Last time I described different options obtaining a different sound using pickups. This time I will describe the modifications of the tone block.

Potentiometers

What is a potentiometer? This is a variable resistor. The electronics are designed in such a way that when we turn down the volume, part of the signal goes to ground, and the rest goes to the amplifier. The origin of the potentiometer does not affect the sound, but their parameters do. And by changing the values ​​of the potentiometers, you can achieve different sounds.

Potentiometers aren't perfect either. And even when they are turned to maximum, part of the signal still goes to ground, which causes losses in power and high frequencies. The losses are not very large, but nevertheless audible. Therefore, the greater the resistance of the potentiometer, the less losses. Potentiometers with a nominal value of 250 kOhms are usually installed on single-coils, and 500 kOhms on humbuckers, since humbuckers sound muddier and the high frequencies there are initially lower than those of single-coils. A brighter sound will be obtained when using 1 MΩ potentiometers.

Keeping the top

However, increasing the potentiometer value does not solve the problem of loss of highs when the guitar's volume is reduced. And the solution to the problem is quite cheap and simple, and is sold in any radio parts store. It is enough just to insert a 0.001 uF capacitor onto two contacts of the volume potentiometer and all the high frequencies will remain in their original form. There is one caveat here - for normal implementation, a logarithmic potentiometer is required. With linear, the volume change will be sharp and stepped. By the way, this is what makes old Fender Telecasters so ringing at any volume level.

Going to the depths

From the previous it is clear that the capacitor conducts high frequencies. Actually, the tone control is a capacitor and a resistor. Typically, guitars are equipped with capacitors with a nominal value of 0.022 or 0.047 uF, but in principle any can be installed. The higher the capacitor value, the more high frequencies will leak into the “ground” and the muddier the sound will be. Although, it doesn’t make sense to set more than 0.1 uF, but you can try.

One of the most interesting devices that was used on some semi-acoustic Gibson ES, including the B.B. King Lucille model and some Blueshawks. Unfortunately I didn't find any accurate description the design of this thing, since there is a lot of all kinds of garbage on this topic on the Internet. Even more unfortunately, I haven't been able to play a single guitar with this thing. However, from all sorts of descriptions and videos it is clear that Varitone “cuts off” certain frequencies from the signal. Consists of a position switch and capacitors. First things first.

A simple variton, as it is depicted on the Internet, is an ordinary bunch of capacitors soldered to a positioner. When a position is selected, the signal is sent to a specific capacitor and then to the tone potentiometer. In fact, this gives you the opportunity to choose which capacitor to play through and how deep the timbre will be. A similar thing was implemented in Gretsch guitars in the form of a three-position toggle switch.

More interesting is the design of Gibson's original Varitone. It makes it possible to “cut out” frequencies, radically changing the sound. With such a thing, you don’t need anything else practically, no equalizer or cutoffs - all the sounds are already at your fingertips.

Killswitch

Regular switch. A simple two-position switch or button that turns off the signal completely. It can also be used in music - Buckethead uses this thing all the time.

Built-in booster

Instead of bothering with hot water bottles, why not build a booster into your guitar? There are battery-powered active boosters that will increase the guitar's output and pump up the amp.

Few people know that a booster can also be passive, and that you don’t need to spend a lot of money on it. To get real overload from the guitar itself, you just need to buy two diodes in the store. If they are connected correctly, they will give an overloaded signal, and if you also make adjustments, then no heaters are needed, and you can raise the output signal with one single switch.
It is even sold in stores, although not in ours. It's called Black Ice and consists of several diodes in one small package. By connecting them differently, you can achieve different sounds. But it is too expensive - buying regular diodes is much cheaper.

independence Day

Fans of turning on two pickups simultaneously on guitars with separate volume controls know that if you turn one volume to zero, the sound will disappear completely. However, the problem can be solved by simply rearranging the wires on the potentiometer, as in the diagram. After this, when turning the volume to zero, only a specific sensor will be turned off. Honestly, I don't know what the magic is, but it works.
True, there is also side effect. The fact is that with such a connection, two sensors will always work, but at an extremely minimal volume - such that the second sensor will not even be heard.

Active electronics: equalizers, preamps, etc.

Nanotechnology allows you to build into the guitar any electronic crap that the user wants. The entire pedalboard can thus fit into the body of one guitar, but is it really necessary?

Hello friends! Finally my long story with guitar shielding is over. Just the other day I collected everything in a heap and was pleasantly surprised - my electric guitar no longer makes noise, which means that all the work was not in vain. It's nice to know this. Now I’ll try to make everything clear and understandable for you so that you don’t accidentally mess up. So, let's now deal with what is not an easy task at first glance - desoldering the shielded tone block of an electric guitar.

