PE Berlin Pro - when a little mod can transform a guitar

Voxman

I really like my Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro, but I had some issues with it that stopped me just short of 'loving' it, that was affecting both my playing enjoyment and also its versatility as a gigging guitar:

1. For whatever reason, Patrick Eggle designed/made these with no tone control.  For an 'old school' player that instinctively uses the guitar controls to subtly change tones, that was a problem. I thought I could live with it, but I can't, particularly as it's a bright sounding guitar in single-coil mode and sometimes you need to tame it eg for jazzier stuff. 

2. There are 9 pickup options, controlled via a 3-way toggle and a 3-way rotary - in addition to 3 humbucking and 3 single coil options, there are 3 'mid-heavy honky' tones which supposedly are good for blues. But I never really liked them and rarely used them as they were 'muddy' apart from the mid-coil-tap position but that was very quiet & thin in comparison.

3. I hated the stock volume control and although I had it changed last year, it really wasn't much different and I was never happy with it. The problem is that the volume didn't fade out nicely and smoothly - when it got to near the end it abruptly cut the volume off, so if you were trying to clean up a distorted tone you would suddenly lose your volume completely.  As above, I use the guitars volume knob a lot to clean up/ease off gain - always have done from the days when I had non-master volume control amps like the AC30 or JTM45 etc. 

4. Only aesthetic, but the different plain black 3-way knob always looked a bit odd next to the 'normal' volume knob.

So, I decided to get it sorted and took it to Richard Hill (Electrohill) who I've known for donkeys years and is only a couple of miles from me.  Needless to say, Richard did a great job:

He replaced both pots - a logarithmic taper volume with a push-pull, and a tone pot with a push-pull.  The tone push pull switches from humbucking to single coils, and the volume push-pull gives additional coil-tapping tones when both pickups are engaged in single or humbucking mode. Technically only 8 pick-up options instead of 9, but the two extra coil-tap tones are now very useable. He also put on a matching tone knob. 

The logarithmic volume pot is perfect and exactly what I wanted, quickly allowing distortion clean-up and allowing a proper natural fade-out to no volume rather than an abrupt loss of volume. The tone control now gives me huge additional tonal versatility.  He also did something with a resistor to make it all work smoother. 

It now fits my needs, I have the tonal/volume control I wanted, more useable pick-up options, and its now a guitar I could do a whole gig with, which is why I bought it in the first place.   

ICBM

I did something similar with a friend's Berlin Pro years ago - changed the rotary to a three-way inner/humbucker/outer coil split switch, so still 9 sounds but much more usable on the fly. He later had me mod it with a Levinson Blade VSC circuit, so it had a grand total of 27! Which he was very proud of, and they were surprisingly logical and easy to navigate around.

Musicwolf

About 12 months ago I replaced the trem on mine (if I recall correctly the new trem was a Christmas present).  In the last month I've replaced the Kent Armstrong pickups with a set of Gibson Burstbuckers, new vol and tone pots (replacing the rotary coil selector with a conventional tone pot) and a new set of chrome knobs for good measure.

I'm back in love with this guitar.

Voxman

Musicwolf said:

About 12 months ago I replaced the trem on mine (if I recall correctly the new trem was a Christmas present).  In the last month I've replaced the Kent Armstrong pickups with a set of Gibson Burstbuckers, new vol and tone pots (replacing the rotary coil selector with a conventional tone pot) and a new set of chrome knobs for good measure.

I'm back in love with this guitar.

Cool, nice colour too. I know the Kent Armstrong's weren't everyone's cup of tea so glad the burstbuckers have helped lift your PE. Personally, I much prefer covered pickups like yours aesthetically. Both my PE Berlin Pro and PRS Cu24 have open pickups. 

Musicwolf

Voxman said:

Cool, nice colour too. I know the Kent Armstrong's weren't everyone's cup of tea so glad the burstbuckers have helped lift your PE. Personally, I much prefer covered pickups like yours aesthetically. Both my PE Berlin Pro and PRS Cu24 have open pickups. 

Cheers.  I much prefer the look of covered pickups as well (just a personal choice).  I was happy enough with KAs when I first bought the guitar new in 94 but, as my collection has grown, it had fallen out of favour.  I barely used the rotary coil splitter in all of that time.

I was unsure what to do with the pickups.  The only time previously that I've changed pickups was when I put a Bare Knuckle HSS set into my Strat.  I was happy enough with them but I think that the choice was as much to do with luck as judgement.

I didn’t want to throw £300 at the Eggle and still not have a guitar that I’d play but then I saw that @jaymenon was selling a set of Burstbuckers on here, so I grabbed them.  The bridge pole spacing is narrower than ideal (but so was the KA) but it works fine and the guitar just came to life.

The Berlin Pro's are a very special guitar

Voxman

Musicwolf said:

Voxman said:

Cool, nice colour too. I know the Kent Armstrong's weren't everyone's cup of tea so glad the burstbuckers have helped lift your PE. Personally, I much prefer covered pickups like yours aesthetically. Both my PE Berlin Pro and PRS Cu24 have open pickups. 

Cheers.  I much prefer the look of covered pickups as well (just a personal choice).  I was happy enough with KAs when I first bought the guitar new in 94 but, as my collection has grown, it had fallen out of favour.  I barely used the rotary coil splitter in all of that time.

I was unsure what to do with the pickups.  The only time previously that I've changed pickups was when I put a Bare Knuckle HSS set into my Strat.  I was happy enough with them but I think that the choice was as much to do with luck as judgement.

I didn’t want to throw £300 at the Eggle and still not have a guitar that I’d play but then I saw that @jaymenon was selling a set of Burstbuckers on here, so I grabbed them.  The bridge pole spacing is narrower than ideal (but so was the KA) but it works fine and the guitar just came to life.

The Berlin Pro's are a very special guitar

I've only ever changed pickups on 2 guitars. The first, before I could afford the real thing, was to put a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge of my old Shaftesbury Les Paul, and the second was in my Epi Sheraton II - the stock pickups went microphonic and I treated it to a set of Seymour Duncan SH59's (based on old PAF's). 

The pickups in my Berlin Pro are Seymour Duncans, which are very good.  I knew Patrick, lovely guy - he used to set up my 69 Strat for me when he worked out of Pete Gent's 'The Music Department' in St Albans in 1995 after he sold his business in 1994 - he always regretted selling his name which he said was a huge mistake.  He still had a few special guitars that he kept back and he offered me a gorgeous white special edition PE Berlin Pro with gold hardware and special inlays and a unique pick-up switching (I can't be sure but I think it had 2 Vol and 2 tone controls with push-pulls) that gave something like 15 pick-up options, at (IIRC) cost price of £900 (normally would have sold for £1,600 back then!) with a special signed certificate, and it was gorgeous - if I'd had the money I'd have bitten his hand off but sadly I simply couldn't afford it.  I always hankered after a PE Berlin Pro, so when this Emerald Burst hardtail came up, I thought it was time to get one.