Broadcaster (Double Esquire) wiring with ASAT, Opinions.

[Ahryn]

I have been toying with the idea of trying this wiring...



With my ASAT Special Deluxe, I usually use the middle position or the neck and I hardly use the tone except to roll it off almost completely sometimes.

And with this wiring it would allow me to blend the bridge with the neck in the traditional bridge position, have the neck without the tone (neck esquire) with the normal middle position and the Faux bass tone with neck position.

This intrigues me and seems like it would be more up my alley but I am unsure about how the MFDs will react to this.

So, any tricks or tips from those that have tried this?

Any general opinions?

And of course I am not trying to sound like anyone else, I know it's not going to sound like a broadcaster, Telecaster, alnico and Etc... Etc...

And here's some YouTube vids to give you an idea about the sound in case you don't know at all what I am talking about.

[youtube]r_UI0pjL1SI[/youtube]

[youtube]mETOjlcey_Q[/youtube]

[jeffmarshall67]

Very intriguing! If you do it let us know how it sounds. What does "stackpole" mean with the pots?


Jeff

[meursault]

hey ! a jonesy video... this guy is a kind of cap's guru on another well known guitar forum... he's a pretty cool guy by the way... ^^

[Ahryn]

I picked up some caps (I opted for a more modern 0.047 cap) and I plan on getting it done Monday.

Tone report when it's done, I am very excited to find out how this ends up sounding like

[Elwood]

I picked up some caps (I opted for a more modern 0.047 cap) and I plan on getting it done Monday.

Tone report when it's done, I am very excited to find out how this ends up sounding like

Me too Ahryn . I have an axe with a 50-51 champ lap guts and pickup ( at the bridge ,angled )...one of the coolest sounding guitars I have .
elwood

[jeffmarshall67]

Or maybe a .033 cap

[sirmyghin]

a .047 cap will give you a mighty dark position in the one setting, probably way too far in that direction I would think.

[NickHorne]

Yes, it will be just like a regular tone pot turned all the way down. Go for smaller cap values.
Try getting .0022uF & .0033 & .0047 and just possibly .01 & .022 (but that's getting pretty dark, into your tone-pot-at-2 sort of zone)
They're cheap (or they should be!) - check them out. Big money on caps is a wicked marketing lie.

If you keep the guitar's volume wide open, you can test the sound of lowering the pickup(s) resonant frequency with these caps by just clipping them across a jack plug with its cover removed; it's perhaps most convenient to do this at the amp end. Get some little "croc" clips that you can crimp or solder on the caps, so you can swap and compare easily and quickly. Your ear will pick up the differences better if there's not too too much of a time interval between choices. The cable should be reasonably short, like you would normally use, otherwise it will add a significant extra capacitance of its own, which will be confusing.

The reason you need to keep the guitar's volume up full is that when the cap under investigation is outside the guitar, and not across the pickup before the controls, a lot of top-end frequencies will be lost due to the series resistance of the pot when it's not at "10". When the cap is "before" the pot in the circuit, as in the final installation, this problem can't happen.

[Ahryn]

Very intriguing! If you do it let us know how it sounds. What does "stackpole" mean with the pots?


Jeff

I was recently looking up this wiring again. Apparently when Fender first used this type of wiring they were getting their pots from the Stackpole company.

Kind of anticlimactic but that would be why they were labeled as such.

[Ahryn]

Interesting.

I was thinking of the 0.047 because it was the closest to the original spec of 0.050.

I acknowledge that the dark setting will be mighty dark but will it be close to the faux bass tone of the original design?

Maybe the MFD will have a super massive low end or it will be super dark mush, I wonder how it will react.

I can always change it out later for a smaller cap after trying out this wiring.

Thanks for the info NickHorne.

[NickHorne]

Using that big cap will sound pretty much the same as turning the tone pot all the way down.
The smaller values I mentioned would be particularly good for getting different characters out of the bridge pickup, by lowering its resonant peak frequency.

[Ahryn]

Neat, that is kind of what I was going for.

Different characters out of the bridge pickup?

Does the cap somehow affect the characteristics of the bridge pickup?

I did hear that it may affect the character of the middle position, but nothing about the bridge?

[NickHorne]

All pickups have a resonance, or "hump" in their frequency respones, due to reaction between their inductance (which all coils have) and various capacitances (some from their own windings, some from our jack cable, and others that we sometimes add deliberately). The hump can be anywhere from several hundred Hertz to a few Kilohertz. When it is very high, things will sound a bit thin; low and it will more of a "cocked wah pedal" sound. The cocked wah will be with around .0047 cap value. Smaller caps will shift the resonance higher, until a very small capacitor will just be like the stock sound of no capacitor.

It's often most useful to do this to the bridge pup, as thickening the sound of the neck unit can just sound mushy.
Might be good in middle position though, but I haven't tried it.
You could make it selectable (on or off) with a pull-pot for the tone control. And when "on", you can just connect so it only goes to the bridge pup, and not the neck.
Stay with normal pot values.

[Ahryn]

Fascinating.

I must say I have never considered it like that way before.

Very interesting.

[NickHorne]

I hope my mention of "pot values" hasn't caused any confusion.
This resonance-tuning capacitor won't work well via a pot, it has to just be connected or disconnected.
But a pull-switch on the back of the tone pot might be a good switching method for it.
I have liked this cap on Teles in the past. I think I'll try one on the back pup of my Will Ray, with a short little toggle under the E6 string between the bass half of the back Z-coil and the bridge, since my control plate is out of room. Should just about be out of thumb's way...

[Ahryn]

truth be told I know so little about wiring this can all be a little confusing

But that's why I had it wired for me by the same place I had it set up at (Classic Guitars on Fort, if you're ever in Victoria)

I dropped by there the other day but do to some other errands I couldn't pick the guitar up yet (looks like I will be able to get it into my grubby little hands Wednesday)

So even though i couldn't pick it up I dig get a chance to plug her in and try out the wiring.

My goodness does the bridge pickup have some power and authority (fat)

I didn't expect it to be that... awesome!

People talk about broadcasters and nocasters having powerful bridge pickups, I though it was all in the pickup... the wiring must have some effect on that.

The blend works well, dialing in the neck smooths out the bridge pickups growl.

Now the neck... that esquired neck position..... wow does it sound nice for rhythm.

It has it's own jangly and full thing going on.

Hard to describe, but fun to experience.

The dark position, deep rhythm position etc etc...

Now this is the position that sounded exactly how I expected it to, I think I can find some uses for it and it would be a good platform for eBow experimentation...

Anyho I think the second or third thing I'm going to do (after changing strings and thoroughly enjoying the sounds I can get out of it) is adjust the bridge and neck pickup to work to each of their strengths, maybe back off the bridge a bit.

But overall it seems like a very successful experiment