new gibson ccontrol cavity circuit board CRAP

[LtKojak]

It is ironic that they use cheap ceramic caps in both, but then sell fake and expensive bumble bee caps.

I think their business practices are consistent with the awareness of their target market. And I even think their numbers prove'em right.

P.T. Barnum CERTAINLY was right...

[copperheadroads]

I recently bought a 60's tribute les paul studio with p-90s & the pots are not mounted to a board ,but the caps are these very tiny blue thing
,i'm thinking very cheap ....will be replaced shortly

[David Schwab]

I recently bought a 60's tribute les paul studio with p-90s & the pots are not mounted to a board ,but the caps are these very tiny blue thing
,i'm thinking very cheap ....will be replaced shortly

Probably a ceramic composite cap. Those are not bad actually, I use a few of them in my preamp. As long as the caps are in spec, it doesn't matter, because you won't hear any difference if you went and stuck a big orange drop in there.

The big cost cutting on those studio guitars is the lack of binding.

[David King]

David,

You've got to admit that the gibson logo in gold looks good on that PCB. I bet the gold paint on the backs of those Bourns "95" pots really improves the sonic clarity too.
Easy enough to change out the caps but it does require that you pull the whole pcb out of the guitar. Seeing those pots tells me that Gibson was willing to spend at least 4 times more than they would have on CTS pots -for what it's worth.

A lot of companies have been using the small, green terminal blocks for years now, at least in bass-world. I actually find them a bit slower than soldering since i still find it necessary to tin the stranded leads before insertion (and I have to look at the diagram twice to get the right lead in the correct hole). I can see ham fisted fellows with poor eyesight having an ordeal getting the wires into the proper holes and keeping the wayward strands from shorting out.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I got some little TDK ceramic disk caps from mouser and realized they were blue - I got them because they were low tolerance, but evidently they're some fancier multi-layer or some such. Is that the same thing, David?

I don't get why they use the disks in their nicer guitars. My 335 came with ceramic disks. Even if you think the whole cap thing is a bunch of hooey it is hard to ignore the difference between the ceramics and everything else. Well, I do get it because I've worked in manufacturing before. The people in charge of those decisions don't know squat about guitars, and it is only a few people in marketing that have any inkling.

[belwar]

Thats a pretty cool little circuit board. Makes assembling a guitar like that way easier. Falbotron is correct though, those liberators are darn nice. In a factory situtation they are not nessesarily any less work but they are a nice feature for a customer (likely to never be used but cool none the less. I like them because the pot on it is very good quality.

( I should note that I install liberators on a $2500 instrument we build, it is used in conjunction with PIO caps and they sound great).

[copperheadroads]

Im not getting started differences in Caps
but i replaced those green chiclets that come in some Fenders & Epi's ,With orange drops of the same value ,made quite a difference

[David Schwab]

Thats a pretty cool little circuit board. Makes assembling a guitar like that way easier. Falbotron is correct though, those liberators are darn nice. In a factory situtation they are not nessesarily any less work but they are a nice feature for a customer (likely to never be used but cool none the less. I like them because the pot on it is very good quality.

( I should note that I install liberators on a $2500 instrument we build, it is used in conjunction with PIO caps and they sound great).

No reason you can mate a liberator style connector with a circuit board! That would be the perfect combination. No hand wiring, and ease of pickup swapping.

[RedHouse]

So Much for Split Coils, Push-Pulls, and 4-wire Connections.

I wouldn't get too worked up about it, these things eventually pass

Could be a blessing in disguise, another business opportunity. Now we can make some dough doing pull-n-replace jobs, yanking out this silly new PCB and putting in proper pots and connections. Just like when they had the pots attached to that stupid steel plate on the LP Studio's and such.

[big_teee]

I wouldn't get too worked up about it, these things eventually pass

Could be a blessing in disguise, another business opportunity. Now we can make some dough doing pull-n-replace jobs, yanking out this silly new PCB and putting in proper pots and connections. Just like when they had the pots attached to that stupid steel plate on the LP Studio's and such.

It don't bother me.
They don't let me work on High Dollar Guitars, Worth more than $50 anyway!
B_T

[David Schwab]

I wouldn't get too worked up about it, these things eventually pass

Could be a blessing in disguise, another business opportunity. Now we can make some dough doing pull-n-replace jobs, yanking out this silly new PCB and putting in proper pots and connections. Just like when they had the pots attached to that stupid steel plate on the LP Studio's and such.

Well they are using proper pots, just not using any wire. It's easy enough to splice some of the screw connectors onto the molex style connectors they are using for fast pickup swaps.

I think the circuit board idea is pretty cool. Now if you really want to offer something, you can make a new circuit board, with push/pull pots, and quick connectors, that owners of these guitars can just drop in. Now you have a product, instead of a service.

I had an '81 Standard that used the aluminum shielding box in the control cavity. That actually worked out well for me, because I was able to replace one tone control with a 6-position rotary switch for a varitone and screw the switch to the plate, and extend the long shaft out through the top. I then used a threaded shaft from a broken pot as a bezel. I thought it was pretty slick.

[Sweetfinger]

A couple years ago EMG went to a "solderless" wiring method with little push connectors for EVERYTHING. They have a "Liberator" style terminal block as well for pickup sets. It has made EMG installs a living hell. If you have a Les Paul or a Strat and you're not doing anything that strays from standard wiring, you *can* install as advertised. If you have a different guitar or need to do something out of the ordinary, say an Explorer(which for this exercise, qualifies as "exotic wiring"), or different switching on a Strat, you're screwed. Smaller cavities don't allow for the components and extra cable lengths, either. EMG never even bothered to come up with a diagram for their zillion connection 5 way Strat switch.

