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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jul 22, 2018 17:47:30 GMT -7
A couple of years ago I went to a local GC (I know, but the manager of this one is cool) to waste some time, and I wanted to check out a couple of amps. So I grabbed a nice looking SG off the wall. It was a cherry 2016 model, a Standard I guess...nicely bound fingerboard, good fretwork, nitro finish. I ended up buying the guitar on a no interest deal by opening a GC credit card. Paid it off in a year. Anyway, it has the 498T and 490R pickups in it and it sounded pretty good. I can't buy something new without investigating the innards, so I pulled the cavity plate off and sure enough, it was a circuit board model. Plug in pickups with mini-Molex connectors. The pots were at least full size and measured out at close to 500K ohms, but it is the only guitar I've ever had with one of those boards. I bought a pre wired harness from Toneman Guitar, with nice NOS paper in oil caps. I installed it and was immediately rewarded with a much more punchy tone. I didn't really expect such a big change, but it was really worth the time and money to do. Just thought I'd toss that out there if anyone else is on the fence about changing the PC board Gibsons to the traditional hard wired method, DO IT. You won't regret it. It was a cool instrument to play before but I wasn't really in love with it. I love the guitar now.
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Post by lowbudget on Jul 22, 2018 17:55:58 GMT -7
It's hard to believe that Henry ever thought that kind of crap was a good idea.
What was he thinking?
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jul 22, 2018 18:06:32 GMT -7
Plus the pickup wires are so dang tiny, 24 or 26 gauge, that when I cut off the mini Molex plug it was a bear to work with them. You have to be very very quick with your iron or the insulation melts away in a flash and you start losing wire length. I just couldn't see leaving those tiny little connectors carrying my guitar signal. Too small and they've got a tiny contact surface. Not cool, Henry.
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Post by mrdannyboy on Jul 22, 2018 18:22:07 GMT -7
Ive actually A/B'd a les paul studio, one with the PCB and one with orange drops, I found little to no difference. Thats just my story, have the PCB in all my guitars and I have zero problem with it. Just my .02 cents.
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Post by nmz on Jul 22, 2018 20:08:03 GMT -7
Replaced mine in SG. DO IT! POS picked up static off my pants all the time.
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Post by digs57 on Jul 23, 2018 13:07:48 GMT -7
I know..when I opened up little les paul studio I received...what the he*l...that what I was getting too...snap crackle pop!...back to sweetwater it went...
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Post by LT on Jul 24, 2018 5:36:20 GMT -7
I changed my LP Std a few years ago when I replaced the PU's with Fralin True PAF's. I'm not sure how much of the improvement in tone is directly due to the wiring harness, but the guitar sounds much better to me now.
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Post by mickey on Jul 25, 2018 0:31:52 GMT -7
Interesting post Dave, my '10 SG Classic has that pcb and I've often considered changing it for a new harness, though the guitar sounds pretty good as it is and compares well to my more expensive guitars.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jul 27, 2018 5:57:14 GMT -7
I thought my SG sounded good too, and I was going to just leave it as it was but the rhythm volume control started getting funky. Going back to the old style 50's wiring and good pots fixed all that, and it does sound better. The 50's wiring makes the guitar keep its brightness better as you turn down the volume controls. The tone controls are wired differently to the volumes. The way that the control wiring loads the pickups in terms of resistance, capacitance, and inductance really changes the way that they sound.
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