50's Wiring and detrimental effect on tone.

[greengriff]

Exactly. Nice and simple. I've just got to buy a suitable switch and get around to doing it.

[Chuck H]

Thank you/ It does, but I'm more concerned that either my hearing is going or that one of the pots is faulty. I might bodge together a switch to toggle between 50s and modern wiring so that I can test them back to back.

Well the switch wouldn't have to do much. With the simple circuit you describe it should just be a matter of moving the tone control circuit connection from the ungrounded pot lug of the volume pot to the wiper lug at center. If you did more than that you did something unnecessary.

[greengriff]

Thank you/ It does, but I'm more concerned that either my hearing is going or that one of the pots is faulty. I might bodge together a switch to toggle between 50s and modern wiring so that I can test them back to back.

[bbsailor]

I would like to add one more thing to consider and measure to make a full analysis.

The effect of volume pot loading and tonal pot loading is also based on the actual input impedance of the guitar input amp input circuit impedance which also includes the coax cable length and capacitance. The most useful measurement is to measure the amp input impedance at the guitar end of the coax cable typically being used to play the guitar. You should use the frequency of the pickup resonant point to get a better understanding of the loading effect on the pickup output tone. Typically you want the amp input impedance to be 10 X the pickup output impedance at the pickup resonance frequency to have a minimal tonal loading effect.

If you look up the Fletcher Munson curve you will see that the human ear is most sensitive at around 3 KHz tonal region. This is why subtle guitar wiring effects in this particular tonal region make a clearly audible difference.

I built a FET buffer circuit in the metal guitar plug end with the power supply feeding the amp end of the coax. This kept a very high input impedance and eliminated the coax impedance from affecting the guitar tonal sound.

I hope this gives you another variable to consider.

Joseph J. Rogowski

[greengriff]

I have HSH, single volume and tone with a 5 way switch. The reason I rewired the guitar was to add pull pots for more pickup mixes, The pull tone pot now splits the humbuckers for pseudo S/S/S strat wiring. The pull volume pot swaps the middle pickup connection on the 5 way switch for the bridge pickup. With the volume pot pulled it makes the switchting as follows: neck, neck and bridge, bridge, bridge, nothing. This gives me a 'kill switch' option and allows me both Tele style (when split) and Les Paul style (when not split) pick up mixes. However all of them are completely out of circuit with the pull post disengaged.

[g1]

You have HSH, but only a single volume and tone like in those Fralin diagrams? And none of the pull options are wired?

[greengriff]

That's very useful, thank you.

[Chuck H]

It occurs to me that part of the mystique and mojo attributed to the 50's vs modern wiring might be because every damned example is drawn up as a diagram rather than a schematic. This makes things look more different than they really are. Below is a schematic format example. I've substituted the pots for fixed resistors in hopes of making things more clear.

You can see that with the volume control in use the tone circuit load is behind the volume pot series resistance for the modern wiring and ahead of the volume pot series resistance for the 50's wiring. This is indeed a circuit difference. But then below that you can see that with the volume pot up full there is no series resistance for the tone circuit to be behind or ahead of. So both circuits have the switch connected to the jack with a load for the volume pot and a load for the tone circuit. So with the volume up full they are electrically the same and there will be no difference in tone.

If you are correct that changing to the 50's wiring has changed the tone of the guitar with the volume up full then there must be an error in the wiring and/or faulty volume pot.

[Chuck H]

Interesting. Maybe the vol pot is faulty. That hadn't occurred to me. But I have a discerning ear and my bias was the other way (I really wanted the 50s wiring to be better, because I liked the treble retention when turning down the volume control).

And you CAN have the 50's wiring without detriment to the stock tone. As noted already and more than once, with the tone and volume pots up full there is absolutely no electrical difference in the guitars circuit WRT "50's" vs. modern wiring. Absolutely no difference. Provided your pots are functioning correctly, as noted.

So to have what you want you only need to be sure of your wiring and confirm proper function for your pots.

[greengriff]

Interesting. Maybe the vol pot is faulty. That hadn't occurred to me. But I have a discerning ear and my bias was the other way (I really wanted the 50s wiring to be better, because I liked the treble retention when turning down the volume control).

[pdf64]

The only electrical explanation for that is if the vol pot has a significant degree of resistance, when turned up full, between the wiper terminal and hot track end terminal.
If that’s not the case, you may be experiencing a psychoacoustic effect, confirmation bias etc. Hence why double blind testing is used for scientific tests.

[greengriff]

Yes, maybe I didn't phrase that very well: what I meant to say was I did the same thing with both 50s and modern wiring, and the 50s wiring introduced a slightly 'muffled' tone when reconnected, and the modern wiring didn't.

[Helmholtz]

There was also another change; with the 50s wiring there was a slight difference in that the low frequencies were slightly muffled. I was able to test this directly back to back by unsoldering the tone wire from the volume pot whilst I was playing.

Unsoldering the tone wire from the volume pot will always slightly increase treble, independent of 50s or standard wiring. That effect will reduce with a higher resistance tone pot.
It can be completely eliminated with a "no-load" tone pot.

[greengriff]

There was also another change; with the 50s wiring there was a slight difference in that the low frequencies were slightly muffled. I was able to test this directly back to back by unsoldering the tone wire from the volume pot whilst I was playing. There was no time lag for it to be an artifact of my hearing/mind.

[pdf64]

Unless there are any wiring errors or component changes (?), with the vol up full, 50s and modern tone / vol wiring are electrically identical.
The tone control is a series circuit, the order of the cap and pot is immaterial to the signal.