Dig it! Master Guitar FAQ #4 - Other Guitar Electronics.

Mark Wein

Grand Poobah
Staff member
What pots to use with which pickups, what do the capacitors do?, what else can be onboard a guitar and what shouldn't be?
 
250k pots with single coils
500k pots with humbuckers
Or play around with them.

Caps simply control the frequencies that get rolled off to ground in the tone circuit.

I like my volume and tone pots to offer some kind of smooth mechnical resistance, ie, I like to feel like I have to put some effort into turning them. They should still turn smoothly, but I don't like them to just spin around freely.

Other than that, I'm not too picky.
 
250k pots with single coils
500k pots with humbuckers
Or play around with them.

Caps simply control the frequencies that get rolled off to ground in the tone circuit.

I like my volume and tone pots to offer some kind of smooth mechnical resistance, ie, I like to feel like I have to put some effort into turning them. They should still turn smoothly, but I don't like them to just spin around freely.

All of the above plus Switchcraft jacks. On very rare occasions I will use a mini DPDT to split coils as well as the other good stuff.
 
this is going to be the shortest FAQ thread, I think :embarrassed:

Yep. :embarrassed:

I just like everything to work and sound nice. :embarrassed:

Oh, I have a "thing" on the volume control of my Strat that keeps the treble frequencies when I turn it down. I like that. :embarrassed:
 
How about brand names for pots? Recommended suppliers? Would a wiring kit for a Strat, for instance, bought from an eBay auction be OK?
 
Fender being 250k and Gibson being 500k used to be the big difference,
but that's just like a smaller pipe for less water, and a bigger pipe for more.
Any 500k will handle anything 250k,
and the electronic differential is almost unmeasurable, not an audio that humans can hear,
and that's from companies using war surplus electronics to add to their previously just acoustic production.
But that's just pure electronics, not the artistic combinations that create sounds we want to generate, or recreate, with feedback.
After that, you're dealing with an electro-magnetic field you are hopefully focussing over your pickups,
and everything from pickup covers to wiring shielding has incrimental, detrimental, and extra-oriental qualities of phenomena and singularities.
We are now also expecting to sound good when we are digital.

What I explored in terms of electronics became inventing a "ground soak" that has obvious volume and tonal impact, so quiet, widening the feedback potential.
Also, within your pickups' magnetic field, imagine a "node" of self-centering magnetism, the input from less efficient wiring or deleterious specs of a part,
that is carried by your signal until it reaches amplification, becoming an unheard sub-distortion that breaks up your overall feedback output,
or prevents you from sustaining loud, never-ending echo, with other guitar driven effects.
Your sound, through the wires, looks like a small comet, centered along the wiring axis, surrounded by electrons that get eroded around the edge,
frictionalized by the cable, folding back elements of the signal envelope due to wire travel, and all that effects that.
Slowing your signal softens the sound and allows greater signal density, as does modifying your sound, say by phasing, to graduate your signal.
And then you do it all in reverse when it goes through the speaker coils.

While this aspect of my invention is unique, calling it a "ground soak" borrows nomenclature from Peavey.
Peavey invented a "plate" for electronic assimilation in a specific amplifier, and I saw the same parlance of ouput with my ground, hence "ground soak".
 
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How about brand names for pots? Recommended suppliers? Would a wiring kit for a Strat, for instance, bought from an eBay auction be OK?

CTS, Bourns, and Alpha all make pretty decent pots. I think I prefer CTS.

FWIW, a local store carries Ernie Ball branded pots, which appear to just be rebranded CTS.

The only new pots I've ever bought that I've hated were from Stew-Mac. I bought their LP rewiring kit. The pots were junkier than the stuff that came in my Agile from the factory. :facepalm: The switch and jack were nice, but those pots were horrible. I ended up buying 4 of the EB branded CTS pots at the local store.
 
Piezo, MIDI, 13-pin, and USB outputs are also all options that might be worth discussing... but none of them are likely popular enough to generate discussion.
 
^^^ Thanks Prages. I almost pulled the trigger on StewMac's kit.

I plan on rewiring a Les Paul copy and a MIM Strat.

I've seen recommendations here for a $100 soldering iron. Is there a recommendation for one that is any cheaper?
 
If you want to do a professional job, you need professional tools.
Your Les Paul copy took hundreds of thousands of dollars of assembly line everything to make,
and you'd, what, use a $10 soldering iron that barely tacks things together?
But that's okay, if you're using a cheap guitar cord too.
You won't notice the difference.

I see Flamencology is in a real Godin mood.
 
Piezo, MIDI, 13-pin, and USB outputs are also all options that might be worth discussing... but none of them are likely popular enough to generate discussion.


I was hoping they'd come up at least a little, though...I'm really a novice when it comes to anything other than a 1/4" output on a guitar :)
 
^^^ Thanks Prages. I almost pulled the trigger on StewMac's kit.

I plan on rewiring a Les Paul copy and a MIM Strat.

I've seen recommendations here for a $100 soldering iron. Is there a recommendation for one that is any cheaper?

This is what I have and I can't ever see me needing anything more.

http://www.amazon.com/Weller-WLC100...28UC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1294336477&sr=8-1

Telecaster911 posted one when I was in the market that was something like $15 and got great reviews. Let me see if I can dig it up.
 
If you want to do a professional job, you need professional tools.
Agreed.
Your Les Paul copy took hundreds of thousands of dollars of assembly line everything to make,
But it is still one dingleberry shy of being a complete POS.

and you'd, what, use a $10 soldering iron that barely tacks things together?
I was hoping for a happy medium between $10 and $100. If it doesn't exist, I'll save my coin till I can afford it.

But that's okay, if you're using a cheap guitar cord too.
You won't notice the difference.

I know I'm a noob but I am trying to learn....
 
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