A Blast From the Past: 2007 Les Paul Elitist Complete Re-Wire

This is a revival of an older write-up I put together back in May of 2009 for a guitar forum on the Internet.  I did it as an instructional piece, and broke out the step-by-step process of re-wiring my 2007 Epiphone Elitist Les Paul Standard Plus.  If you are not familiar with this particular guitar, it is very collectible and becoming more and more rare by the day. This guitar, which was made in Japan, is well known for its amazing build quality and tone -- and many argue it was better built than the American version manufactured by Gibson.  In fact, I was looking for a Gibson Les Paul when I found this one, but I couldn't find a Gibson anywhere that felt as nice as this one.  It plays like butter! The only thing that wasn't super awesome about it was the electronics that came from the factory.  It is common to re-wire them with "Made in USA" electronic components to get the most out of this amazing Les Paul. 

I was thinking about this guitar lately because I am wondering if I should attempt to sell it.  It's been sitting un-played, in its case, for a very long time now...over a year or more.  If you know me personally, you have probably heard the story that goes along with this guitar.  It was a great surprise/shock/terror to my wife when I bought it from a Craigslist ad while on a business trip. It's a great party story! ; P

Not very long after I wrote this article on my complete re-do of the electronics, I found an American Standard Stratocaster which is now my regular guitar. I love the Elitist, and realize it rises in value each day I own it...but I still wonder if I should sell it.  My wife would love that! It's my "backup guitar" but I haven't needed my backup...ever.

So here it is...nearly a direct reproduction of my 2009 write-up.  Pardon the poor photography...it wasn't a focus of this effort, and I was using a little point and shoot with flash. Ugh.  These pictures make me cry -- because today they would look much different!  But...it's a moment in time, and I cherish them for that!

========== LP Complete Re-Wire [Steps] [Pictures] 05-01-2009, 11:23 PM ==========

Components:

• RS Guitarworks Modern Wiring Kit
• Neck Pickup: Dimarzio Air Norton (Zebra)
• Bridge Pickup: Dimarzio Super Distortion (Zebra)
• Neck Tone Pot controls coil tapping via push/pull
• Bridge Tone Pot controls out of phase select via push/pull

First, let me say that if you are expecting tips from a pro...that's not me! This is my first time to mess with anything inside my guitar. I am posting this so others who are considering tackling the job can see that it is indeed doable, and also hopefully provide some direction and pictures that may help others. I can't say this is perfect, since frankly I have nothing to compare it to. I am proud of my work, and the guitar works....so mission accomplished.

Thanks to those on this forum who gave me lots of threads to research, and especially thanks to hillbilly for setting me up with the RS kit! I am a believer in giving back to people who give to me. I have lurked on this site long enough, and couldn't have done this job without your discussions...so I think it only makes sense that I share back so others can take something away from this experience.

Here is how it went down. Enjoy!

1. Pulled off all four factory pot caps from guitar using the "plastic grocery bag" method.

2. Created a template for wiring using a cardboard packing box top. Pressed the box against the installed pots to indent the cardboard. Drilled out these locations for securing the new pots for wiring.

3. Next, I wired pots up after attaching them to the template. I used a combination of the provided wiring diagram from RS, the diagram from Dimarzio, and some forum posts (to look at pictures). Honestly, it seemed overwhelming at first. But using the resources, I was eventually able to get it to "click" in my brain what all was going on. This is one of the primary reasons I chose to do this myself. I really wanted to learn what was going on under the hood, and wiring your own from scratch is a pretty good way of achieving this goal.

Here is the starting point, and as you can tell, I also measured the pots for resistance values (mostly as a learning experience).

Here is the final wire-up, at least pretty much all I could do outside the guitar. NOTE: I realized after taking this picture that I was missing one more wire, connecting the bottom tone (bridge) to the bottom volume. This was part of the confusing part of taking a diagram for the wiring kit and combining it with another diagram for the phase switch. I was thinking the hot lead that I ran from the switch took the place of the standard bottom lug to bottom lug connection. I was wrong, and didn't realize it until after the build. The result of the missing wire: No tone control for the the bridge. Nothing detrimental...and adding the wire after the fact solved the issue. It was a little challenging to wire it after everything was in place...but careful manipulation of the pointed tip pencil soldering iron yielded successful results without screwing up anything else that was in place.

4. Next, I removed all the existing electronics/pups from the guitar.

Here she is sans wiring:

This is also a good time to poke around.

5. Next, I wired up the 3-way pickup selector switch. I measured what length I needed to wire it to the input jack first, then split the leftover in half for the pot connections. (Thanks for the tip on that, hillbilly!)

