hey man finally someone who agrees with my kind of wiring. I have worked on and rebuilt electronics my entire life and when I started building and repairing guitars for myself and other folks I noticed some questionable wiring from big companies so I would often completely rewire instruments with some tricks I gained from working on antique tube radios to keep noise and interference down. And when I was done I would have A much quieter and more responsive circuit. Some tricks to use are no flying leads anywhere in the cavity, always ground caps, don't use any leaky DC caps, always use the outside end of the cap on the ground side to shield from noise and I always like to use shielded wire. And keep wire runs as short as possible!
Thank you for taking the time to explain "Why". I used to pickup CB radio traffic with my old Rickenbacker 330 which was kinda cool when your 16 years old and jamming with "Hip" musos.
huh! very interesting; i'll have to try it and compare the actual background noise when nobody's touching the cap, but that's a pretty good demo of what excess interference _could_ do
It's a known thing in the tube amp world that unwanted noise can be reduced by connecting the outer foil side of a "non-polarized" cap to ground (assuming the cap is supposed to go to ground in the first place) or in the direction that's closer to ground. It would be an interesting experiment to try flipping the cap around to see if there is any appreciable difference in this application too.
Yes, Andrew - glad you brought this up. Don't have the time & space to get into detail. Briefly, when I did a fair amount of amp work (which was almost 30 years ago) I was glad that some of the caps I used had a little mark to indicate the outer foil connection. I also set up some kind of test gear on my bench so that I could determine this on unmarked caps - can't recall exactly what. Shielding the caps can also serve to cut noise, in which case you still want the foil side to go to ground (again, if it's not a floating cap like so many are in tube amps - interstage coupling caps, for instance.) I'll also say that COMPLETELY shielding the control cavities with copper foil keeps the nasty stuff out well enough that this attention to cap grounding doesn't really matter.
interesting demonstration. I've actually just switched my wiring to this "wrong" setup as it was meant to somewhat offset high frequency roll off when dimming the volume control.
I believe what you did may have been to follow the scheme often called "50's wiring." That actually involves connections to different lugs. The practice of grounding the cap can still be used in that case, I think... I'll take a look and see
@@myeyesarewaiting Try running a wire where the cap is now (from volume wiper to outside lug of tone pot) and connecting the cap between the tone pot wiper and ground. However, COMPLETELY shielding the cavity with copper foil oughtta keep the electrostatic noise out of there in the first place
@@dunelandlabs well, this shielding point is what I was considering saying about the original observation. In a well shielded cavity it ought to make no difference, however the observation is obviously sound. I'm going to try a dedicated treble bleed next so will be wiring it as per the modern method soon enough.
@@myeyesarewaiting When trying out various "treble bleed" networks (I always seem to land on a combination of cap & resistor in parallel for conventional high-impedance pickups) do test them with both the shortest & longest cords you'll use
You Buckin' Fetcha! I mean, any electronic text will tell you that both wirings are equivalent. What they don't account for is ambient electrostatic fields and impedance with respect to ground. This really becomes an issue with ES-335-type guitars, where shielding is quite a task. I've made many owners of such axes MUCH happier just by moving the caps...
Incidentally, I once tried to hip a repair guy in Boston to this and he just shut me down, saying something like "Don't tell ME how to wire guitars." I had my client go elsewhere to have his Blackpoles installed
Easier to just say to connect one leg of the tone cap to ground (often the shell of the tone pot.) Connect the other leg to the center lug of that pot, then run a wire from the right lug of the tone pot (looking from the back with the lugs facing down) to the left lug of the volume control where the pickup is connected (again looking from the back with the lugs facing down.) The idea is to keep one end of the cap grounded at all times, instead of feeding noise into the audio through the "hot" side
Didn’t occur to me. I think the description gets the procedure across. If I can get my hands on the client’s guitar I’ll take a snap of the cavity, which now uses the good version of the wiring on both pickups’ controls
Not so fast. There was a buzzing from that guitar the entire time the video was playing. It was louder when you touched the cap, but otherwise, the bridge and neck position both had equal amounts of buzzing. Taking this at face value, wiring a cap to ground, or to another pot, you still had equal amounts of buzzing present. I'm unable to accept this authoritatively stated premise based on this aural evidence. Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be any difference in the degree of noise between the two positions. You should have demonstrated both switch positions, *without* touching the cap. Also, try watching the video to see if you hear what this observer is reporting. It may have sounded differently to you while recording this, than it does to someone watching the video from a more objective point of view.
Thanks, Augustus! The residual hum was there because the back plate was open. Believe me, if you have a 335 or something that's not well shielded this does make a real difference. Your logic, though, is excellent. If I have a chance I'll perhaps make a more rigorous demo - this was kindof a spontaneous thing that came about when I was wiring up a client's guitar.
hey man finally someone who agrees with my kind of wiring. I have worked on and rebuilt electronics my entire life and when I started building and repairing guitars for myself and other folks I noticed some questionable wiring from big companies so I would often completely rewire instruments with some tricks I gained from working on antique tube radios to keep noise and interference down. And when I was done I would have A much quieter and more responsive circuit. Some tricks to use are no flying leads anywhere in the cavity, always ground caps, don't use any leaky DC caps, always use the outside end of the cap on the ground side to shield from noise and I always like to use shielded wire. And keep wire runs as short as possible!
