• Guys, we've spent considerable money converting the Les Paul Forum to this new XenForo platform, and we have ongoing monthly operating expenses. THE "DONATIONS" TAB IS NOW WORKING, AND WE WOULD APPRECIATE ANY DONATIONS YOU CAN MAKE TO KEEP THE LES PAUL FORUM GOING! Thank you!

Strange middle position behaviour

EasilyAmused

New member
Joined
Apr 9, 2004
Messages
17
I have a gibson ES-333 and I realized today that it doesn't behave properly in the middle position...

If I turn the bridge pickup volume off, it goes silent, like it is supposed to. If I'm on the neck pickup, the neck controls behave as they should too.

However, if I turn the neck pickup down with bridge on full, I still have a fair amount of bridge pickup sound. Only it is a really muffled/all the high end is gone. As a result, I've realized that my pickup blending is not working as it should.

I've gone over the wiring numerous times and it seems to all be correct.

Last night, I decided to take everything out of the guitar and completely re-did the wiring and replaced the caps. I followed the wiring on ThroBak's website. It resulted in EXACTLY the same problem. I've compared it to my SG, and again, it appears the wiring is all correct (both previously, and now).

At this point, I feel like it must be a component issue. My gut tells me it might be a pot issue, but I don't know which one, nor do I know if this behaviour could be caused by an issue with the pickups or the switch?

Here's the wiring diagram I've referenced:

7083654_orig.jpg
 

Wally

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 27, 2003
Messages
3,535
this situation would not bother me at all as long as when the neck pot was anywhere except minimum the bridge pickup returned to normal output since I would not be placing either volume pot at minimum and be expecting to play when in the middle position. I admit that it seems odd, though.
 

jwalker

Les Paul Forum Sponsor
Joined
Dec 10, 2004
Messages
2,592
The ThroBak wiring chart is meant as a layout guide for pickup installation and swapping out the wiring harness of a Les Paul only. It is not a chart for gutting and rewiring the entire guitar. Some of the details not shown on this layout are the need for shieled cable for the switch wires and the need for insulation tubing on the shieled jack wire for a les paul. Tubing is needed in different spots for an ES-335. Also an ES-335 bridges the ground between pots with the cable shield rather than the bus wire. A video is really the best way to walk through all the details for rewiring the entire guitar.
 

PaulD

Active member
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
673
With the switch in the middle position when either volume control is turned to zero the signal should be shorted to ground (no output), if this is not happening then something must be causing a resistance to ground allowing some signal to be output. You can test for this by putting the switch in the middle position, setting the neck volume to zero and measuring the resistance between the tip of the output jack and ground, it should be zero or a few ohms at the most, any more indicates a problem somewhere. This could be caused by either a bad ground connection (check all of your ground connections and make sure that the ground lug of the volume pot is properly soldered to the back of the pot) or it could be a faulty volume pot that is not completely going to zero ohms when turned down. The fact that the problem occurs when the neck volume is turned down would tend to suggest that if it was a faulty pot it would be that one. It would need to be tested out of circuit to confirm this.
 
Top