Recently a customer asked me to translate something for him, and it turned out that it was a German description of an electric guitar that I had almost forgotten about: the Peavey T-60.
I must admit that I really like Peavey guitars, and the T-60 is no exception. The guitar and its wiring are so unique that I wanted to show you the circuit and how you can adopt it for your own guitar.
The Peavey T-60 was built from 1978 to 1988 and is a dual-humbucker guitar with a design that was ahead of its time—kind of "Burns meets Stratocaster." It's a polarizing shape: You will either love it or hate it. Personally, I think it's a spacey design and together with the arrow-shaped headstock, the silver retro control knobs with the inlayed "P" for Peavey, the toaster-style pickup covers, and the countless screws holding the pickguard, it looks super cool ... but judge yourself.
The guitar was loaded with two epoxy-potted four-conductor "full-range" humbuckers with a blade design, aka Super Ferrite pickups. They were covered with Rick-style toaster design pickup covers, had standard PAF dimensions, and were designed to sound good as humbuckers and single-coils when in split mode. The T-60 guitar also had a brother: the T-40 bass, with the same wiring but slightly different capacitor values for the treble-bleed network on the volume pots (more on this later).
I haven't seen such a circuit on any other guitar. You can adopt this wiring to any HH guitar as long as both humbuckers have four-conductor wiring and a Les Paul/SG/335-style control layout.
The wiring was really ahead of its time back in 1978, sporting out-of-phase and coil-split options, but in a very special way. Basically, the original wiring is using a 3-way pickup selector switch (in this case a DPDT on-on-on type) for a Les Paul-style switching with both pickups together in parallel in the middle position. Next there is a DPDT on-on switch, serving as an out-of-phase switch for the bridge pickup, and a 250k volume and tone control for each pickup, á la Les Paul but independent from the other pickup's circuit. The volume controls both have a "cap only" treble-bleed network to keep the high-end alive when rolling down the volume. The value for the T-60 guitar was 1000 pF and for the T-40 bass 0.01 uF. Besides this, the wirings are absolutely the same. The tone controls have a 0.033 uF tone cap for the bridge and a 0.022 uF tone cap for the neck pickup.
So far, this is nothing special in the year 2020, but let's take a closer look at the tone controls. Here we find a mixture of a tone blend and a coil blend feature. On one side a capacitor is blended to ground (tone blend) while on the other side one of the coils is blended to ground (coil blend). Since the out-of-phase switch is still in front of the coil blend feature, you can choose, depending on the position of the switch, which of the two coils is blended to ground. Here is the description of the circuit in Peavey's own words from the original manual of the guitar: "Our unique tone circuitry enables dual- or single-coil operation of each pickup independently through the rotation of the pickup tone controls. Rotating the tone controls fully clockwise (position #10) achieves the single-coil mode and produces a greater degree of "highs" from the instrument. Rotating the tone controls counterclockwise to approximately the #7 position brings the second coil into operation for full-range, humbucking tonalities. Further counterclockwise rotation of the tone controls (from position #7 to 0) yield conventional tone-contouring action."
As always, the out-of-phase switch only works when both pickups are engaged. Different from a Les Paul standard wiring, both volume and tone controls are working independent from the other pickup's circuit, so in the middle position with both pickups engaged in parallel, the volume and tone controls only affect their corresponding pickup and not both, interacting with each other.
All this together creates a very flexible circuit with a lot of tonal shades you can dial in. I haven't seen such a circuit on any other guitar. You can adopt this wiring to any HH guitar as long as both humbuckers have four-conductor wiring and a Les Paul/SG/335-style control layout. Before you dive in, here are some points to consider with this wiring and possible mods of this circuit:
- Peavey chooses a "cap only" 1000 pF treble-bleed network for both volume controls. This will work with the original 250k controls and the special humbuckers, but may be adjusted when using other humbuckers and/or values for the controls. For more info about this, please have a look at my March 2019 Mod Garage column "Deep Diving into Treble-Bleed Networks."