I pretty much feel the same way about the Liberator. It seems like a useful idea for a test-bed guitar with a large amount of easily accessed cavity space. Other than that, it looks like a solution in search of a problem. It certainly isn't the type of product that has a broad appeal to Duncan's(or anyone's) overall customer base.

The Gibson board: My guess is that some bean counter figured that they'd save enough time on installs by going to this thing. Since "common internet knowledge" says the first thing to do to any Gibson is remove the stock "crap" pots and caps, this makes it easy to remove all the offensive components in one action and keeps it in one monolithic unit for safekeeping until such time that it is considered a desirable source for vintage tone. The fun really starts when a customer asks how much to install a push/pull pot for phase or coil splitting and you have to quote for an ENTIRE harness rewire PLUS ALL new pots and caps. Sure, Gibson has been putting pots on mounting plates for decades, but now you can't really remove the pot without some serious effort.

I find it amusing that underneath the board, which has a shielding plane, Gibson still swirls the cavity with just enough conductive paint to make no difference... and make you wonder why they bothered at all.

[David Schwab]

EMG never even bothered to come up with a diagram for their zillion connection 5 way Strat switch.

Sure they did:

http://www.emgpickups.com/content/wi...0230-0166A.pdf

Where were you looking?

The Gibson board: My guess is that some bean counter figured that they'd save enough time on installs by going to this thing. Since "common internet knowledge" says the first thing to do to any Gibson is remove the stock "crap" pots and caps, this makes it easy to remove all the offensive components in one action and keeps it in one monolithic unit for safekeeping until such time that it is considered a desirable source for vintage tone. The fun really starts when a customer asks how much to install a push/pull pot for phase or coil splitting and you have to quote for an ENTIRE harness rewire PLUS ALL new pots and caps. Sure, Gibson has been putting pots on mounting plates for decades, but now you can't really remove the pot without some serious effort.

I disagree here. If you are a company building guitars, this is the way to go. This is the same reason that electronic devices are not hand wired, but use printed circuit boards. If you run a business, even a small one man business, you can't afford to not be a bean counter.

Now the reason people might not like these circuit boards is because it makes it difficult to modify the instrument. But modifying the instrument means nothing to Gibson, and would likely void what ever warrantee it came with. Gibson doesn't want you to remove the pots. Why would they? This is not a platform to be built upon, and they were not intended to be altered in their eyes. But if you have any skill at all, you can change one of these to allow for easy rewiring.

I also don't see how the Duncan Liberator is not a good idea. Do you really think you won't get your so called "vintage" tone if you use one of those? Why wouldn't you?

As far as replacing the "crap" pots, they look like Bourns pots to me, which are not crap pots. What are you going to replace them with, CTS? Why? "Vintage" correct? This isn't a vintage guitar, and all the wishful thinking won't make it so. And the pots won't change the tone. So unless you open the control compartment every day to look at the parts, who cares?

The caps don't matter unless you are going to convince yourself that they do. How are the parts offensive? Because some moron at one of the Les Paul forums said so? (personally I wouldn't buy a new Gibson if my life depended on it, but that's another story). Think for yourself. This isn't some big clique.

As far as "common internet knowledge" goes, most of the people posting about caps and vintage tone and this stuff don't have a clue what they are talking about. A perfect example is that guitarnutz web site. People believe all this nonsense because they also don't have a clue, and if it's on the internet, it must be true!

So if you think removing this circuit board and replacing the parts with equivalent, but different parts will make the guitar sound better or "vintage" you are fooling yourself. It's like a guy over at TalkBass that swore that when he put clear nail polish on the exposed magnets on his Jazz bass, it made the pickups sound duller with less highs. People think they hear things that aren't there.

All this stuff sounds more about insecurity on the player's part than anything that can lead to a better tone; i.e., "I need X gear to get X tone so I can play like X, otherwise I suck rhino wrench". I guess these are the same people who spend $100 for a pickup ring.

[belwar]

I recently switched our company over from CTS made pots to the Bournes Pots (Duncan Branded).. The quality and smoothness of the pots is dramatically better than the CTS - Not even in the same ballpark. I have not done adequate testing yet on the specific taper of the pots (i.e. when turning down the volume does it go 10-9-8-2-1-0 or 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0) but I am sure if I was un-happy with it Duncan would address it for me. I used to use the RS Guitar Works super pots because of the taper, but the bournes are just such better quality.

Duncan also got really smart and properly tinned the back of the pot making soldering SooooOoooo much easier.

[big_teee]

I recently switched our company over from CTS made pots to the Bournes Pots (Duncan Branded).. The quality and smoothness of the pots is dramatically better than the CTS - Not even in the same ballpark. I have not done adequate testing yet on the specific taper of the pots (i.e. when turning down the volume does it go 10-9-8-2-1-0 or 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-0) but I am sure if I was un-happy with it Duncan would address it for me. I used to use the RS Guitar Works super pots because of the taper, but the bournes are just such better quality.

Duncan also got really smart and properly tinned the back of the pot making soldering SooooOoooo much easier.

Can you identify the Borns Pot that is equivalent?
I'm going to start selling Loaded PickGuards with 250k Pots.
Do they look anything like this?

I can get these at TubesAndMore at a pretty good price.
T