I would like to remind you once again that all shielding was carried out on my experimental sample LTD M-50 with two LH-150 humbuckers from ESP, which were discussed in the previous article. If you have a different configuration of sensors and tone block of an electric guitar, then the shielding principle described below and in previous articles is almost the same. The only differences can be only in the wiring diagrams. In this article I will consider only one scheme.

Well, now let's move on to my version (perhaps many of you have guitars of this type). We read it carefully and remember it, and of course, we boldly put it into practice. But before we start all this fuss with wiring the tone block, let’s prepare all the necessary equipment, which should actually consist of:

• Soldering iron
• Tin solder, rosin
• Solid wire
• Wire cutters
• Insulating tape
• Capacitor 0.33 µF/400V
• Tester

Having collected everything you need, you can start working.

Installing Pickups

We will start assembling all the electronics with sensors. In my scheme, the humbucker bodies should not come into contact with the foil with which we covered the trays. Therefore, to ensure the insulation of these elements, it is necessary to stick ordinary stationery tape over the copper foil.

After you make the insulation with tape, you need to take the wire and solder it anywhere to the copper foil, it is best to do this closer to the hole (see photo) so that there are fewer unnecessary wires in the tray (this is purely aesthetic side, but you can solder anywhere). We will then solder this wire to the tone block screen at the same point as the other wires. We perform these maneuvers with two pickups, insert all the wires into the holes, pull out this entire bundle in the tone block, put the humbuckers in place and tighten them.

Tone block wiring

When I disassembled the tone block, I practically left everything as is. The only thing that had to be unsoldered were the wires from the pickups, the jack socket and the 3-position switch. The volume and tone controls remained untouched. Therefore, putting everything back together was not difficult.

But before putting everything in place, it was necessary to make holes in the foil for the potentiometers and switch, and then stick regular tape on top of the foil. After which you can safely tighten the potentiometers and switch, and also be sure to check with a tester that their housing does not short-circuit with the foil after installation.

The same thing needs to be done with the hole for the jack connector. It should be completely covered with tape inside to prevent shorting with the socket contacts. It wouldn’t hurt to additionally place the casings on the contact petals of the jack when soldering, which will significantly protect against short circuits with the screen. In addition, I decided to replace the old cable with a better one, because... The factory one didn’t really suit me.

After installing all the elements (potentiometers, switch, jack) in place, you can start soldering. I carried out all the wiring of the elements according to the diagram shown below, which shows a shielded Stratocaster.

I’ll explain a little for those who are not very versed in electrics. The dotted line indicates the screen, i.e. This is all the foil that we stuck on during the shielding process. Ground contact «-» - this is a copper braid of two-core wires, and «+» - signal wire inside this braid. As you can see in the diagram, the entire copper foil, that is, the screen, is connected to the ground at only one point - through a 0.33 μF capacitor.

This circuit is considered the safest, in terms of the fact that this capacity with a reserve of 400 volts, in the event of a breakdown of the amplifier lamp (although this rarely happens), will protect you from electric shock. If you don’t find such a capacitor, then in principle it’s okay, you can solder everything directly without it. Oh, and I almost forgot, buy rubber slippers just in case :).

Let's get started! We take a bundle of wires that we brought out from the pickup screens and their trays and solder them to the side wall (screen) of the tone control unit, not far from the volume control, thus collecting the wires into a “star”. We solder the wire coming from the bridge to the same point. In total, we got 5 wires - 2 from the sensors, 2 from the baths, 1 from the bridge. For convenience, I wrapped this bundle of wires in two places with electrical tape.

The following actions, according to the diagram, involve connecting all negative wires at one point. We will assemble this “star” on the body of the volume potentiometer; we will simply solder all the copper braids to the metal cover.

A little clarification, a star is ideal option grounding wiring, which eliminates the formation of closed loops, thereby eliminating interference and noise. It is also not recommended to use thin wires for these purposes.

Now that everything is more or less clear, we connect all the screens and all the minuses using a capacitor. You can solder it however you like, because... it has no polarity.

That's it, the screen is ready! All that remains is to return the rest of the wiring to its place. If before disassembling you remembered how everything was originally, congratulations, you have an excellent memory, and if not, then you should have taken a picture of this matter in advance. We solder the signal wires from the pickups and from the “volume” knob to the 3-position switch. We solder the wire from the connector to the same twister. Don’t forget to check everything with a tester, just to be safe, so to speak.

I also recommend that at the end of soldering, check again whether the potentiometers and the jack connector are connected to the copper foil. If everything is ok and the tester does not beep, then you managed to shield the electric guitar correctly! At the end of assembling the tone block, you need to carefully lay out all the wires and cover with a lid, which will close the entire made screen into a single whole.

