Hi everyone,
Years ago a guitar tech showed me how to wire a two Vol. two Tone guitar to have independent Volumes. In theory this sounds great, because you can turn one Vol. down without turning off the whole guitar. Up ‘till now, we’ve wired all our guitars this way.
I’ve been studying wiring and have come to the conclusion that independent Volumes change the taper of the pots in an undesirable way. So we are now wiring the guitars to have non-independent Volumes.
We are also in the middle of putting together a electronics bread board with somewhere around $300 worth of capacitors and resistors so that we can plug in each model of guitar that I build and custom wire each model for the absolute best tone for those woods and components.
I have already found what I think is the ultimate tone for the Blues Queens. I now wire the Blues Queens the same way the 59 Les Paul was wired except I also put a Vol. kit, which consists of a resistor and a capacitor, on each Vol. control. The resistor makes the Volume pot have a really smooth taper and the capacitor retains high end so that, as you turn the Vol. down, it doesn’t get muddy.
I rewired a client’s Blues Queen like the 59 Les Paul and used Bumblebee caps wired like Gibson did it from 52 to 60. Holy $#!& does it sound good. Creamy, Fat, Punchy. Turn down the Vol. and Tone and it cleans up beautifully for Jazz.
If you would like to have this wiring in your Blues Queen, contact me. For a nominal fee, Richard and I can make a harness for you to drop into your guitar – you just have to solder the pickups to it.
I just want to build the finest playing, sounding and looking guitars that I can possibly build.
Chuck
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January 29th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I have great faith in Chuck’s ability to recognize even the most subtle differences in tone and I also know the customer to which he is referring to. When these two guys say this is worth checking out I have no choice but to do it! I did the ’59 wiring change as per Chuck’s instructions and added the treble bleed circuit on each volume control. I can confirm that these changes have dramatically improved a guitar that I thought couldn’t get any better! I have to admit though to being a bit nervous with the soldering iron around my gorgeous Blues Queen! Thank you Chuck for continually raising the tone bar!
Paul from Canada
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 am
Hi Chuck. I’m not clear what non-independent volumes are. Is the taper the only difference? The term implies that changing one volume changes the other. I continue to love my 3 Thorntons. Ralph