- The original wiring uses a 0.033 uF tone cap for the bridge and a 0.022 uF tone cap for the neck pickup. Naturally you can mod these values to your personal likings, e.g. 0.022 uF for the bridge and 0.01 uF for the neck pickup, which will work fine with any vintage PAF-style humbucker. Or maybe you want to convert to a warmth control, which is described in November 2018's "Mod Garage: Swap that Tone Knob for a Warmth Control."
- The Rick-style toaster covers on the original humbuckers may look cool, but will dampen the high-end noticeably because, unlike the similar-looking covers from Gretsch, the metal between the two slits is uninterrupted. Removing the cover will bring back all the high-end. Alternatively, you can cut a piece out of this metal part, so it looks similar to the Gretsch covers, to solve the problem and retain the cool retro appearance. (Remember: breaking eddy currents!) For more info about this, read "Mod Garage: How to Shield Humbucking Pickup Covers" from January 2019. For the original pickups, Peavey recommends a pickup height adjustment of 1/32" (0.8 mm) for the bridge and 3/64" (1.2 mm) for the neck pickup. If you want to use the original pickups, chances are good that you'll find a used pair on eBay or maybe Peavey still has them in stock. The part number for the pickups is 95201100 (one model for bridge and neck).
Fig. 2
courtesy of singlecoil.com
- Peavey used 250k audio pots for the volume and 250k tone pots offering a special "S" curved taper. I'm pretty sure this was owed to the S-taper and the availability of such pots, because usually you would expect a 500k pot here together with humbuckers. Not the best choice, so it's worth using all 500k audio pots or a combination of 250k audio pots for the volume (60:40 audio taper in preference) and 500k for the tone controls, preferably with an S-taper. Standard audio-tapered pots will also work with this wiring, but the crossover point between tone blend and coil blend is more defined with an S-curved taper. Such S-tapered pots are available from Bourns or CTS. Maybe the original 250k pot is still available from Peavey as a spare part: the part number of this pot is 75065005.
Now let's look at the wiring. For visual clarity, we'll start with the volume pot's treble-bleed network shown in Fig 1. It's a single 1000 pF cap soldered between input and output of both volume pots. Silver mica caps do a very great job here.
The entire complex wiring of the Peavey T-60 is shown in Fig. 2. The wiring is shown with the original Peavey pickup color chart and needs to be transferred when using different pickups. You can use a lot of different online resources for this, such as the one on guitarelectronics.com.
That's it. Next month we'll continue with our relic'ing series (catch up now with part 1 and part 2) take care of the metal parts of the tuners. Until then, keep on modding!
[Updated 9/27/21]
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Duane Denison of the Jesus Lizard, EGC Chessie in hands, coaxing some nasty tones from his Hiwatt.
The Jesus Lizard’s sixth album, Blue, served as the band’s final statement from the frontlines of noisy rock for the next 26 years. By the time of their dissolution in 1999, they’d earned a reputation for extreme performances chock full of hard-hitting, machine-like grooves delivered by bassist David Wm. Sims and, at their conclusion, drummer Mac McNeilly, at times aided and at other times punctured by the frontline of guitarist Duane Denison’s incisive, dissonant riffing, and presided over by the cantankerous howl of vocalist David Yow. In the years since, performative, thrilling bands such as Pissed Jeans, METZ, and Idles have built upon the Lizard’s musical foundation.
Denison has kept himself plenty busy over the last couple decades, forming the avant-rock supergroup Tomahawk—with vocalist Mike Patton, bassist Trevor Dunn (both from Mr. Bungle), and drummer John Stanier of Helmet—and alongside various other projects including Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers and Hank Williams III. The Jesus Lizard eventually reunited, but until now have only celebrated their catalog, never releasing new jams.
The Jesus Lizard, from left: bassist David Wm. Sims, singer David Yow, drummer Mac McNeilly, and guitarist Duane Denison.
Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Back in 2018, Denison, hanging in a hotel room with Yow, played a riff on his unplugged electric guitar that caught the singer’s ear. That song, called “West Side,” will remain unreleased for now, but Denison explains: “He said, ‘Wow, that’s really good. What is that?’ And I said, ‘It’s just some new thing. Why don’t we do an album?’” From those unassuming beginnings, the Jesus Lizard’s creative juices started flowing.
So, how does a band—especially one who so indelibly captured the ineffable energy of live rock performance—prepare to get a new record together 26 years after their last? Back in their earlier days, the members all lived together in a band house, collectively tending to the creative fire when inspiration struck. All these years later, they reside in different cities, so their process requires sending files back and forth and only meeting up for occasional demo sessions over the course of “three or four years.”
“When the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.” —Duane Denison
the Jesus Lizard "Alexis Feels Sick"
Distance creates an obstacle to striking while the proverbial iron is hot, but Denison has a method to keep things energized: “Practice loud.” The guitarist professes the importance of practice, in general, and especially with a metronome. “We keep very detailed records of what the beats per minute of these songs are,” he explains. “To me, the way to do it is to run it to a Bluetooth speaker and crank it, and then crank your amp. I play a little at home, but when the time comes to get more in performance mode, I have a practice space. I go there by myself and crank it up. I turn that amp up and turn the metronome up and play loud.”
It’s a proven solution. On Rack—recorded at Patrick Carney’s Audio Eagle studio with producer Paul Allen—the band sound as vigorous as ever, proving they’ve not only remained in step with their younger selves, but they may have surpassed it with faders cranked. “Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style,” explains Allen. “The conviction in his playing that he is known for from his recordings in the ’80s and ’90s is still 100-percent intact and still driving full throttle today.”
“I try to be really, really precise,” he says. “I think we all do when it comes to the basic tracks, especially the rhythm parts. The band has always been this machine-like thing.” Together, they build a tension with Yow’s careening voice. “The vocals tend to be all over the place—in and out of tune, in and out of time,” he points out. “You’ve got this very free thing moving around in the foreground, and then you’ve got this very precise, detailed band playing behind it. That’s why it works.”
Before Rack, the Jesus Lizard hadn’t released a new record since 1998’s Blue.
Denison’s guitar also serves as the foreground foil to Yow’s unhinged raving, as on “Alexis Feels Sick,” where they form a demented harmony, or on the midnight creep of “What If,” where his vibrato-laden melodies bolster the singer’s unsettled, maniacal display. As precise as his riffs might be, his playing doesn’t stay strictly on the grid. On the slow, skulking “Armistice Day,” his percussive chording goes off the rails, giving way to a solo that slices that groove like a chef’s knife through warm butter as he reorganizes rock ’n’ roll histrionics into his own cut-up vocabulary.
“During recording sessions, his first solo takes are usually what we decide to keep,” explains Allen. “Listen to Duane’s guitar solos on Jack White’s ‘Morning, Noon, and Night,’ Tomahawk’s ‘Fatback,’ and ‘Grind’ off Rack. There’s a common ‘contained chaos’ thread among them that sounds like a harmonic Rubik’s cube that could only be solved by Duane.”
“Duane’s approach, both as a guitarist and writer, has an angular and menacing fingerprint that is his own unique style.” —Rack producer Paul Allen
To encapsulate just the right amount of intensity, “I don’t over practice everything,” the guitarist says. Instead, once he’s created a part, “I set it aside and don’t wear it out.” On Rack, it’s obvious not a single kilowatt of musical energy was lost in the rehearsal process.
Denison issues his noisy masterclass with assertive, overdriven tones supporting his dissonant voicings like barbed wire on top of an electric fence. The occasional application of slapback delay adds a threatening aura to his exacting riffage. His tones were just as carefully crafted as the parts he plays, and he relied mostly on his signature Electrical Guitar Company Chessie for the sessions, though a Fender Uptown Strat also appears, as well as a Taylor T5Z, which he chose for its “cleaner, hyper-articulated sound” on “Swan the Dog.” Though he’s been spotted at recent Jesus Lizard shows with a brand-new Powers Electric—he points out he played a demo model and says, “I just couldn’t let go of it,” so he ordered his own—that wasn’t until tracking was complete.