That's all! Using my example, I showed you how you can shield an electric guitar at home with minimal costs. I hope you enjoyed learning about this topic. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment form below, I will try to answer everyone. So try, don’t be afraid, and everything will definitely work out for you. Good luck friends!

In the previous article We looked at the general wiring of a humbucker and learned how to solder it according to the circuit of one tone + volume knob + tone knob. Now it’s time to complicate the task a little and add a neck humbucker to the bridge humbucker we already have. Well, it’s natural to switch between them using a three-position switch.

We will create three operating modes:

• bridge humbucker;
• both sensors;
• neck humbucker.

In general, the scheme is very popular nowadays. And I think the information in this article will definitely be useful to you. Let's start with the option with one volume knob for both sounds.

Three position switch

Let's look at the operation of a three-position switch. In guitars they come in two types:

• slider type;
• blade type.

Used primarily in Strat-like guitars. Has 2 pairs of contacts of 4 pieces each. Each pair has its own separate switch. That's why it is called two-pole. To switch between sensors, follow the diagram presented in the figure:

We solder the middle and outer contacts to the volume knob, and connect the wires from the pickups to the switch inputs, as in the figure. Thus, when turning the switch knob to the middle position, both middle contacts will close, only the bridge contact will close to the left position, and only the neck contact will close to the right position.

Switches of this type found in Gibson Les Paul guitars. Schematically, the switch can be represented as follows:

From the picture you can see that the entire switch can be represented as 2 paired on-off switches. In position 1, only contact A is closed, in position 2 both contacts are closed, and in position 3 only contact B is closed. Thus, in the left position the neck sensor will work, in the middle - both, and in the right the bridge sensor. To obtain the required neck bridge positions, simply solder the outputs from the sensors to the required switch pins A and B, and solder pins 1 and 2 to the output jack or to the volume knobs, depending on the version of your circuit.

Wiring diagram for two humbuckers

Below is a diagram of the soldering of pickups with a three-position slide switch, one volume and tone knob. The principle of operation is this: we immediately send the signal from each sensor to the switch input. Next, from its output we feed the signal to the volume knob through the tone knob. From the volume the signal goes to the jack.

Now consider a circuit with two volumes and one common tone. This time we use a lever switch. The operating principle is as follows: we first send the signal from each sensor to its own volume knobs. Next, we connect the output from the volume potentiometers to the switch inputs. Well, we pass the outputs from it through the tone knob and send it to the jack.

And here are 2 more popular options for desoldering sounds we examined in this article. Once again, I repeat that these are just connection options, demonstrating which I wanted to show the principle of wiring pickups. It all depends on your needs, you have the right to make adjustments.

So, if you are reading this article, it means that you most likely decided to solder and improve the sound of your instrument yourself. I warn you that the wiring diagram proposed in this article may differ from the one your guitar should have due to the difference in electric guitar structure.

SHIELDING.

Let's start with how to properly shield a guitar.
In general, most decent electric guitars have factory shielding in the form of graphite varnish or EMILAC (copper powder varnish). This gives good protection signal from interference and noise.
It looks like this:

If you don’t have this type of screen, you can always make one yourself by replacing the graphite with an aluminum cooking tray, aluminum or copper tape.

Main mistakes when shielding:

• the use of completely inappropriate materials (candy wrappers, other non-conductive surfaces, foil glued with superglue, etc.).
• Extremely sloppy execution. In this case, the shield may simply short out with the signal wire or other parts of the circuit.
• Shielding where it is not necessary. Only solder areas exposed to interference and unshielded wires need to be shielded. The screen should not lie on the wires or anywhere else, only under the tone control unit.

The cover of the tone block also needs to be covered with a screen. When shielding, it should not be allowed large gaps or omissions, since the screen is a shell that absorbs all interference. It is necessary to make sure that the joints of the aluminum tape not only fit tightly to each other, but also have contact (if the adhesive layer on the tape does not provide normal contact, then you can solder it using a special flux for soldering aluminum). If the tone block is mounted on a pickguard, then only this part can be covered with a screen.

What is a tone block?
At its core, a guitar tone block is a special switching circuit that is located inside the body of a musical instrument.
In the tone block, the signal from the pickup goes to the sensor switch (switch), volume, tone and output jack.
At its core, the screen in the tone control is a continuation of the screen in the signal cable.

Let's move on to the actual wiring of the electric guitar.

You can find your wiring diagram on this site:

And I'll show you how I did it:

This circuit has two 500 kΩ potentiometers, a three-position switch, and a 6.3 mm jack socket. Between the tone potentiometer contact and the common negative there is a 47 nF and 100 volt capacitor. It is needed to filter high frequencies.
It should be taken into account that when soldering it is necessary to move the signal wires away from the screen as much as possible, and earth loops should not be allowed.