Here it is in its home.

6. The next thing I had to do before installing the pots was to drill out holes. The factory pots were smaller than the new pots (standard) so I had to bore the hole out to 3/8". I used the recommendation to use a drill and run it in reverse (from the top side). This worked like a charm. The difference in size is subtle. Here is a pic with two drilled and two factory sized. Can you tell which is which?

Here is all four finished.

7. Next, I wired up and installed the input jack- connecting it to the 3-way switch.

Here is the control cavity...waiting for pots. I used shrink tube for the input jack wire that was exposed to the control cavity. The black tape on the other wire tells me that it's for the Neck volume pot so I didn't wire it backwards since I used the same wire for all three switch runs.

8. Finally, I get to install the pots!

I also made sure the knob ends looked even on the front, using washers to compensate when necessary to control the depth. And, of course, I added my new pointer washers before screwing them in.

10. Now for the pickups. I started with the neck, wired it in, then moved to the bridge. Here is the final control cavity condition. I went ahead and wired both pickups to coil-split with the neck tone push-pull. I then have the bridge wired for reverse phase. NOTE: Also still missing the bridge tone-volume connection. I completed the task..but didn't get the picture of the updated view. This is, however, reflected in the wiring diagram posted below.

11. I took it for a "test drive" before buttoning everything down. I left the strings on, so that if I had any issues to fight I wouldn't waste a new set of strings. The strings weren't a problem, and are actually still on the guitar after the job was complete. All the functions seemed to work as expected, the sound is good and loud, no buzzing, static, etc. (Except it seems I missed the fact that there was no bridge tone control - I was so excited to play with everything else! Ironically, the stock tone controls really didn't seem to do anything, so I guess I was used to hearing little change with adjustment. Now, however, the ENTIRE TONE of the guitar changes with a roll off of the tone! Wow! So that's what those knobs are supposed to do!)

I eventually added the bridge tone-volume connection, and then slapped the new knobs on...and here it is:

Not bad for a half hour of work, eh? Ha! Yeah right! I don't know how long it took me...but defintely several hours from start to finish. I took my time, and went slow and steady. Of course I wasn't able to work on it continously, so it probably drug out longer than it should have.

Here is my wiring diagram:

Stratocaster Makeover :: PART TWO

WARNING: GUITAR GEEK CONTENT

Part One is here: http://cpo1.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/stratocaster-makeover-intro-and-part-one/

Part Two of the Stratocaster makeover consists of a complete re-gut and electronics upgrade.  I changed all three pickups to Dimarzio's Area 58s (neck and middle) and 61 (bridge). Here's some info about the pickups: http://www.guitarworld.com/article/dimarzio_area_58_and_area_61_pickups.  The biggest benefit of these pups is the noiseless operation.  Single coil pickups are notorious for noise (or hum).  In fact, humbucking pickups were designed specifically to cancel out the noise (or "buck" the hum).

Playing guitar in a setting where the sound tech isn't familiar with the normalcy of strat hum could induce a situation where you're needlessly turned down at the board to cut the noise if caught humming during a low-intensity moment in a song.  Alternatively, perhaps a noise gate is used to limit the perhaps unfamiliar buzz. Managing this as a player requires constant control of the volume - turning down the guitar when not being played.  Another method of coping is to just avoid using the pickups in single mode (any three of the pickups selected alone - positions 1,3,5) and only use the guitar in dual-pickup mode (a la humbucking) by selecting positions 2 or 4. Sadly, this ended up becoming my coping mechanism...and my guitar tone suffered as I was limited to only those two positions.

Enter in the Area 58/61 pickups...noiseless.  I have seen way too many people demo or sing praises of these pickups to not make this change. Once installed, I should be able to use any of the five pickup positions on the guitar without introducing additional noise. I bought the pickups at a Sam Ash in Atlanta.  They didn't have them in stock, but ordered them and shipped them to my house.  I decided that since I was changing pickups, I was going to get rid of the rest of the bright white parts on my guitar.  I ordered the pickups in the "Aged White" color.  This is basically a yellowed/beige off white color that is meant to replicate a vintage white that has seen some age.  I think it tones down the brightness of the straight white.  Of course, I had to get new knobs and switch covers to match.

As I mentioned at the end of PART ONE, I had some concerns about the quality of my shielding job on the body of the guitar. I decided that before I did anything, I would take a look at that.  The shielding is supposed to help reduce noise from interference, but I honestly didn't notice any difference.  I used a multimeter to test the continuity of all the shielding I applied, and was surprised to find a section that wasn't effectively shielded. Here is a quick video of this process to save me some typing:



So, moving on...