Duane Denison's Gear
Denison wields his Powers Electric at the Blue Room in Nashville last June.
Photo by Doug Coombe
Guitars
- Electrical Guitar Company Chessie
- Fender Uptown Strat
- Taylor T5Z
- Gibson ES-135
- Powers Electric
Amps
- Hiwatt Little J
- Hiwatt 2x12 cab with Fane F75 speakers
- Fender Super-Sonic combo
- Early ’60s Fender Bassman
- Marshall 1987X Plexi Reissue
- Victory Super Sheriff head
- Blackstar HT Stage 60—2 combos in stereo with Celestion Neo Creamback speakers and Mullard tubes
Effects
- Line 6 Helix
- Mantic Flex Pro
- TC Electronic G-Force
- Menatone Red Snapper
Strings and Picks
- Stringjoy Orbiters .0105 and .011 sets
- Dunlop celluloid white medium
- Sun Studios yellow picks
He ran through various amps—Marshalls, a Fender Bassman, two Fender Super-Sonic combos, and a Hiwatt Little J—at Audio Eagle. Live, if he’s not on backline gear, you’ll catch him mostly using 60-watt Blackstar HT Stage 60s loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks. And while some boxes were stomped, he got most of his effects from a Line 6 Helix. “All of those sounds [in the Helix] are modeled on analog sounds, and you can tweak them endlessly,” he explains. “It’s just so practical and easy.”
The tools have only changed slightly since the band’s earlier days, when he favored Travis Beans and Hiwatts. Though he’s started to prefer higher gain sounds, Allen points out that “his guitar sound has always had teeth with a slightly bright sheen, and still does.”
“Honestly, I don’t think my tone has changed much over the past 30-something years,” Denison says. “I tend to favor a brighter, sharper sound with articulation. Someone sent me a video I had never seen of myself playing in the ’80s. I had a band called Cargo Cult in Austin, Texas. What struck me about it is it didn’t sound terribly different than what I sound like right now as far as the guitar sound and the approach. I don’t know what that tells you—I’m consistent?”
YouTube It
The Jesus Lizard take off at Nashville’s Blue Room this past June with “Hide & Seek” from Rack.
Phat Machine
The Phat Machine
The Phat Machine is designed to deliver the tone and responsiveness of a vintage germanium fuzz with improved temperature stability with no weird powering issues. Loaded with both a germanium and a silicon transistor, the Phat Machine offers the warmth and cleanup of a germanium fuzz but with the bite of a silicon pedal. It utilizes classic Volume and Fuzz control knobs, as well as a four-position Thickness control to dial-in any guitar and amp combo. Also included is a Bias trim pot and a Kill switch that allows battery lovers to shut off the battery without pulling the input cord.
Silk Worm Deluxe Overdrive
The Silk Worm Deluxe -- along with its standard Volume/Gain/Tone controls -- has a Bottom trim pot to dial in "just the right amount of thud with no mud at all: it’s felt more than heard." It also offers a Studio/Stage diode switch that allows you to select three levels of compression.
Both pedals offer the following features:
- 9-volt operation via standard DC external supply or internal battery compartment
- True bypass switching with LED indicator
- Pedalboard-friendly top mount jacks
- Rugged, tour-ready construction and super durable powder coated finish
- Made in the USA
Static Effectors’ Street Series pedals carry a street price of $149 each. They are available at select retailers and can also be purchased directly from the Static Effectors online store at www.staticeffectors.com.
Galloup’s Plek tech Adam Winarski preps a Yamaha acoustic for the machine.
