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50s wiring and pot taper

Argon66

New member
Joined
Sep 17, 2020
Messages
5
My tech recently did 50s wiring.
I noticed that there is a wire connecting both tone pots together.
I typically don’t see a ground wire in diagrams that connect both tone pots.
Is this potentially messing with the sound?
I’m not seeming to maintain the treble I thought I would when rolling back the volume.

also is a 30% taper on the tone pots a bad idea?
Or just preference.

thanks everyone.
 

rick c

Active member
Joined
May 28, 2016
Messages
282
Modern and 50s all have a common ground wire connecting all 4 pots and the bridge. What diagrams are you looking at? Log pots are common for both volume and tone. It's possible that you have 300k pots; 500k pots should boost treble a little.
 

Argon66

New member
Joined
Sep 17, 2020
Messages
5
I see ground wire going from neck volume to neck tone to bridge tone to bridge volume.
The loop stops there in every diagram I’ve seen. I don’t see a wire between the volume pots.

mine runs in a full circle connecting every pot in a loop.
Caps appear to be connected correctly.

and good suggestion on 500k which I recently did. But now am considering more of a vintage taper.

anyway I’m wondering if there is a good reason why the wiring does not connect all pots in a loop which mine is?? It’s a simple fix but would this impact tone? Impart muddiness?
 

somebodyelseuk

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 10, 2020
Messages
454
The pot casings need to be grounded. That's all. It doesn't matter or make any difference how.
Old Les Paul cavities aren't lined with anything conductive, hence the wire connecting the pots. It doesn't matter whether the wire forms a full loop or not. With braided cables, you only NEED the volume connected to its corresponding tone. Where you have cavity shielding, you don't need the wire, because they're connected through the shielding.
 

Mad Nobby

New member
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
24
A propper grounding and shielding is very important! As for the pot's, first take a multimeter and see whatever value they have. (Do this mesurement a at propper room temperature and ambient humidty, otherwise the reading will be wrong)
Your tech should know how to wire up 50ts wiring, not a big deal.
As for the volume pot's, use good ones with AUDIO tapers, like Emerson Custom, CTS TVT, etc. and of curse a good cap. I suggest you to use 500K Ohm (as close as possible) for the bridge and 520-550 for the neck position. All this depending on the guitar and the pu's and the tone you are looking for. Before replacing pu's, I always check all these parts and see what is going on.

I wonder that even high end guitar builders don't check the parts before they install them. I guess we are liveng in a "retro wave", even sometimes the pot's and the harness in old guitar is completly crap they don't change it. I am a player and the guitar must fit like a good pair of shoes to my needs!
 

rick c

Active member
Joined
May 28, 2016
Messages
282
I think a big part of the problem with a lot of guitar players' issues is the failure to learn how to DIY and instead, relying on "techs" or worse, "luthiers" to do what is really extremely simple stuff. With all the Internet resources available, it has never been easier to find out what to do and how to do it yourself. As Mad Nobby notes, a quick check of electrical components, including new ones, gives real information and kills assumptions. Multimeters are really cheap; every player should own one and know how to use it.

I do understand that not everyone is mechanically/electrically competent but I get very wary of the frequent "my guitar tech did this/that" comments on this forum, particularly in the tech section. Straightening a twisted neck, fixing a broken truss rod, refretting, fixing more complicated finish issues are all tech/luthier-worthy jobs but pretty much everything else is pretty simple.
 

Mad Nobby

New member
Joined
Nov 20, 2020
Messages
24
@ Rick

Good point:3zone
The problem is that even some "pro's" have no real idea about guitar electronics and only spreding the same old storys again and again. Guitar electronics only seen through the eyes of a technical skilled person does not cure the problem, they will tell you that guitar electronic are very bad construted and sorry they are right.... but you need both technical knowledge and musical knowlegde! If you understand how the passive circuit in a guitar are works and learn how to cange parameters to reach your personal "Holy Grail"your are on the right track! Most important, if the guitar does not have the tonal potential you can make it sound better, but you will never make it to really sound great!
 

Dave P

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 13, 2001
Messages
976
Some Les Pauls have the pots mounted to a metal plate, which grounds all the pots together, eliminating the need to run a ground buss wire connecting the pots. But the way they did it in the old days and the Historic reissues is to run a ground buss wire connecting all the pots.
 
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