new gibson ccontrol cavity circuit board CRAP

[LtKojak]

What about these, uh?

Fifties Modern Switch

Project-Les Paul Toneshaper

How do you like'em?

[big_teee]

What about these, uh?

Fifties Modern Switch

Project-Les Paul Toneshaper

How do you like'em?

What's that you say Pepe?
If your a Cork Sniffer, I can do that, but It's gonna Cost You!
That all looks like Cork Sniffing Stuff, and is to Steep for my Blood.
Like John Cougar MellenCamp Says.
"Forget all about that Macho S**t and Learn How to Play Guitar"

B_T

[David Schwab]

I was on the phone with EMG tech support. They did not have a switching diagram and AFAIK, still don't. That is not a switching diagram you've linked to, it is a layout diagram and would not have helped me much. They didn't have one of those diagrams that was close to doing what I needed either. Aside from the V+ through and IN/OUT terminals there are 18 terminals that do various switching tasks. I needed to know what was happening between all the terminals in all positions, something like this, only more complicated:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]15758[/ATTACH]

That's not a Strat switch. You said:

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

I showed you a wiring diagram. You didn't say you wanted the actual switching scheme of the switch, but, it's a Strat switch. EMG is doing nothing different from a regular 5 way switch. You can see the terminals on the switch. If you really want to know for sure, sit down with a meter set on continuity and find out what connects where.

I don't get it. You say you disagree, then just reaffirm the facts I've stated.

I don't understand this statement. You had said:

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.

So you are implying that the board makes the guitar not sound good, as it's "common internet knowledge" that the first thing to do is "remove the stock "crap" pots and caps, this makes it easy to remove all the offensive components" and replace them.

I said it makes sense to make your wiring easy if you are guitar builder. They aren't crap parts and nothing is offensive in there.

I got skillz, Define "easy" rewiring.

Well if you want o connect different pickups, wire up some terminal blocks and connect them to the molex connectors. If you want push/pull switches, it's probably not that hard to remove the stock pots, assuming the push pulls will have the same footprint. Often they are smaller.

You can do things to the circuit board as well. To give an example, I had a Schaller Mega switch in one of my guitars. It was the "E" model, and on my three pickup Tele-ish guitar, the 3rd position gave the neck and bridge pickups. I had made up a prototype dual rail neck pickup, and wanted to split the neck and bridge dual rail pickup to single coils. So I decided to "hack" the switch, which uses a PCB for the wiring. figured out what the schematic was, and what to change, and then cut some of the traces on the board.

Imagine you are installing something as simple as a push/pull pot for a coil split. Old method: Pull knob, unscrew pot, desolder wire connections to pot, remove pot, install new pot, resolder wiring, put knob back on. Done.
NOW- I have to desolder the string ground, remove ALL the knobs, remove four nuts, hope there's enough service length on the pickup, switch, and jack leads to allow me to remove the board. Probably not. Have to desolder all those as well. Now I have to desolder the pot connections to the board. This is all lead free solder BTW, and is a PITA to undo. THEN I get to wonder how the hell I'm going to fit the aftermarket pot into the board. Oh... It doesn't match up. Now I have to run jumpers, cut the circuit board, or both. Wait.... My customer wanted "50s wiring on the tone caps. On an older model you'd just change two connections. Done in 1 minute. Now I have to cut traces on the board and run jumpers. More like ten minutes. This is all starting to look really ugly with cut traces, jumper wires and a missing chunk of circuit board. Maybe the best thing is to yank the whole thing and just put discrete components in. It'll take less time, it'll look cleaner and more professional, and will be easily modded in the future. This is not my definition of "easy"

Yes, it's not going to work without a lot of fussing. But Gibson never intended people to do that. You can't fault them for that because you are doing something to the guitar they pretty much don't want you to do. I'm looking at it from their point of view. Now I'm one of those people that like to mod guitars, so I'd likely remove the circuit board, and maybe make a new one.

But if you are just removing it to be more "vintage correct" that doesn't really make any sense to me because unless you are changing where the tone controls connect to the volume controls, just swapping out parts wont make the guitar sound any different.

But you can alter the wiring to the "vintage" style fairly easily as I pointed out above.

I know the reasons Gibson does this and I know that they don't care what people do to their guitars after the purchase. It doesn't change the fact that it makes my job much more difficult. The first one of these things that comes in for warranty on a pot is going to cost Gibson a lot of money because they're going to send me a whole new board AND they're going to pay me a crap-ton of money to do the entire switcheroo AND the customer is going to be without their guitar for a couple weeks, instead of a couple days... or hours. It's the same thing with amplifiers. It makes absolute sense from a manufacturing standpoint to put an entire amp on a single PC board. Easy assembly- but when you have to touch up a couple solder joints on an input jack you have to disassemble the entire amp.

They also don't care that it makes your job harder, which shows that they have no intent on making guitars for people to mod.

