JAddison Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 My Mule bridge finally arrived after 2 weeks! I dopped my Traditional off to have it fitted along with 500K pots, 50's wiring and Russian caps. (I'm not great with soldering). Can't wait to get it back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAddison Posted April 29, 2014 Author Share Posted April 29, 2014 My Mule bridge finally arrived after 2 weeks! I dopped my Traditional off to have it fitted along with 500K pots, 50's wiring and Russian caps. (I'm not great with soldering). Can't wait to get it back! Plugged her in and wow. Blew my head off! After some amp control tweaking I can get a decent tone... Im just not sure if I like it or not. It just seems like its a bit too much. With the standard 57+ I found it wasn't very articulate and it went mush with med / high gain. Now the tone is so open now, the articulation is emense.. maybe too much? I am wondering how I can beef the tone up a bit and get some sweetness with single note bends. I tried lowering the tone control (both amp and git) but I end up turning back up again. Maybe the Alnico IV magnets are to harsh for me as I'm used to Alnico II. Any ideas? hopefully Pippy and SHREK will chime in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 I'm not Pippy or SHREK, not that there is anything wrong with being them... Plugged her in and wow. Blew my head off! After some amp control tweaking I can get a decent tone... Im just not sure if I like it or not. It just seems like its a bit too much. With the standard 57+ I found it wasn't very articulate and it went mush with med / high gain. Now the tone is so open now, the articulation is emense.. maybe too much? I am wondering how I can beef the tone up a bit and get some sweetness with single note bends. I tried lowering the tone control (both amp and git) but I end up turning back up again. So what kind of amp is it? How loud is it? How close to it are you? All that stuff. Is this with a band or alone? Maybe the Alnico IV magnets are to harsh for me as I'm used to Alnico II. No, no magnet makes that much difference to the human ear. Anybody can come in here and say whatever they want, trust me on this, you can't hear that difference. Get specific about what you are doing, what you want to sound like, and what you think you do sound like that is different. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidblast Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 did you try lowering the pickups.. get em away from the strings a bit?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan H Posted April 29, 2014 Share Posted April 29, 2014 No, no magnet makes that much difference to the human ear. Anybody can come in here and say whatever they want, trust me on this, you can't hear that difference. With all due respect, gotta call BS here. When I first got my Wolfetone Marshallhead and Dr. Vintage in my Charvel, I didn't like how the A2's sounded with high gain; not enough articulation. I paid Wolfe to send me a set of A5's. I always check my pickup heights before removing them and it was the exact same set of strings on the guitar. The A5's had a noticeably tighter low end, much clearer and more articulate highs, and slightly scooped mids when compared to the A2's. No other variables changed. The pickup heights were the same. The strings were the same. Amp settings, cables, everything was identical. The magnets made a clear and significant difference. So please don't proclaim that everyone whose observations differ from yours are wrong... -Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunner Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 I have to agree with Ryan on this one. Since no magnet equals no tone, it makes sense that different magnet strengths would affect tone. I experimented with magnets in my Epi Elitist 335 just for fun. The Elitist pickups came with A5 and sounded good to me, but had more bite than my other guitars with PAF type pickups (57 Classics and Tim Shaws). I tried A2 (weaker) which lowered the output and made the pickups sound somewhat muddy. Then I tried Unoriented A5, which is between A2 and A5 in magnetic strength. This made them sound closer to PAF tone but maybe with a little less output. I left the UOA5 in there but frankly will probably change back to A5 at some point to get the bite back. In my opinion the changes you made that affected your tone are the new pickup and the 500k pots. I haven't tried 500k pots in my LPs but 300k is plenty bright for me. I like 50's wiring for retaining more highs when the volume is rolled off, but it doesn't change anything when the volume and tone are turned all the way up. I will withhold my opinion on paper in snake oil caps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAddison Posted April 30, 2014 Author Share Posted April 30, 2014 After 2 hours play last night I have decided to change back to modern wiring. I am going to keep the PIO caps and the 500k pots in there. I read this last night and it makes complete sense: http://www.seymourduncan.com/tonefiend/pickups/vintage-les-paul-wiring-bs-or-bfd/ Especially this part; "1.As expected, with vintage-style wiring, you retain far more highs as you lower the volume knob, but there’s more to it than that: Modern also generated a pronounced low-mid bump. The brighter sound of vintage wiring has at least much to do with clearer low-mids as with stronger highs." It is the pronounced low-mid bump that I am missing. Plus I find the high's are too strong now. Unlike my Vermillion which has 500k pots all round and is not too bright. Another post that rings true, specifically the second to last post; http://www.thegearpage.net/board/archive/index.php/t-1388734.