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Why do people like 50s wiring?

Gold Tone

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Apr 2, 2002
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6,825
Anyone looking for a single set of Historic Spec Pots + 1 spare, e-mail me
 

MK.II

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Jul 28, 2002
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The taper on the new Historic Spec Pots are a dead-nuts copy of the old Centralab Straight line audio taper......


Has Gibson always offered aftermarket Historic Spec pots? If they have, how will I know for sure
that I will be getting the new spec pots and not old spec ones, if I want to buy some?
 

zombiwoof

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Feb 22, 2003
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3,565
Has Gibson always offered aftermarket Historic Spec pots? If they have, how will I know for sure
that I will be getting the new spec pots and not old spec ones, if I want to buy some?

I'm not sure about this, but I think before they came out with the new custom taper Historic pots, they were using the same pots in the Historics that they used in the production guitars. I never saw Historic pots for sale before the new ones came out. I believe you're safe in ordering them.

Al
 

MK.II

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Jul 28, 2002
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I'm not sure about this, but I think before they came out with the new custom taper Historic pots, they were using the same pots in the Historics that they used in the production guitars. I never saw Historic pots for sale before the new ones came out. I believe you're safe in ordering them.

Al


Thanks for the reply! I don't think I remember having seen Gibson offering Historic spec pots in the past, but then again I've also never really looked for them either. The other day at my favorite local store I noticed that they had some in cream colored packages labelled as "Historic Spec", but I got sidetracked and forgot to ask them if they had gotten them in recently. I'll have to remember to ask about them the next time I'm in there.
 

Black58

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Oct 28, 2005
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10,139
Well, I'm just back from my holiday and surprise surprise, someone couldnt help having another dig, just as I predicted.

Let me tell you something Black58, I care a lot about the opinions of people on this and many other forums, otherwise why would I bother to ask questions on here. As far as I can see it is YOU who doesnt value or care about other guys opinions, and how long someone has been on a forum is totally irellevant - I have been on here for over 18months, I am certainly not new, but I value the opinion of someone who has been on here for 10mins just as much as someone whos been here for 10years.

And just for the record, your "new to the computer world" comment actually made me laugh out loud! ...oh sorry, 'LOL' ...thats 'computer speak'. :rolleyes: I am actually a Video Game Artist (hence my alias), and before that I was a graphic designer. I have been immersed in the 'computer world' since the early '90s. I am also an admin on two gamer forums and probably know an awful lot more about said world than you will ever know my friend.

"Computer world" :rofl ...one of the funniest things I've read all year! If either of us is the FNG I'm afraid its YOU mate. :)

You are not "getting" what I'm saying. Is that intentional? .. or ya just don't know? :hmm
 

Kris Ford

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Jan 6, 2007
Messages
4,003
P-90s definitely prefer 500K pots. Although, vintage Juniors typically came with 250K tone pots.

OK, so if I have a dark sounding LPJR (an '06 USA version) which from what I've read has a 300K linear volume and 500K audio tone (which I have no problem with actually),could I expect to brighten it up a bit if I used a 500K audio taper pot? I also want to get a good PIO cap in there too.
 

roadhog96

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Apr 21, 2006
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OK, so if I have a dark sounding LPJR (an '06 USA version) which from what I've read has a 300K linear volume and 500K audio tone (which I have no problem with actually),could I expect to brighten it up a bit if I used a 500K audio taper pot? I also want to get a good PIO cap in there too.

That's exactly what will happen. You might want to look into 50's wiring also because everytime you roll off your tone you loose treble with modern. 50's wiriing will retain the treble.
 

riefil

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Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
308
I know I'm reviving an old thread.

Did a lot of research, and finally broke out the soldering iron. All I can say is just the difference it makes when turning down the the volume is huge. Retained highs and clarity. Even the volume on the neck pickup is now useful. Got a great George Benson-Breezin' tone. Very happy. Works well........FOR ME!

Thanks for all the info guys.
 

B Ingram

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Jan 3, 2016
Messages
730
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by maxwedge
I measured 3 pots today: a new RS Guitar Works Super pot, and Volume pots removed from my 06 R6 and 09 R9 and I've also put in percent of the taper (divide smaller values by max value).
IMO, this is a very rough way of 'seeing' the taper and a much better way would be to run a small voltage through them, like 12v, and plot the taper on digital scope. Then you could really see it! This way is hard to be accurate. These 3 I have are all over the place!

---------RS------------06-R6 -----------09-R9

"0" ----.3-- 0%-------- .3 -- -0%------ .1--0%
"1" -1.5k-.003%------1.3k --.003%---1.2k .003%
"2" --29k - 5%--------39k ---8%------- 9k 2%
"3" --66k -12%----- 115k --23%----- 19k 4%
"4" -103k -19%----- 180k- 35%------ 28k 6%
"5" -136k -25%----- 255k -50%------ 40k 8%
"6" -174k -32%------332k -65%------ 58k 12%
"7"--279k -51%----- 407k -80%-----135k 28%
"8" -379k -72%----- 465k- 93%----- 287k 58%
"9"--514k--94%---- 511k 100%----- 440k 92%
"10" 548k 100%---- 511k 100%----- 474k 100%


That's weird, on both my LP and 335 the RS Superpots are very clear and very usable all the way down to about 2. Very similar to the way a linear pot works. There is a very noticable volume jump from 8-10 just like an audio taper. Both are wired 50's style.