Huh? where did you get any idea about tone? It's a terminal block, it won't affect tone at all. It isn't a bad idea, just one with very limited appeal. I view it as the same sort of labor saving device as a commercial disk-blade meat slicer. Most people making a sandwich or two at home are not going to clear some counter space, whip out the machine, zip off a couple slices of ham, then take the half hour to disassemble and clean the slicer before putting it away. Its intended user is someone who is cutting a lot of meat. Everybody else is going to have their meat sliced for them, or they're going to do it "old school" with a kitchen knife.

I guess it was from this statement:

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.

Unless you were just pointing out that this is what people believe, that's the way I took it.

Same with the Liberator. 99% of people who are buying and installing pickups are not going to have any use for the Liberator. The remaining 1% are either going to devise their own terminal block/quick connect system, or might purchase the Liberator. A certain percentage of people will not be able to use it simply because of logistics- either their instrument does not have a good place to install(like an F-hole archtop) or doesn't have enough room left in the control cavity.
Basically, the potential customer for this is a pickup winder, guitar builder, or hobbyist who really, really loves to sit around at home endlessly futzing with their gear. Of those, how many have already got a system that they're using? Of the remainder, how many will actually pop for the unit? My guess is that Duncan is not moving a whole lot of these. Despite the fact that you can't swing a dead cat on this forum without hitting one of those few "potential customers", when you look at the overall customer base for aftermarket pickups, it is almost negligible. Frank, how many are you guys moving? It would be interesting to know.

I agree here. Likely someone might use it once. I can see it useful for us. I also see how the EMG system is useful because they are replacement pickups. I was using quick connect cables on my pickups several years ago, but that was because they are epoxy encapsulated, and if someone cuts the cable to short they are SOL.

The "" marks around the phrase "common internet knowledge" should tip you off that I consider that stuff to be, as you described, "nonsense". Unfortunately I have to deal with people who believe it. I know Gibson pots aren't "crap", but people come in all the time wanting the harness changed. Am I going to lecture them on how stupid they are and tell them to go away? No. I may try to educate them a bit but the correct answer is going to be "yessir". Then I have to name a larger price than they, or I would like, simply because they have chosen a guitar from a manufacturer who is more concerned with ease of assembly than long term serviceability. Ever change an output jack on a Parker Fly? Same thing. An hour of my life gone on a job that takes 5 minutes on a Strat. ....AND the original Switchcraft jack on the Strat will be working fine well after the Fly's expensive barrel jack has worn out and been replaced twice(the connections/tines in those crap out. No amount of cleaning or treatment helps).

Got it. I wasn't sure what you meant, but I see where you were going. It's hard to get someone's intent on forums like this.

BTW you say that changing the pots won't change the tone. You have incorrectly assumed that players are replacing the pots with the same value and taper. They are not. Usually it is changing the 300K to 500K. Cap values are often changed as well.

I'm pretty sure I said changing parts for parts of the same value won't change the tone. If I didn't, that's what I meant.

[Possum]

Mojo's CTS pots are very good, their stock ones tend towards the lower readings like 450K which is good for bridge pickups, not good for neck. The carbon traces on them are good but they're not the kind you can alter, damnit. I think they cherry pick out all the ones that read 500K and those are their expensive ones, the rest are all lower reading. RS Super Pots I didn't like at all, weird taper and they emphasize the high treble for some reason, quick drop off after 9, theirs are high reading 570K range, their regular cheaper tone CTS pots are high reading 500-550K range and are supposedly vintage taper. I ended up removing all the RS pots from my guitars and went with Mojo's but RS can be good for neck pickups. I haven't tried AllParts CTS pots which are supposedly alterable which would be nice. If anyone has a Bourns and can pull the cap off to show the guts I'd appreciate it.

[FunkyKikuchiyo]

I've become disenchanted with allparts CTS pots because their taper cuts off so quickly. Stew Mac is now selling their own version of the CTS which they're billing as being very tight on tolerances and not having that terrible taper issue. I'm yet to try them, but I'm feeling optimistic.

[big_teee]

I've become disenchanted with allparts CTS pots because their taper cuts off so quickly. Stew Mac is now selling their own version of the CTS which they're billing as being very tight on tolerances and not having that terrible taper issue. I'm yet to try them, but I'm feeling optimistic.

I'm ordering some of the 250s, and 500s tomorrow.
I will check them out, I mainly want the 250s for my Strat Loaded PickGuards.
Terry

[David Schwab]

If anyone has a Bourns and can pull the cap off to show the guts I'd appreciate it.

[big_teee]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]15784[/ATTACH]

Is the Black Piece the Carbon Part?
T

[Sweetfinger]

I showed you a wiring diagram. You didn't say you wanted the actual switching scheme of the switch, but, it's a Strat switch. EMG is doing nothing different from a regular 5 way switch. You can see the terminals on the switch. If you really want to know for sure, sit down with a meter set on continuity and find out what connects where.