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Hi JA. Just got to this thread. It sounds as if you will be much happier with the modern wiring set-up. I use a very unusual group of tone settings on both guitar and amp (trust me!) and I happen to have found the '50s wiring is perfect for my playing style. In fact I've never yet met anyone who shares my settings. Friends who have popped 'round and plugged-in tend to be a bit lost at first... P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAddison Posted April 30, 2014 Author Share Posted April 30, 2014 Hi JA. Just got to this thread. It sounds as if you will be much happier with the modern wiring set-up. I use a very unusual group of tone settings on both guitar and amp (trust me!) and I happen to have found the '50s wiring is perfect for my playing style. In fact I've never yet met anyone who shares my settings. Friends who have popped 'round and plugged-in tend to be a bit lost at first... P. Thanks for the input Pippy. Yeh I think so.. I only really play my electrics through midish gain these days. Mosty wailing over blues backing tracks and Rock riffing. I use my acoustics for chording, writing, slide and pretty much everything else. I am glad I tried the wiring though. I have a soldering iron on the way so hopefully I won't make a pigs ear of it! By the looks of it it's just 4 solder points. I haven't done any soldering since school... and that was a loooong time ago! I have this to watch later: http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/tonefreaks/25764-video-about-how-solder.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 With all due respect, gotta call BS here. When I first got my Wolfetone Marshallhead and Dr. Vintage in my Charvel, I didn't like how the A2's sounded with high gain; not enough articulation. I paid Wolfe to send me a set of A5's. I always check my pickup heights before removing them and it was the exact same set of strings on the guitar. The A5's had a noticeably tighter low end, much clearer and more articulate highs, and slightly scooped mids when compared to the A2's. No other variables changed. The pickup heights were the same. The strings were the same. Amp settings, cables, everything was identical. The magnets made a clear and significant difference. So please don't proclaim that everyone whose observations differ from yours are wrong... -Ryan Lindy Fralin can get you the same change by adding or subtracting only 2000 turns. Or he could use different wire and the same number of turns. He could also change the tension and pot/not pot the pickup. You hear a different pickup that happens to have different magnets. It is more than the sum of the parts that made it, and no one part dictates what you hear. If you sit directly in front of your amp and you go from pickup to pickup and listen like your life depends on it, you will hear differences, and as your ears tire you will magnify those differences. If you stand 15 feet in front of an amp and bash the crap out of it for four sets nobody on this planet will hear the difference, even if you changed the pickups mid song. Those are my experiences over quite a few teles and Les Pauls pickup'd by Lindy and Seymour, plus 4 teles with Joe Barden long time ago("...I could use motor magnets and it will still sound like a Barden..."), and a really fun time with the winder persons at FMIC last year. We will have to agree to disagree. rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rct Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 Hi JA. Just got to this thread. It sounds as if you will be much happier with the modern wiring set-up. I use a very unusual group of tone settings on both guitar and amp (trust me!) and I happen to have found the '50s wiring is perfect for my playing style. In fact I've never yet met anyone who shares my settings. Friends who have popped 'round and plugged-in tend to be a bit lost at first... P. What could you possibly do with a maximum 5 tone knobs that could possibly cause anyone to be lost? rct Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan H Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 We will have to agree to disagree. Always a good option ;) -Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted April 30, 2014 Share Posted April 30, 2014 What could you possibly do with a maximum 5 tone knobs that could possibly cause anyone to be lost? rct You forgot about the two rocker switches for Bright/Normal and Deep/Normal. Makes all the difference.... To be fair I did use the words 'bit' and 'at first'...lol! P. EDIT : You really want to know how I have my set-up? Bright @ On; Chan Vol @ anywhere from 5 (clean) to 10 (B.F.Gibbons); Treble @ 10; Middle @ 0; Bass @ 0; Rev (etc) @ Whatever; Master Vol @ Whatever; Deep @ Off. As you might imagine this results in a Crazy Bright situation and therefore requires a diametrically opposed approach from the guitar. I almost always use the neck p'up. The '50s wiring means I have a different - from modern wiring - way to control the final tone by using both tone and vol knobs. Tone knobs are rarely above 4. Usually 2.5 - 3. Vol usually around 8.5 - 9.5. Roll back the vol slightly and the p'ups brighten up a lot without much drop in volume. Regardless of the amp volume settings turning the p'up vol(s) up to 10 always introduces a hint of O/D. I find this scenario works perfectly with '57 Classics in the R-Is. Anyone who is used to selecting 'bridge' p'up and leaves their tone set to 10 will pierce their ear-drums with the first strum of their guitar.... P. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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