I run the cap backwards 50’s style. It does thing harmoniously
Thank you for taking the time to explain "Why". I used to pickup CB radio traffic with my old Rickenbacker 330 which was kinda cool when your 16 years old and jamming with "Hip" musos.
Pretty SG!
Thanks for the info man.
Subscribed.
huh!
very interesting; i'll have to try it and compare the actual background noise when nobody's touching the cap, but that's a pretty good demo of what excess interference _could_ do
It's a known thing in the tube amp world that unwanted noise can be reduced by connecting the outer foil side of a "non-polarized" cap to ground (assuming the cap is supposed to go to ground in the first place) or in the direction that's closer to ground. It would be an interesting experiment to try flipping the cap around to see if there is any appreciable difference in this application too.
Yes, Andrew - glad you brought this up. Don't have the time & space to get into detail. Briefly, when I did a fair amount of amp work (which was almost 30 years ago) I was glad that some of the caps I used had a little mark to indicate the outer foil connection. I also set up some kind of test gear on my bench so that I could determine this on unmarked caps - can't recall exactly what. Shielding the caps can also serve to cut noise, in which case you still want the foil side to go to ground (again, if it's not a floating cap like so many are in tube amps - interstage coupling caps, for instance.) I'll also say that COMPLETELY shielding the control cavities with copper foil keeps the nasty stuff out well enough that this attention to cap grounding doesn't really matter.
interesting demonstration. I've actually just switched my wiring to this "wrong" setup as it was meant to somewhat offset high frequency roll off when dimming the volume control.
I believe what you did may have been to follow the scheme often called "50's wiring." That actually involves connections to different lugs. The practice of grounding the cap can still be used in that case, I think... I'll take a look and see
@@dunelandlabs I've got the cap connected from the wiper of the volume pot to an outside lug of the tone pot, and the tone pot wiper to ground.
@@myeyesarewaiting Try running a wire where the cap is now (from volume wiper to outside lug of tone pot) and connecting the cap between the tone pot wiper and ground. However, COMPLETELY shielding the cavity with copper foil oughtta keep the electrostatic noise out of there in the first place
@@dunelandlabs well, this shielding point is what I was considering saying about the original observation. In a well shielded cavity it ought to make no difference, however the observation is obviously sound. I'm going to try a dedicated treble bleed next so will be wiring it as per the modern method soon enough.
@@myeyesarewaiting When trying out various "treble bleed" networks (I always seem to land on a combination of cap & resistor in parallel for conventional high-impedance pickups) do test them with both the shortest & longest cords you'll use
Well done thank you
Very interesting, who would have thought?
You Buckin' Fetcha! I mean, any electronic text will tell you that both wirings are equivalent. What they don't account for is ambient electrostatic fields and impedance with respect to ground. This really becomes an issue with ES-335-type guitars, where shielding is quite a task. I've made many owners of such axes MUCH happier just by moving the caps...
Incidentally, I once tried to hip a repair guy in Boston to this and he just shut me down, saying something like "Don't tell ME how to wire guitars." I had my client go elsewhere to have his Blackpoles installed
So you say go from tone pot lug to ground coreext?
I do, especially without absolutely airtight shielding
Hello, can you direct me to a schematic? Cheers.
Easier to just say to connect one leg of the tone cap to ground (often the shell of the tone pot.) Connect the other leg to the center lug of that pot, then run a wire from the right lug of the tone pot (looking from the back with the lugs facing down) to the left lug of the volume control where the pickup is connected (again looking from the back with the lugs facing down.) The idea is to keep one end of the cap grounded at all times, instead of feeding noise into the audio through the "hot" side
@@dunelandlabs
Why didn't you allow the camera to display your guitar cavity wiring or post it in the video?
Didn’t occur to me. I think the description gets the procedure across. If I can get my hands on the client’s guitar I’ll take a snap of the cavity, which now uses the good version of the wiring on both pickups’ controls
👍 Good idea
Not so fast. There was a buzzing from that guitar the entire time the video was playing. It was louder when you touched the cap, but otherwise, the bridge and neck position both had equal amounts of buzzing. Taking this at face value, wiring a cap to ground, or to another pot, you still had equal amounts of buzzing present. I'm unable to accept this authoritatively stated premise based on this aural evidence. Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be any difference in the degree of noise between the two positions. You should have demonstrated both switch positions, *without* touching the cap. Also, try watching the video to see if you hear what this observer is reporting. It may have sounded differently to you while recording this, than it does to someone watching the video from a more objective point of view.
Thanks, Augustus! The residual hum was there because the back plate was open. Believe me, if you have a 335 or something that's not well shielded this does make a real difference. Your logic, though, is excellent. If I have a chance I'll perhaps make a more rigorous demo - this was kindof a spontaneous thing that came about when I was wiring up a client's guitar.
So essentially what I learned is to keep noise to a minimum, don't touch the capacitor while playing.