with a longer bushing Switchcraft jack
  • Replacing the pickups
  • Putting all the electronics back into a semi-hollow body guitar through the f-hole

Every step of the way, I’ll be recording audio examples, how-to videos, and text writeup.

I look forward to hearing any comments or suggestions.  Please let me know your experiences too!

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