Presently, many certified guitar-repair specialists possess the expertise required to deliver an instrument that both sounds and plays wonderfully. The standards set by manufacturers and distributors have significantly risen, safeguarded by rigorous quality protocols to guarantee the best possible acoustic experience for customers. Additionally, lutherie training has raised the bar for critical processes, and one of the most tricky is fretwork.
Traditional fretwork once involved manual labor, with technicians utilizing sandbags or similar supports to steady the neck as they straightened it with a truss rod during the filing process. A notable advancement in this field came in the mid 1970s when Don Teeter, an author and repair expert, imposed a new method: fixing the guitar body to the bench and using blocks to maintain the neck in a playing position. This refinement was one of many in the continued quest to produce superior instruments by standardized methods.
An example of the Plek’s readings from an acoustic guitar.
Photo courtesy of Galloup Guitars
In the late 1970s, another pivotal innovation was introduced by Dan Erlewine. He created an advanced fret jig with a specialized body-holding system and neck supports, adding another layer of precision to the repair process. During my collaboration with Dan in 1985, we developed a rotating neck jig that counterbalanced the forces of gravity, keeping the instrument in its playing orientation while adjusting the neck supports. This step represented a significant leap in establishing control and standardization of fretwork procedures in our industry. By 1986, our approach had evolved into a freestanding workstation coupled with a sophisticated hold-down mechanism and enhanced neck supports, culminating in increased accuracy, efficiency, and consistency. Over the decades, the Erlewine/Galloup rotating neck jig has become a benchmark in numerous shops, enhancing fretwork performance.
"This step represented a significant leap in establishing control and standardization of fretwork procedures in our industry."
By the 1990s, automated and computerized technologies permeated the guitar manufacturing and repair sectors. Initially applied by import companies in the mass production of guitars, the technology, although expediting processes, did not immediately achieve high execution standards. However, the tech dramatically improved over time, with computer-driven systems eventually transforming the industry. Contemporary automated production utilizing such advancements meets exceedingly high standards of precision. Some bespoke guitar manufacturers, such as Steve Andersen, were pioneers in adopting these methods, but it was companies like Taylor that established them in the modern era.
Inevitably, the progression of technology extended beyond the mere production of parts. Around 1995, German engineer Gerd Anke envisioned the integration of computer-assisted technology into enhancing instrument playability, giving rise to Plek technology, which uses computers to precisely measure and analyze the various components of a guitar, like neck relief, fret height, nut and bridge specs, and more. Nashville guitar-repair tech Joe Glaser was among the first to recognize the machine’s value, followed by San Francisco luthier Gary Brawer. When Heritage Guitar Inc. invested in a Plek machine, the guitar industry could no longer disregard the significance of this innovation.
“The machine’s scanning data confirmed that there was one nature of an ideal fret plane, done by hand or machine, and unsurprisingly, it conformed exactly to what physics predicts, not personal mojo.”
In the spring of 2022, Galloup Guitars obtained its first Plek machine. Promptly, our technician Adam Winarski paved the way for the Plek’s integration in our shop. Now, it’s a rarity for an instrument to leave our shop without having undergone Plek analysis and machining. Impressed by the results of our integration, we created “Intro to Plek” as a course for all students enrolled at the Galloup School of Lutherie, offering our students a practical introduction to this technology. We furthered this educational initiative with a comprehensive one-week intensive “Plek Certification Training Course” for both students and the public. This advanced Plek course serves those seeking to boost their knowledge base and employability in this high-precision field.
Plek is rapidly becoming an industry standard for major manufacturers and smaller shops alike. However, this does not mean that those without access to this technology cannot execute proficient fretwork. Personally, I continue to use my Erlewine/Galloup neck jig—not only out of nostalgia, but also because it remains an excellent method for delivering accurate and reliable guitars. Still, it’s undeniable that the process of fretting, fret dressing, and analytics of fretted instruments has undergone significant transformation, resulting in better sounding—and playing—guitars. And ultimately, that’s what it’s all about.