Any Luthiers / Guitar Geeks?

[Leng]

I hope this would be simple to do, I can't figure it out myself.

I want to make one of the volume pots on my LP roll down to "quiet" instead of "dead silent".

Anyone have any idea how this would be possible? Google was quite unforgiving on the subject. Thank you in advance.

 

[dmt]

Couldnt you just use one of the two volume knobs to turn down one pickup and "blend out the loud one to the preset quiet one?

 

[Leng]

Thank you for your suggestion! Unfortunately, it has to be the bridge pickup the entire time because of its position and harmonics and tone etc. Like Adam Jones, who (almost) always uses the bridge pickup and the same settings and channels on his amps and only goes from distorted to clean by rolling down volume and/or picking more gently.

I want to be able to roll off to quiet very quickly, and not have the chance of accidentally rolling off to silence ('cause I'm not as good as AJ). I never use my neck pickup, so if I get this working, I'll remove the neck pickup and switch to that position for silence. (Or just set the neck pickup's volume to silent and switch to it.)

 

[carlsoti]

I think you could install some sort of resistor/capacitor combo to bypass the "dead" spot on the pot. I'm not sure how you would go about that, though. Check out sewatt.com, and ask a few of the guys over there. It's a Epi VJR website, and some of the geeks over there REALLY know their stuff.

 

[wastoid]

You can accomplish this if you just disconnect the ground from your volume pot. I found this out accidentally, before I realized that you had to ground the other terminal of the pot to make it completely silent.

I'm not sure how this works electrically or whether or not it's dangerous, but I had one of my guitars like this for a while. I assume that the other terminal just bleeds off as heat but most of the current still goes through the guitar. I'm sure someone who has more of a clue could elaborate.

 

[dmt]

Don't disconnect the ground. That won't work at all. You will get no signal or a very very poor signal and it will sound like crap. I just fixed a guitar like this the other day. The ground wire was disconnected on the output jack. It still put out a sgnal, but only when you touched the outer casing of the jack, and the signal quality was crap. I would say you should invest in a volume pedal with a trim knob so you can set what the minimum volume is. Make it easier that way too you can get some nice swells with a light delay. I have one such pedal I almost never use...

 

[Leng]

Thanks guys, I'll check out sewatt and see what's up.

DMT, that's another good idea and I do have a volume pedal I put a little piece of cardboard in so it doesn't ever go to silence. It accomplishes what I need to be done, but there are times when I need it to be done whilst turning another effect on / off and it would be so, so helpful to be able to use my hand for all things volume related during play.

 

[Ken j]

Switch two wires on each volume pot. Attach the hot lead from the pickup to the wiper arm (center connection) of the pot. Connect the output to the outer lug. This will pull the pickup to ground rather than the output when turned down. This way one pickup can be turned all the way down without affecting the other when both are selected.

 

[Leng]

Ken J, thank you for your response.

If I read correctly, you're telling me how to configure my guitar to go from full blast to quiet (instead of silent) with two pickups. I want all of my signal to come from one pickup, the bridge pickup. I'm going to remove the neck pickup, I never use it.

I want to change the wiring on the pot / change the pot itself so that it is never silent and 0 is very quiet instead of fully silent.

 

[swhiteh3]

I'd start by wiring a second (different impedance) pot in parallel with the existing one (temporarily - you can use alligator clips or something like that). Turn your main pot down all the way, and use this temporary pot to dial in where you want your "bottom" volume to be. Now remove that pot (without turning it) and check the impedance. Buy a resistor of that impedance and permantly wire it across the volume pot.

By the way, this will change the "curve" of your exisiting volume knob a decent amount...

Disclaimer: I'm not a guitar tech, but I do know a little about electronics.

 

[mikevirok]

I work on guitars for a living (an actual luthier building and repairing), and my advice for a "quiet, but not dead silent" volume knob would be as follows...

Open up the control cavity and look at the potentiometer that the pickup is running into. This pot should have 3 lugs with connections on each lug. If it is a modern-day Les Paul, the pot should be wired as follows (looking at the pot with the lugs facing south):

What you'll need to do it disconnect the last lug that is bent and soldered to the casing. If there are any connections attached to this lug/casing point (like another common ground wire) simply solder that to the pot casing.

I don't recommend modifications like this, but if that's what you wanted to achieve, then by all means go for it. Hope that helps!

 

[Rocky]

What a terrible mod to make.

one step forward, two steps back

 

[Leng]

Swhiteh and Mikevirok, thank you very much for your responses... I might give both of these a try on different guitars to see what kind of effect your methods might have. They both sound like exactly the answer to my question.

And woah, Rocky.... I'd be interested to know why this is a terrible mod if it:

-Helps me roll volume smoother
-Totally cancels the possibility of rolling off to silence in the middle of a show
-Improves my tone by eliminating the need for expensive foot-controlled vol. pots which suck tone hard
-My guitar can still go silent, just like any other guitar

Those are the pros. I'm going to go ahead with it unless you can tell me where your cons are that I'm failing to see right now (but I'm sure there are some, I just suck at guitar guts lol).

 

[Rocky]

a good quality volume pedal will not kill your tone.

If you have a volume pedal then a pedal like the 'loop' pedals offered by Radial will work to keep a nice clear tone.

I know what you are talking about doing, the rolling off thing isnt new, but have never heard of a guy that can't control the volume control before.

It is interesting but seems silly to me.

If it works for you, more power to you.

As noted above I would never suggest this sort of mod....I'd probably refuse to do it if requested of me.

 

[Ken j]

I work on guitars for a living (an actual luthier building and repairing), and my advice for a "quiet, but not dead silent" volume knob would be as follows...

Open up the control cavity and look at the potentiometer that the pickup is running into. This pot should have 3 lugs with connections on each lug. If it is a modern-day Les Paul, the pot should be wired as follows (looking at the pot with the lugs facing south):

What you'll need to do it disconnect the last lug that is bent and soldered to the casing. If there are any connections attached to this lug/casing point (like another common ground wire) simply solder that to the pot casing.

I don't recommend modifications like this, but if that's what you wanted to achieve, then by all means go for it. Hope that helps!

This will work fine (I have done this before) but it will make the pickup sound a little brighter since none of the highs will be able to bleed off.