The 50s wiring thread.

E

EOengineer

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This topic comes up every once in a while around here and I thought it might be helpful to have a thread with some general info that would be a solid landing place for future questions and inquiries.

modern_vs_vintage_les_paul_wiring-jpg.338800


 
I was oblivious to 50 wiring until probably 2009 when I bought a Burny Les Paul that had been loaded with nice PAFs and vintage CTS pots wired in the 50s spec. All of the sudden I could do this really cool "trick" with my Superlead where I'd get it cranked up and overdriving with a nice rock crunch, and then roll my guitar volume down to about 7 and get a sparkly edge of breakup thing that up until that point had been avoiding me.

It took me a while to figure out what was different about that guitar, and now I tend to rewire all by Gibsons to use that wiring scheme.
 
I actually use a hybrid on my hot-rodded studio where the bridge uses modern and the neck uses 50's. My other LP is 50's on both with PAF-style pickups.
 
Here's a thread that shows the tone response between Modern and 50s wiring at different volumes.

James Freeman

Thread 'Les Paul 50s vs Modern Wiring'

I though this might be interesting to simulate and see what's the difference between 50s and Modern wiring of a Les Paul.

First, when everything is on 10 there is no difference between wiring, only when you start to roll down the controls there is a big difference between the two.
With Modern wiring both Volume and Tone behave very nicely and do not affect each other, smooth tapers from 0 to 10 on both, nothing interesting here, it works as you expect it to work, nice and even.

Now 50s wiring is way more interesting, first the pickup 3kHz resonance peak is emphasized depending on how...
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EOengineer said:
Do you use your tone knobs a fair amount when you play?
Click to expand...
No, it's 99.99% of the time on 10, I think I even disabled (lifted) it at some point but wired it back in to load the pickups for a more familiar sound.
I favor straight forward tight 80s chug, so my guitars and pickups are wired to suit that.

That doesn't mean that 50s wiring doesn't have many great sounds, particularly with mid gain or edge of breakup where it cleans up really nice.
IIRC, when backing down the volume to about 8, now the Tone control becomes more like a mid scoop control which goes along very well with cleaning up cranked NMV amps, in other words a 50s wired Les Paul into a Plexi is match made in heaven.

EDIT :I'm a PAF hater, so 50s wiring has its (well respected) place in history and guitar tone, just not in my universe.
 
James Freeman said:
No, it's 99.99% of the time on 10, I think I even disabled (lifted) it at some point but wired it back in to load the pickups for a more familiar sound.
I favor straight forward tight 80s chug, so my guitars and pickups are wired to suit that.

That doesn't mean that 50s wiring doesn't have many great sounds, particularly with mid gain or edge of breakup where it cleans up really nice.
IIRC, when backing down the volume to about 8, now the Tone control becomes more like a mid scoop control which goes along very well with cleaning up cranked NMV amps, in other words a 50s wired Les Paul into a Plexi is match made in heaven.

EDIT :I'm a PAF hater, so 50s wiring has its (well respected) place in history and guitar tone, just not in my universe.
Click to expand...

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I can't play guitars with no Tone controls. Yeah, you Edward! You, too, Jake E Lee.

I need that roll off.

And with Modern Wiring you get that Treble roll off (a bit too much for my tastes)
when you roll the Volume Pot back.

It is kind of interesting that EVH used no Tone control, and yet he was constantly
rolling the Volume back on his guitar, and also varying his pick attack to get
relative clean up throughout their catalog. Obviously, his PU choices and Gain
levels with the Amps he used over the years changed a ton. That PAF into Marshall,
and all the dynamics he was able to coax with his hands is still just next level, for me. :chef
 
James Freeman said:
That doesn't mean that 50s wiring doesn't have many great sounds, particularly with mid gain or edge of breakup where it cleans up really nice.
IIRC, when backing down the volume to about 8, now the Tone control becomes more like a mid scoop control which goes along very well with cleaning up cranked NMV amps, in other words a 50s wired Les Paul into a Plexi is match made in heaven.
Click to expand...
Yeah this pretty much nails it. Once that volume is no longer on 10 the tone knob behavior is hard to explain. In practice, I find when my volume is around 7-8 I can roll back the tone knob and until you get down around 3-4, it sounds like it’s cutting lower mids and it aids in even more cleanup in a helpful way. Sort of a bandpass thing that gets me into tele on steroids territory.
 
EOengineer said:
Yeah this pretty much nails it. Once that volume is no longer on 10 the tone knob behavior is hard to explain. In practice, I find when my volume is around 7-8 I can roll back the tone knob and until you get down around 3-4, it sounds like it’s cutting lower mids and it aids in even more cleanup in a helpful way. Sort of a bandpass thing that gets me into tele on steroids territory.
Click to expand...
Exactly.
I think Gary Moore was the master of 50s wiring, you see him playing with the knobs a lot, you get even more sounds when the neck and bridge pickups are out of phase.
Kirk owns that instrument now. 😬
 
I prefer 50s wiring on a Gibson and I don’t like treble bleed capacitors. Also high voltage caps definitely sound better than small ones.
 
EOengineer said:
Why would a higher voltage cap sound better? Are there specific ones you prefer?
Click to expand...
The physical size seems to affect the overall performance. You seem to get a more usable attenuation of the treble in a bigger cap less of tone or not. With the same pot and same value cap but a higher voltage version . Different materials also seem to slightly alter to mix of frequencies that get attenuated. I like a 150-600 v phone book paper cap 0.047 to 0.1 mfd in single coil guitars.
IMG_5174.jpeg

0.047 in a Tele.
IMG_1803.jpeg

This is 150v and it sounds great ,physically large again. Even the bigger old ceramic discs sound better than smaller ones.
IMG_1515.jpeg

Lower voltage than my preferred range but a good musical attenuation again. Try it , not expensive.
 
Eagle said:
The physical size seems to affect the overall performance. You seem to get a more usable attenuation of the treble in a bigger cap less of tone or not. With the same pot and same value cap but a higher voltage version . Different materials also seem to slightly alter to mix of frequencies that get attenuated. I like a 150-600 v phone book paper cap 0.047 to 0.1 mfd in single coil guitars.
View attachment 61906
0.047 in a Tele.
View attachment 61907
This is 150v and it sounds great ,physically large again. Even the bigger old ceramic discs sound better than smaller ones.
View attachment 61908
Lower voltage than my preferred range but a good musical attenuation again. Try it , not expensive.
Click to expand...
Really cool! I guess I’m going to check out some big ole caps.

Season 10 Finale GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm
 
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