Guitar How-To: Replacing the electronics in a Les Paul.

OK I’m no expert, as evidenced by the two blisters on my hand, the solder burn on the carpet, and…actually that’s it.  OK at least I qualify as an amateur.  Which means I need help, not muscle memory.  These two sites taught me all I needed to know to swap out all the switches and electronics from my Les Paul Studio Baritone.

http://ashbass.com/AshBassGuitar/Gibson50s.html

http://www.doctorvintage.com/electrics/gib_electricals.html

After studying that, I decided to give a crack at the 50s wiring scheme using the Tundratone kit.  

http://www.tundratone.com/shop/build-your-own/premium-lp-style-kit-complete-long-shaft/prod_79.html

The upgrade bits were the Genuine NOS Sprague Vitamin Q caps and RS Superpots for volume. Custom made by CTS for RS Guitarworks, these feature a taper specifically designed for volume pots and require less torque to rotate. First try and boom it fired right up!  Now that’s some good instruction!  Here’s a shot of the new guts:

 

The neck has a .015uf Vitamin Q capacitor, and the bridge has a .022uf cap.  The original wiring was skinny and thin with rubber sheaths.  The new wiring is cloth covered and beefier.  It had a short selector switch, instead now there’s a tall switchcraft in there.  Replaced the jack too, why not.  Totally hum free and sounds great – no need for that big metal plate in there (here’s a stock pic of one, not my guitar but it looked the same inside:

 

 

So anyhow, the original pickups were some ceramics – loud but not that subtle.  I went with some alnico pickups to give it an “organic” touch.  Gibson 490R in the neck, ’57 Classic in the bridge.  Felt a little fancy so I used the early 1970s Gibson embossed pickup covers – represent with the logos!

 

I was thinking of changing the plastics too, but actually the cream colored rings and poker chip and amber knobs work really well visually with the honeyburst, and the pickups now blend nicely with the shinier bridge and metal bits. 

New Guitar Day – 2011 Gibson Les Paul Studio Baritone Honeyburst

So I’ve been a big fan of the baritone ever since the days of Joy Division/New Order and The Cure – that melodic low range just appeals to my more profound moments. I was using a Schecter Hellcat VI to feed the beast, but here’s a new challenger that really appeals, the 2011 Gibson Les Paul Studio Baritone in Honeyburst, the only finish made available in this limited run. I actually wasn’t looking for it until I saw it and it bowled me over at the Music Zoo site:

Here’s a link to it with far better pictures than I could ever take!

I did my research on it online, saw that it had that big ’59 neck carve, and I was sold. After playing it of course, which I totally recommend if you can, which in my case meant a train trip to the Zoo!

I hopped on a train to Long Island, and jumped off in Rosalyn. Just a 15 minute walk over to the Music Zoo, and I saw this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And this!

Seriously, it was overwhelming, and I could have spent all day there! But I only had an hour to spare before running for the train back home, so while they got the baritone from the back, I had time to just play one. Choosing wisely, I picked that black Jazzmaster you see there, a Masterbuilt with 70s specs like the 3 bolt neck and bound fingerboard, with a transitional decal on the matching black headstock. Wow, it actually had the biggest best neck I’ve ever felt on a Jazzmaster! That said, it was $5,200 eek! Never a good idea to play a dream guitar right before you play one you were thinking of buying – or maybe it IS a good thing, so you won’t be moved by GAS (since all your GAS just got burnt up with that dream custom job you just played!)

So I plugged into a big clean Divided by 13 half stack and did my thing. This baritone was really surprising, since I was fully expecting to hate the uncovered 496R and 500T pickups – “hot ceramics? bah, going to be sterile and bring more gain than musicality.” Well I was wrong. They kept the baritone from mushing out, and the cleans had plenty of headroom and definition. No, it wasn’t all swirly and chimey, but hey this is a baritone, not a 360 Ric. Oh and another thing that avoids mushout – the 28″ scale length, which keeps things more taut than your other slightly pansier 27″ inch baritones. the 30″ Bass VI and Dano types obviously are kings of length, but they’re more like real E-to-E shortscale basses, and to play A to A or B to B I’d rather stick to a smaller gauge and be right there, instead of capoing up on a low E bass type guitar, or putting on lighter strings on a bass and tuning up, which makes the length longer than it has to be for an A or B baritone guitar – not fun for the fingers if you play the way I do.

I paid the man and ran for the train with the Bari on my back – thanks to the Back Axe, which straps the case on you like a backpack, pretty handy. Anyhow I’m back home and so here are the requisite patio shots in the fading light!









That’s a two piece maple plaintop and a two piece mahogany back with a mahogany neck. They did something cool with the edge of the maple cap where it looks like it’s binding, but it’s actually a lighter finish there so you can see the natural wood in clear nitro – yep it’s all nitro. And in 2012 Gibson now uses laminate layers for their fretboards, so I’m glad this is a 2011, so that’s one big old slab of rosewood as the fretboard, with some tasteful dot markers. The amber knobs are really flush to the body with no stick to the turns, so that’s nice. All in all, it looks as good as it plays!