I ordered a wiring kit from RS Guitarworks (www.rsguitarworks.net).  I used their kit in my Les Paul, and it worked out great, so they got my business again when it came time to tinker with the Strat.  I bought the Complete Premium Vintage Strat Style Electronics Upgrade Kit. It comes with the following components:

(1) 280K RS Split-Shaft SuperPots™- We designed these pots in conjunction with CTS. Used for the volume controls in the kit, these pots have a custom taper that gives you a noticeable difference between each number on your volume control. You can finally roll your volume down to 2 or 1 and not loose any clarity, even in the neck position!! Mil-spec construction and a smoother resistor path make this the best pot to ever be used in the guitar. (2) 250K CTS Split-Shaft Audio taper pots- Audio taper pots work great for tone controls. With that in mind, we had CTS improve their stock audio taper pot by using brass shaft construction (brass is much more resilient than the typical aluminum,) and much tighter tolerances. (1) RS Paper and Oil GuitarCap® by Jensen .047. Some of our customers have asked us for a good vintage cap option for some time, so we went to Jensen and asked them to make a paper and oil capacitor as small as possible for that "woody" tone and they nailed it! (1) Length vintage-white wire- Used for the grounding and wiring the switch in the circuit. (1) Length vintage black wire- Also used for the grounding and wiring the switch in the circuit. (1) Swithcraft input jack- Made in the USA (1) Switchcraft 5-Way toggle- Made in the USA

Also in the kit (not advertised) was an "optional" .047 treble bleed capacitor.  This is supposedly not required for those looking for the treble bleed function (allows the retention of some highs when turning down the volume).  I was, in fact, looking for treble bleed circuitry, so I decided to install it while I was putting the rest of the kit together.

Here's a peek at the factory wiring before I stripped it all out:



The first thing I did to get started was to attach the new tone and volume pots to a piece of cardboard in the same configuration they would be in the guitar. This allows me to solder most of the attachment points before attaching them to the plastic pick guard (and without them moving around).  Soldering grounds to the back of the pots requires heating them up a bit for the solder to take (not too much!)  and I didn't want to risk any heat transfer to the pick guard for fear it might warp.



I got most of the connections made (and added some ground blobs on the volume pot) before moving it to the pick guard.  Still left at this point is the pickup, input jack, and bridge/body ground wiring. Check out the size of that Jenson capacitor (gold) compared to the tiny ceramic tab of the factory setup (red in above picture)!



You may notice I wired the bottom tone pot to the bridge pickup and the middle tone pot to the neck pickup. I left the middle pickup wide open with no tone control.  This seems to be a popular configuration.

Next, I wired in the pickups. I tried my best to make the wiring clean with shrink wrap when possible to keep the wired bundled down the center.



Here is the complete wiring job, with ground and jack connections in place.  Also, note the added treble bleed capacitor (white) connected to the volume pot lugs (just below the gold Jensen capacitor in the picture:



Here is the guitar all back together.  It's sorta hard to tell from these low quality pics, but the "aged white" look is a little mellower and looks much better in my opinion.



The next thing I did was to work on the guitar setup.  I put fresh strings on, adjusted neck relief (as flat as I could get it), and all the bridge adjustments, string height, and intonation.  When I bought the guitar, the bridge adjustment was a bit out of wack...and this was my first time to really go through every component piece by piece.  I made my own radius gauge from cardboard and then used that to have the strings (adjusted at the bridge) match the same radius as the neck.  Oh, while I was at it...I added a fourth spring to the tremolo claw and the bridge to tighten up the trem a bit.  This pulled the bridge back flush to the body rather than floating.  I used aftermarket springs that were stronger than the factory springs, so I went with a "two and two" approach:



So after all the setup was complete..it was time for some testing.  Thankfully, all of the electronics worked as expected!  It looks like all of my work paid off.  There was no noise from the single pickup positions at all...sah-weet!  That's what I was looking for.  I tested all the controls and made sure everything worked.  It all did, however, I wasn't happy with the volume control.

The theory behind the volume control (particularly with regard to the treble bleed) is that you can turn down the volume on the guitar a bit and actually control the output to the amp and thus reduce some of the gain.  With the treble bleed, you can retain most of the highs as you roll back the volume...so the sound of the guitar doesn't really change -it just cleans up a bit.  So volume 10 = distortion; volume 7 = less distortion (but same overall sound and perceivable volume level).  This is the expected behavior...but the reality of my configuration was that there was little change in gain level from 10 to about 4!  The distortion didn't clean up til that point, and then the volume began to drop (perceivable) after that point.  I didn't like that.

