Gibson 335 rewire

[sherpa_man]

Morning guys, just after alittle bit of help, i have just bought a 2000 Gibson 335, all the electrics are shot and need replacing, what what guys recomemnd putting in there. I have been reading up on the bumblebee caps seem to get great reviews by some, others saying the Gibson repo caps are rubbish. I have about £100 to spend on the pots caps and so on. Any help would be great!

 

Many thanks

[j45nick]

Morning guys, just after alittle bit of help, i have just bought a 2000 Gibson 335, all the electrics are shot and need replacing, what what guys recomemnd putting in there. I have been reading up on the bumblebee caps seem to get great reviews by some, others saying the Gibson repo caps are rubbish. I have about £100 to spend on the pots caps and so on. Any help would be great!

 

Many thanks

 

Go to doctorvintage.com for the best ES-335 control kits. Also check out GRguitars.com

[littlejohnny]

Hi there,

First of all, I can't believe all your electronics are shot, the guitar is just about 11 years old. Something in there should be still working. Get yourself a multimeter and find out what pots or caps are shot, mayby you just have to re-solder something. Or have a qualified guitar tech have a look at it

IMHO these prewired harness from whoever and also the Gibson bumblebee caps are way overpriced . a decent cts or a gibson pot is about 6$, the switch and jack are about the same.

Caps? well from a scientific point of view the cap material makes no difference. the only difference in sound comes from different values of the caps.

From a voodoo point of view the material makes all the difference in sound.

Well I have to admit that I put some new production, but old style paper in oil caps in both, my es 335 and my les paul. But the both were about 6 $ each. (Since I'm in germany I think it makes no sense for you to tell you where I bought them).

 

One thing I would recommend is to change the wiring from modern to 50's style wiring. Is it really better? Well, it's just different and some may like the sound of the modern wiring style better.

[stein]

The deal with the "bumblebee" caps, is that the origonal caps used in the late 50's/early60's are Papar In Oil, as opposed to a ceramic disk cap or a polyester cap.

 

The Gibson "reissue" bumblebee caps are not PIO caps at all, and have a cheap cap molded inside a case to appear like the originals.

 

Cap type and materiel CAN make a difference, and sometimes a significant difference, but it depends on what you are going for. PIO is not inherently better sounding, but if you are going for a "vintage" type sound and that is what you are LISTENING for, the end result will be closer provided everything else is also replicating vintage spec.

 

REAL bumblebee caps from the era are expensive, but mostly for those who need them to restore a vintage guitar to origonal, and not worth the money unless that is what you are doing. There are also some who take some rather descent PIO caps and paint them to look like bumblebee caps-better than what Gibson sells, but still, added expense for no reason.

 

I can't give a useful opinion on Humbucker wiring options as I haven't done enough different ones to say what the results are, But I say you should heed the advise above and find out what the problem is before you make plans. It may very well be a pup or both, or a simple fix. And I might add that unless you know exactly what is in there now, it is hard to know what you want to change to if you don't know what you are changing from.

[CR9]

Like littlejohhny and stein said, get yourself some good quality components and save some money over the pre-wired kits unless you are not wanting to do all the work. I also doubt all the components are bad, but I usually replace all the pots and caps at the same time when I am working on one. I really like the RS Super pots just in terms of the high end construction of them. The way the inside of a pot is made will make it last for years or a cheap pot will be junk in no time. Before buying any pot to use, figure out if you want a linear taper or an audio taper. The linear will have the same amount of increase (or decrease) between each number on the knob. An audio will progress from zero to ten in a sloped manner where the difference between 2 and 3 will be a lot less than between say 8 and 9. For the guys that keep all the knobs on 10, it doesn't matter. I have been using Russian paper in oil caps for some time that I bought on ebay (K40Y-9 capacitor .022 uF NOS paper in oil cap. I didn't like the K42Y-2's though) There a million different styles of caps and they do make a difference in tone. The newer Gibson Bumblebees are very good though. I spent a day trying about 4 dozen caps when trying to find one for my 58 Junior. I used some clip leads and kept the amp settings the same for each cap. Even with the pots all set at 10, there was a noticeable tone difference between some caps. I went with a vintage Sprague .02 cap. in the 58 Junior.

 

What ever you do, as said before, go with the 50's wiring.

 

Check out this site for some great free info. StewMac

 

For reference: RS Guitarworks

 

This is for reference. I do not know the seller or have never dealt with this seller. This is just a listing for the type of cap. I like: K40Y-9

I am not advising to buy or not buy from these links listed. It is just for information use.

[sherpa_man]

Like littlejohhny and stein said, get yourself some good quality components and save some money over the pre-wired kits unless you are not wanting to do all the work. I also doubt all the components are bad, but I usually replace all the pots and caps at the same time when I am working on one. I really like the RS Super pots just in terms of the high end construction of them. The way the inside of a pot is made will make it last for years or a cheap pot will be junk in no time. Before buying any pot to use, figure out if you want a linear taper or an audio taper. The linear will have the same amount of increase (or decrease) between each number on the knob. An audio will progress from zero to ten in a sloped manner where the difference between 2 and 3 will be a lot less than between say 8 and 9. For the guys that keep all the knobs on 10, it doesn't matter. I have been using Russian paper in oil caps for some time that I bought on ebay (K40Y-9 capacitor .022 uF NOS paper in oil cap. I didn't like the K42Y-2's though) There a million different styles of caps and they do make a difference in tone. The newer Gibson Bumblebees are very good though. I spent a day trying about 4 dozen caps when trying to find one for my 58 Junior. I used some clip leads and kept the amp settings the same for each cap. Even with the pots all set at 10, there was a noticeable tone difference between some caps. I went with a vintage Sprague .02 cap. in the 58 Junior.

 

What ever you do, as said before, go with the 50's wiring.

 

Check out this site for some great free info. StewMac

 

For reference: RS Guitarworks

 

This is for reference. I do not know the seller or have never dealt with this seller. This is just a listing for the type of cap. I like: K40Y-9

I am not advising to buy or not buy from these links listed. It is just for information use.

 

 

 

looking at the guitar works website, it seem i need to mod my guitar body, i need bigger holes for the pots,

 

 

the dr vintage seem like a good option, has anybody installed this kit on there guitar, did they notice a tone change?

[littlejohnny]

I can only speak for Gibson pots, but they will fit perfectly in your guitar. And I'm quite sure that other pots will fit as well. I guess others can tell you which ones.