I said, IIRC, that I needed a switching diagram. You linked to a layout diagram. The attachment was to show you the kind of diagram I needed, one that showed the connectivity between each in/out at each switch position. EMGs switch is a standard 5 way, I think, but the connectivity between the tines is not readily apparent. I DID give a try at testing and making my own diagram but there are a LOT of possibilities and when the connections didn't start making sense I called EMG tech support, who couldn't help. They did not have a diagram for the switch. They did have layout diagrams like the one you linked to but nothing close to what I needed. If YOU would like to figure out the damn switch, be my guest. I'll send you one. There's that point at which I just give up trying to figure out an unsupported product and go back to

Also, I am not implying in any way that Gibson's use of a circuit board impacts the sound. It absolutely impacts serviceability, whether warranty or aftermarket modification. Another point which may, or may not apply to this board:
when discussing PCBs, proponents will always dish out the platitude, "A PCB if done right will be just as good as point to point". The qualifier is "done right", as in sturdy board with heavy, well adhered traces and good layout with attention to stresses. The kind of people who shift to a board for cost-cutting reasons are JUST the kind of people who cut corners with those other quality issues. What I do know is that when the guy who is responsible for putting these things into Gibsons goes to hell, he's going to be installing push/pull pots into those guitars for eternity...under cheap fluorescent lighting, while listening to Mitch Miller.

[David Schwab]

Is the Black Piece the Carbon Part?
T

No, it's just a plastic part. Thats hits the little nub in the case so it stops rotating. It looks like they are able to change the the degree of rotation by using different molded parts.

The carbon strip is on the bottom connected to the terminals.

[David Schwab]

I said, IIRC, that I needed a switching diagram. You linked to a layout diagram. The attachment was to show you the kind of diagram I needed, one that showed the connectivity between each in/out at each switch position. EMGs switch is a standard 5 way, I think, but the connectivity between the tines is not readily apparent. I DID give a try at testing and making my own diagram but there are a LOT of possibilities and when the connections didn't start making sense I called EMG tech support, who couldn't help. They did not have a diagram for the switch. They did have layout diagrams like the one you linked to but nothing close to what I needed. If YOU would like to figure out the damn switch, be my guest. I'll send you one. There's that point at which I just give up trying to figure out an unsupported product and go back to

Here's what I see. I see a standard Strat switch with three terminals, one for each pickup. In fact, it's simpler than the usual switch because it has only one deck. So it would be a standard 5 way switch, there the 2 and 4 positions short two of the terminals together. So your diagram is much more elaborate, it this doesn't look like that.




I'm sure it works like this:

Wiring Diagram

I'm not why you need to know how the switch switches anyway, since if you are using their solderless system, it's all plug-and-play. There's not a whole lot of ways to wire EMGs since they can't do series or coil splits.

Also, I am not implying in any way that Gibson's use of a circuit board impacts the sound. It absolutely impacts serviceability, whether warranty or aftermarket modification.

I don't know about serviceability. If a pot goes bad, you order a new circuit board assembly. You unplug the connections, swap the boards, tighten the nuts, plug everything back in. That's about as easy as re-soldering a pot.

Modding the guitar is a different story. But I don't see parts going bad. I have 40 year old guitars with the original pots.

Another point which may, or may not apply to this board:
when discussing PCBs, proponents will always dish out the platitude, "A PCB if done right will be just as good as point to point". The qualifier is "done right", as in sturdy board with heavy, well adhered traces and good layout with attention to stresses. The kind of people who shift to a board for cost-cutting reasons are JUST the kind of people who cut corners with those other quality issues. What I do know is that when the guy who is responsible for putting these things into Gibsons goes to hell, he's going to be installing push/pull pots into those guitars for eternity...under cheap fluorescent lighting, while listening to Mitch Miller.

"A PCB if done right will be just as good as point to point" refers to a tube amp, where you have very high impedances and high voltages. You have to dress the wires accordingly. It has nothing at all to do with a guitar. There's not a whole hell of a lot going on in a guitar where you have to worry about trace layout.

[Possum]

Thanks for the photo Dave, it looks like the cheap Alphas, probably a darker sounding pot. I think I'll try some CTS from AllParts, supposedly they have a solid carbon track that you can trim to dial in what value you want, Mojo's don't.

Has anyone tried the PEC pots, $35 each I think they are, I got a pair but supposedly the backs are stainless so you can't solder to them, they are said to have the smoothest taper of all, military grade, fat carbon tracks....

[Possum]

Man, this sucks....
Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid - YouTube

[copperheadroads]

Yes & I hear there using baked maple for fingerboards ,maybe instead of rosewood or ebony

[Mike Sulzer]

Man, this sucks....
Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid - YouTube

Oh, I do not know; this is pretty complicated. The problem this time appears to relate to a possible violation of Indian law. It appears that Indian Rosewood and Ebony can only be exported as final products. It appears that Gibson is buying finger board blanks from there. Does that qualify as a "final product"? Can Gibson claim it is really making the entire guitar in the US if it starts with foreign-made finger board blanks (a final product?) rather than larger pieces of rosewood or ebony?