Pot and capacitor mods for darkening tone? Very bright brdige pickup

steelebeard · February 2015

Just picked up an '88 Gordon-Smith GS2 and it lives up to it's reputation as being quite bright. The guitar is quite versatile but I still can't get a nice sound out of the bridge pickup, currently my favourite tone is both pickups, wiht the tone rolled off on both. It currently has 500k push pull pots so was thinking to change them to 250k, it also has two ceramic .022 capacitors on each volume pot. I was thinking of changing these to .047 paper and oil capacitors.

Do you think these changes would effect the tone enough, darken it up more? Quite happy with the tone I can get in the middle but would like to be able to use the bridge more

Thanks

C

Roland · February 2015

250k pots will take some of the treble off. The two .022 caps, which are presumably in parallel, will be the same as a .047, within manufacturing tolerances, so I wouldn't bother to replace it. What you could do is put a third .022 in parallel and see whether you like that. It's easy enough to snip it out again if you don't.

frankus · February 2015

Somewhere around is @ICBM s recommendation of something like a 0.15uF on the neck and a 0.47uF on the bridge

Whatever it is I chucked it into my tele and it sounds awesome.

GuitarMonkey · February 2015

The two caps are connected to the coil splitting switch so that different values are used for humbucker and single coil modes.

ICBM · February 2015

Honestly? Change the pickups or the guitar.

You can dull the tone by changing the pots or adding caps (and bear in mind that the type of cap makes no difference whatever, only the value matters so don't spend unnecessary money on paper-in-oil) or combinations of caps and resistors, but if the guitar is so bright that the only way you can get a tone you like is to turn both tone controls down, I doubt you'll ever get anything you really like out of the bridge without making it too muddy in the middle.

Sorry… but for what it's worth I've never played any Gordon Smith I thought sounded any good with the stock pickups.

steelebeard · February 2015

Thanks guys, so I may possibly change the pots. Pickups was the obvious next step, but before I start playing the pickup change game I thought I might try the pots, I have a feeling the changes will not be drastic enough. I'll see how it fits in the mix during band rehearsal tonight.

Cheers

Any recommendations on pickups for what tone I'm after, it's a solid mahogany body, I mainly play hard rock blues with a touch of metal at times. Cheers

FelineGuitars · February 2015

Put a BKP Mule or Black Dog in there

Or a Duncan 59

Or an ASL Bean-O or Tube Snake (see me or Guitar Weasel about that one)

impmann · February 2015

GS themselves say that on '10' on the tone, the guitar will be massively bright. Set to around '7' is about where a normal Gibson humbucker tone lies.

Personally speaking, I love the pickups in GS guitars - they are wonderfully articulate. Yes, you need to tame them via the tone control but that is part of the design ethos. Its easier and better to attenuate treble for it to not be there and you need to boost it artificially on the amp.

But again, my opinion. :-)

ICBM · February 2015

steelebeard said:
Any recommendations on pickups for what tone I'm after, it's a solid mahogany body, I mainly play hard rock blues with a touch of metal at times.

Duncan Custom Custom or a similar-spec pickup - fairly high winding (they're 14K, but it's probably not critical), Alnico II magnet.

Powerful, warm and woody but still with dynamics. They suit brighter guitars perfectly.

They match well with a more traditional PAF-type neck pickup too. (eg Duncan '59, but more or less anything in that ballpark.)

guitarfishbay · February 2015

I'm pretty sure that the standard wiring for a Gordon Smith has the tone pot bypassed on 10, you have to turn it down for it to start working. Also I think he might do the treble bleed mod on the volume pot as standard too, mine had that IIRC, so turning down the volume control won't tame top end either.

I don't like the Treble bleed mod personally, I like being able to get a softer sound with the volume pot knocked down slightly.

steelebeard · February 2015

Actually after all that, I quite liked how it sat in the mix tonight. Played with the amp a bit and it sounded and felt great.

I think I'll still change the bridge pickup to at '59 or something similar at some point. Don't see the point in buying BKP, they are over priced IMO. The other guitarist in my band swears by them but I'm very happy with Seymour Duncans and I also have an Oil City in the bridge of my strat which I like.

Thanks for your help

GuitarMonkey · February 2015

I've just replaced 1Meg pots in a 70s Tele with 250K pots. It does sound much better now.

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Pot and capacitor mods for darkening tone? Very bright brdige pickup

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