New Guitar Day: 1993 Guild F30R “Paul Simon Model”

Man I am REALLY tired so just a quick update, but it arrived today, and here we go – the step by step.

Step one: you open the Box.

Step two: you get that junk out of the box.

Step three: you open the case to see the awesome packing job Action Music did!

It arrived safe and sound – how could it not, with packing like that? I mean, even the fretboard was protected, that’s dedication. Anyhow, it was perfectly tuned down exactly a step, so I stepped it back up to standard, and gave it a long run through. I isolated an odd plasticky overtone that was happening at certain frequencies – it was the LR Baggs soundhole control! Luckily you can pop that plug right off and it’s reversible so I unplugged that and took it off the soundhole for use later if I go live or plugged or whatever. Nasty overtones gone, all that remained was gorgeous spruce and rosewood ringing away!

For now here’s a vidclip of me very tired playing it, and my dog in the middle getting tired of my playing so she throws her ball at me, and there you go.

Hans Moust helped me figure this particular model out, it’s a bit of an oddball, since it’s to the by-then defunct 80s George Gruhn/Kim Walker era Guild GF50 spec design, which is closer to Clapton’s guitar than Paul Simon’s – and Paul Simon didn’t even endorse this run!

So here you go: I was thinking this, Paul Simon’s F30 Special -

So I got this:

Which ended up being more like this:

Oh, and put on your pocket protector, here are the specs: Nitro gloss natural finish, Small “Grand Concert” F-size, spruce top, scalloped bracing, solid rosewood back and sides, 14-fret mahogany neck, 20-fret ebony fretboard with star inlays, ebony bridge, black peghead overlay with pearloid “Guild” logo and Chesterfield inlay, white-bound body, b-w-b-w-b-w-b-w top purfling, b-w-b-w back purfling, 16″ lower bout, 25.5″ scale, 3-11/16″ to 4-9/16″ body depth, 1-5/8″ nut width, gold Grover Rotomatic tuners.

R.I.P., Jim Marshall.

Let’s get Loud for Jim Marshall. Here’s my contribution.



“R.I.P., Jim” is what I say unmiked, in my tribute using my 1965 Guild Starfire VI. First riff I ever learned (wrong), haha. A moment of Loud for the Guv’nor!

Guitar How-To: The Mesa Boogie Mark IIA/IIB Ultimate Master Volume Pedal Trick

The Mark IIA and IIB series of Mesa Boogie amps contain a strange but fortuitous function, available only on these early Mark amps, since the IIC killed it off when they implemented a very nice effects loop.

I believe the IIB had a tube buffered effects loop as well, but the IIA had none. But what both of these amps did have was a junction jack. It let you take the signal out, right after the pre-amp and right before the power amp. On my Mark IIA, it’s the jack circled right here:

This preamped signal contains everything the Mesa has to offer short of the power section. That’s right, even the Master Volumes for the Clean and Lead gain stages, the boost, the treble on, you name it, it’s before it. What do you do with this preamped signal? Plug it into a volume pedal. Then out of the volume pedal, you plug back into the amp over here:

This way, you have one last volume control before the power section sends your signal to the speaker. In other words, you have the ultimate Master Control, the master of all other master controls. In this way, you can dial in both channels’ volumes and gains, their master controls, and you’ll still have one more volume control after that to tailor to taste. Makes for some super cool volume swells too, done after the preamp instead of having to be before the amp, and thus you can even swell your overdrive and distortion signals without losing any gain. COOL. Here’s an example of my amp using this trick for both channels (technically they aren’t “channels” but heck, i set them up to be Clean and Dirty so I call them my channels).

2012 RPM Challenge – COMPLETE!

Yep, made an album of 10 originals from scratch all in the month of February, feel free to check the demos out at Youtube, and the final product at either the Alonetone or Bandcamp site:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Jahnli

http://alonetone.com/jahn/playlists/jahn

http://jahn.bandcamp.com

http://soundcloud.com/jahnli/sets/jahn/

My previous RPM Challenge albums are there too.  I highly recommend all you musicians to participate next February as well, it’s fun!

2012 RPM Challenge Has Begun – Create an Original Album!

In an earlier post I mentioned the RPM Challenge, and had big dreams of big bucks via Kickstarter to press vinyl, go all hoohah on it.  Well I got exactly one donor from that effort, hah.

So my expectations are a big tempered now as to be expected.  Here’s the revised Kickstarter:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jahn/techno-jazz-pop-post-punk-acoustic-guy-makes-a-mes

Feel free to head over there, there’s a vid there of my first demo.  I feel like I could add a ton more instrumentation to it, but hey- there’s still 9 more songs to think up and record by the end of the month, so I’ll keep pressing on.  Wish me luck!