Control layouts: Jazz bass v Les Paul

[Freeman Keller]

Gardo, that is an interesting article, thanks. My two comments are that I have done this to several of the LP style guitars that I have built and they have all worked "fine". The tone pots roll off the treble as expected at both high and low volumes but honestly I don't know if I could tell the difference between this wiring and the standard way of doing it. I have not put a treble bleed cap on any of the guitars. I'll add that none of the people who own these guitars or have played mine have commented about the loss of treble at low volumes.

 

Since wiring a 335 is such a hassle it makes sense to know exactly what you are doing before you start. Please don't take my experience as a recommendation either way - I'm not an authority on either the wiring or what to expect from the guitar. You may want to mock up your pots on a piece of cardboard and actually test them before stuffing them in the f-holes.

 

And report back - if this is a bad idea I would like to know and will stop using it.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Errrr, you two.......no interesting or useful information please :|

[Verne Andru]

My preferred wiring for a LP (all guitars actually) is - Master Vol, Pickup Blend, 2 x tone.

 

I set the blend pot to favor the bridge PUP. This lets me switch between neck/clean and bridge/grind with the PUP selector while being able to control the overall volume (while maintaining the volume relationship between the PUPs) with the Master Volume. It also preserves the 2 tone controls for when needed.

[Ratae Corieltauvorum]

Interesting VA

[WRGKMC]

How many tones you have is strictly preference. The only guitar I use tone on is a Tele when it has new strings and allot of extra bite that needs to be attenuated. It really depends on how all my gear is set. If I'm getting a good tone with a darker sounding guitar like a Gibson then switch to a Fender it instantly gets brighter/thinner so I may roll the treble off instead of readjusting the rest of my gear.

 

There are some things you can do wiring which you may like.

 

How the treble and pickups operate depend on how they are wired to the pots.

 

On a Jazz bass, the volume pots work independent of one another so they are NOT like an LP. You can turn one off and the other is unaffected. This is because the pickups are wired to the outside leg on the volume pot.

 

On most LP's the pickups are wired to the outer leg of the volume pots, and the hot wire to the center leg. If you have both pickups selected and you turn one pot down, it will first attenuate that pickup down a bit. Turn it down more and both pickups are attenuated. Turn it all the way down and both pickups turn off.

 

Most players prefer this because it allows them to turn both pickups off at the end of the song yet it does allow a huge range of blend control when both pickups are selected. Most Gibson players do learn how to use this blend over time. Moving from a Gibson to a Fender and only having a selector to change tones can feel very alien to them.

 

You can move the pickup wires to the inside leg of the pot, Hot to the outside and the pots will work independent of each other. The Jazz bass works this way as do Rickenbacker's and many other guitars.

 

This tends to retain the brightness of the instrument because only one pickup is being attenuated and getting darker sounding instead of two.

 

You can also wire the tone controls differently. Modern LP tone controls tend to work like the volume pots do. You can move the wire where it connects from the tone pot and to the center leg on the volume pot instead of the outside leg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between wiring the tone to the center and outside and the pickups wired to the center or outside, you can get a huge variety of tones vs operation when using 2 pickups. What you may actually like and feel comfortable with is purely personal preference. Having independent pots can make for some different tones but if you're used to using a pot to kill volume having to attenuate two at the same time can really throw you for a loop.

 

I have a couple of guitars wired that way. One has no selector switch or tone controls, just two volumes.

I can turn either volume off and have just one pickup running or blend them at any levels. The knobs are close enough together where I can take the side of my hand and roll both down at the same time.

[Verne Andru]

An interesting side-effect of this wiring is that the tone remains much clearer when rolling down the volume with the blend pot - it doesn't tend to muddy up like traditional wiring.