Knowing that the super pots from RS Guitarworks was designed to retain some of the highs (rendering the additional treble bleed cap unnecessary) I decided to pull it back apart and remove the second cap. I loosened the strings up, and slipped the pick guard out and removed it.  Here is a look with the cap installed:



And after removal:



Soldering is so much fun!  Anway...the end result was much more like I anticipated.  There  was a gain roll off around 7 and volume decline after that point.  Perfect.  So...that's it.  I'll play it like this for a while and see what I think.  I love to tinker, so I can't guarantee how long it will be before I pull it apart again.

Oh, by the way...if you are interested in a trick to work on Strat electronics without removing the strings, you can place a capo at the first fret and then loosen the strings enough to ease the pick guard out. The capo holds the strings in place so they don't get all out of whack when they are loose:

Stratocaster Makeover :: INTRO and PART ONE

WARNING: GUITAR GEEK CONTENT

This post is really for the guitar techie crowd...so if you have no interest in guitars, and modifications to them, then I'll spare you and recommend you move on.  This is an article about my black Fender Stratocaster makeover, including full electronics rebuild.  Part One is a recap of original work I did right after the purchase (new pick guard and body shielding), and Part Two is the most recent recap of the electronics rebuild (repair shielding, new pickups, new wiring kit).  Most of the information I used to make buying decisions and guitar electronics came from reading posts just like this on the Internet.  I share my story in hopes that it may be helpful for someone else. It's my way of "giving back". :-)

Let's get to it!

PART ONE

Here is my guitar as it looked on day one after I bought it:



It's a 2008 Fender American Standard Stratocaster.  I own two electric guitars, and this has become my favorite (the other being an Elitist Les Paul).  Anyway, the very first thing I wanted to do was something cosmetic. I am not a huge fan of the tuxedo look (black/white).  It's just to clean...too proper...to formal.  Since this guitar has a maple fretboard, I decided to go for the all black look (a la David Gilmour).

I hunted down a 1-ply gloss black pick guard (a harder task than I thought).  In the end, I ordered a custom made one from Warmoth Custom Guitar Parts (http://www.warmoth.com/Pickguard/StratPickguard.aspx). The challenge with a 1-ply pick guard is finding one thick enough that it won't warp after installation (since all the electronics and pickups are hanging off of it). This particular pick guard is and 11-hole .09" black solid gloss:





Here is a pic of it compared with the factory 3-ply pickguard that was on the guitar:



First, I needed to remove the factory pick guard...and I have to remove knobs to make that happen. My favorite method for removing knobs is the plastic grocery bag technique. There are lots of methods, and even tools you can buy to remove knobs...but this trick works great.  Best of all - it's free.  Just flatten out the handle of a plastic grocery bag, slip it under the knob and get it wrapped around the pot post, then slowly pull up:



Here is my first look at the stock guitar guts after pulling the pick guard off. There is noticably more shielding on the factory pick guard, and obviously no body cavity shielding. Thankfully I was also able to do the entire project without removing the strings...just loosening. That's good, because I just put brand new Elixirs on...and hated to waste them.



In order to get the pickups re-aligned quickly in the new pick guard, I used a pencil mark to denote the position of the pickups in the factory pick guard. I then just screwed them in on the new pick guard to the same leveling. Seemed to be a quick way to get back into adjustment.



Looking at this bare body made me want to add shielding. Didn't really plan on it or think about it before, but since I had some aluminum duct tape laying around...figured I would do that while I was in there.



But first...had to do a test fit, to make sure all the holes aligned. It fit like a charm!



Next I added the shielding to the back of the pickguard. I was careful on all the shielding to make sure that there was good metal-to-metal contact from piece to piece. This was accomplished by always folding over a corner or section of the tape to have it sit non-sticky side against non-sticky side. Hard to see any of the folds here:



I would make little folds like this:



...or this. This is a piece I would lay across two other pieces that would tie them together.



Here is the finished body. I made sure to have tabs that would touch against the pickguard shielding, and at least one place where the shielding was over a pickguard screw hole. Not sure how much difference this makes, but it made me feel good.



Of course, I cut out the shielding for the pickup and control holes, then reinstalled the stock electronics.



And then it gets put back together, and here is the "after picture":





That brings us to the end of Part One. I like the new look.  The shielding, which is supposed to help reduce noise from the single coil strat pickups, really didn't seem to matter much.  I began wondering if I missed something...but would wait until the next time I cracked it open to have a look.

Part two takes us into the electronics side of things, and gets into changing the tone rather than the looks. Part Two...coming up.

Part Two is here: http://cpo1.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/stratocaster-makeover-part-two/