Very helpful thread! I did want to clarify some terminology which I think creates confusion. Where pots specify "taper" note that the term used ("audio", "log", "linear") DOES NOT refer to the auditory impression you have when using the pot. It only refers to %-change-of-resistance/%-rotation-of-shaft.

So a linear taper pot has a 50% change of resistance with a 50% rotation of the knob. Working up from zero, a log or audio pot has a much slower change of resistance (only 10-30% of total resistance at half-rotation), then a much greater change of resistancefrom half- to full-up. That said, the audio pot has a logarithmic taper, but your ears also respond to sound pressure logarithmically, so the auditory impression is equal-volume-change per unit of rotation.

A linear taper pot, whether used for volume or tone control, will sound like all the action is crowded at one end of the knob's travel. So a linear volume control being rolled down sounds like very little volume reduction is happening until you get down to ~2, then it sounds like it goes from lotsa-volume to nothing between 2 & 0. To me, that's not very useful. But a log pot gives the impression of a "linear/equal change of loudness over knob travel" and a log pot tone control gives a "linear/equal change of treble reduction over knob travel".

If you do Danny Gatton tone knob wah-wah tricks in your playing, this can be a useful feature. If you had a linear taper tone control and need to manipulate that control with your picking hand little finger, it is convenient to go from mud to icepick with only a knob-travel of 0-2. Then again, if you like fine control of the tone response of your pickup, this is horrible because the control seems either non-responsive (2-10 range) or very twitchy (0-2 range). A linear taper pot then allows very little "finger-move" to control the whole range of tone change. So application figures heavily into what resistance taper will work for any one guitarist.

And there's not just one "audio" taper. A true log curve would be 10% resistance at 50% rotation, but all pots are just an approximation of a log curve. There are "10% audio", "20% audio" and "30% audio" pots out there. The 20% & 30% pots might sound a tad hotter on 5, but you also might not notice unless you compared to a 10% audio pot at the same time.

So Roadhog96's description of his impression using the RS Superpot uses backwards terminology, at least when describing the electrical characteristic of "resistance taper". The RS Superpot follows an audio/log taper pretty closely from 0-6 (compared to the 2009 R9 above), even though it's more like a 30% audio taper pot than a 10% audio taper pot.

From 6-9, the RS Superpot has almost a perfectly-linear change of resistance per rotation (~100k per knob-number). So when he says "there's a very noticeable change of volume from 8-10" it's because the resistance has increased very much more than a audio/log pot would have over this span (again, compare to the 2009 R9 numbers), so the volume ioncrease is greater than you'd expect for the knob-number. I'd also argue that this impression is really happening in the span from 6-8, while from 8-10 it seems like there is little volume change.

A very early post said something to the effect of "engineering rules have little to do with sound/tone" but consider this application (... putting on my engineering hat ...):
Purely from the resistance taper of the RS Superpot, when used as a volume control I'd expect to hear little volume change from ~6-10. However when the guitar is plugged into an effect or amp which has a fast transition from "cleanish" to "very distorted" (as in some pedals), the short range of linear taper from 6-8 will seem to smoothly volume knob transition from heavily-distorted to pretty clean. Below 6, the Superpot responds like any other volume control. On the flipside, if your rig already allows a typical volume control to get a smooth and useful transition from dirty to clean, the Superpot will sound "twitchy" or "too much, too fast" between 6-8. If a player told me, "I need my volume control to have a lot more "action" over a smaller travel in the upper range of knob settings," then engineering would say this is the right tool for the application.
 

RocknRollShakeUp

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Jul 7, 2006
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766
I know I'm reviving an old thread.

...All I can say is just the difference it makes when turning down the the volume is huge. Retained highs and clarity. Even the volume on the neck pickup is now useful. Got a great George Benson-Breezin' tone. Very happy. Works well........FOR ME!

Thanks for all the info guys.

I totally agree.

The magic happens, and it is all about, when you start to turn the knobs down that 50s wiring makes sense.

In some guitars it is not even an option not to have it I think. Namely, in a p90 guitar, with the pickups very close to the strings, 50s wiring is a total necessity in my opinion. I cant imagine not having it. Full volume you get the rocknroll snarl and volume that beats your preamp into submission, but with 50s wiring, rolling the volume down to at least 8-8.5 turns it into a totally different guitar that delivers the most complex 3d clean chime you can ever want (if your amp allows for nice cleans). So yeah 50s wiring can be HUGE!
 

Big Al

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Apr 24, 2002
Messages
14,537
I've never been a fan of "50's" wiring. Good pots and caps yes, but the way I use my volumes and tones doesn't play well with the 50's scheme. The slight treble roll off when turning down is just what I want as my clean tones can be too bright. When I'm dialed up too max the natural overdrive on my tube amps tends to flatten out the treble spikes and gives a nicer tone. Fat and full with just enough bite to make my point. When I roll down to clean up treble can be harsh without the little bit of treble roll off I get with modern wiring.

I also use my tone controls a lot and need stability and consistent performance from my tone settings.
 
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