Hello and welcome back to “Mod Garage." This month you find a PG first here—as far as I know, this mod was never published anywhere else before, so we'll step into new territory today: using the famous Gibson '50s wiring on a Stratocaster!
The Gibson '50s wiring is sometimes also called “Vintage Wiring" or even “'50s Vintage Wiring," but it all means the same: the way Gibson wired up their electric guitars in the late 1950s, including the “Burst" Les Paul guitars as well as the SGs and 335s. It has been a hot topic on the forums in recent years, and there have been many myths and stories about this wiring method. It was forgotten for a very long time, but today it seems to be more popular than ever.
 DISCLAIMER: Wiring diagram courtesy of Seymour Duncan Pickups and used by permission. Seymour Duncan and the stylized S are registered trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups, with which Premier Guitar magazine is not affiliated. |
Electronically, there's nothing too out of the ordinary about this wiring; it simply connects the tone pot to the output of the volume pot (middle lug) instead of the input. All the late-fifties Gibson guitars were wired this way, but you can do this with every guitar—and this month we'll do it with our Strats. So what's the big deal, you ask? The '50s wiring will have two major effects on your tone:
First, the overall tone gets stronger and more transparent. It's difficult to describe, but perhaps saying it's more “in your face" would be a good way to describe it. Second, the typical treble loss that occurs when rolling back the volume is much less, and both the volume and tone controls react more smoothly and more evenly, without the typical hot spots. As a side effect, it's easier to clean up an overdriven amp by simply rolling back the volume on your guitar a bit. As always this is a matter of choice, but it's definitely worth a try. It's easy to do, requires no cosmetic changes, and it's easy to switch back to the standard wiring. We'll talk about this wiring again when we switch over to Les Paul and Telecaster mods.
So, before we heat up the soldering iron, let's have a closer look at the tonal effect of the '50s wiring. I'm sure you've heard about the magical tone of the late-fifties Burst Les Paul guitars; we all know this tone from our old records. Part of the magic is the '50s wiring, which makes the tone very transparent and more “direct." The guitar responds much better this way. Without this wiring, it's difficult to get the same bloom, meaning the notes open up after they've “left" the guitar. It's always difficult to describe such tonal flavors, so I suggest you give it a try and to see for youself if you love it or not.
The other effect has to with a problem we all know from our passive volume controls—the idiosyncrasy inherent in passive single-coil pickup systems like the Stratocaster: when you turn down the volume (even just a bit), the high end or treble loss is disproportionate. In other words, a small cut in volume creates a far greater loss in your guitar's treble response. You can get rid of this problem by installing a so-called treble bleed network—a combination of a capacitor and a resistor in parallel or in series—on your volume pots, but maybe the '50s wiring will make this unnecessary for you. This wiring will greatly decrease the treble loss compared to the standard wiring.
Let's get started
If you haven't done it yet, printing out the standard Stratocaster wiring diagram and placing it on your workbench is always a good start. This makes it easier to see and understand the differences in the modded schematics. You can download the standard wiring scheme directly from the Seymour Duncan website.
As you can see, we're only swapping two wires, marked red and green, and cutting the jumper wire normally connecting the two stages of our 5-way pickup selector switch. Remember, there's a jumper wire running from lug “A" of stage 1 to lug “A" of stage 2 on the switch, connecting both stages. This allows each pickup signal to exit from the same lug and connect to the volume pot. We do not want it for this mod, so it's important to cut this connection.
That's it! I hope you have fun experimenting with this wiring method. I know some serious professional guitarists who use the '50s wiring method in all of their guitars, so it should be worth a try for everyone. Stay tuned for more Strat mods coming next month. Until then, keep on modding!
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 | Download Example 1 |
| Download Example 2 |
| Download Example 3 |
Cherry, Katalox and...Diaperwood...?
The guitar we got to review is an OM, which is a size and shape I love. The neck and back are made of sustainably grown cherry wood, while the fretboard and bridge are made from a recently discovered wood from Central America called katalox. Ranging from brown to dark purple, it’s very dense, and takes a high polish extremely well. Katalox is not hugely abundant, but I like it better than rosewood for a fretboard, so I’m hoping that it gets targeted for more cultivation. The fretboard width is 1.75", which makes this guitar a fingerstyle machine. The top is good old Sitka spruce, but with a twist. The supplier that Martin gets their tops from found a pulp mill that was grinding up Sitka spruce logs to a fine powder and making diapers from them. The supplier taught the company to identify the kind of grain that Martin wants for tops and made arrangements to rescue those logs, which Martin jokingly calls “diaperwood.” According to Dick Boak, Director of Artist and Limited Editions at Martin, it’s not Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) certified Sitka, but since they’re rescuing it from a fate worse than death, they’ve chosen to include it in their Sustainable Wood Series.
The look of this model is very clean and simple, with gold Gotoh tuners, and cellulose nitrate red tortoise binding and heel cap; the headstock is faced with tortoise with the Martin logo in raised gold. The black molded Martin case is nice and light, and I’m a fan of light. The plush interior is, appropriately enough, forest green.
That Martin Sound
The SWOMGT has the Martin sound, no doubt. There’s an edge to it, so you know this guitar is gonna cut through a mix without any trouble, but the bottom end is a lot less boomy than the typical Martin. It could simply be that this guitar is very new and needs some playing in, or it could be a nod to what seems to be a new convention in acoustic guitar construction— amp-friendly mid-to-high end with the lows quarantined to keep the feedback monsters at bay. I struggled a bit with it at first, finding it too easy to overplay to try to get more red meat out of the sound. I’ve had cherry guitars before that didn’t lack for bottom end, so I have to think it’s intentional. The one time I don’t have a spare pickup laying around… let me just say “argh” and move on.
It records great—as you can clearly hear on the new opening tag for our acoustic videos on premierguitar.com. The SWOMGT doesn’t lack for punch. Strummed, it’s a little cannon, ideal for DADGAD rhythm playing, and capo’d at the fifth fret it holds up extremely well with very little loss in volume or punchiness. But fingerstyle is what this beastie is meant for. I know that you can’t hear how comfortable this guitar is to play, or how nice it is to have that wide fretboard and string spacing, or how sweetly the guitar snuggles into your arms like it was meant to be there—but that’s the OM thing, and this baby’s got it.
The Final Mojo
Honestly, I think the Martin SWOMGT eats the lunch of even other Martins in this price range. Local retailers may need a little encouragement to start stocking them, but once they get into the hands of the players, they won’t need any more encouragement. If you’re looking at buying a guitar of this quality, why not buy one that makes the world a greener place? Your guitar dreams will be sweeter for it.
Buy if...
you're looking for a stage-friendly axe that'll cut through a mix like a katana.
Skip if...
you have to have big dreadnoughty boominess.
Rating...
Street $1399 - Martin & Company - mguitar.com |
Schneider was mentored by Jimmy D’Aquisto before apprenticing with lute maker Lawrence Brown, with a final stint in India learning to build sitars. The wrap-around end clasp terracing on these guitars was inspired by one of Schneider’s lutes.
The headstocks are chambered and resonate, providing a slight stereo or echo effect. The bridges are glued on, and the guitar with the tailpiece features a string-through bridge, a technique the Cincinnati-based builder has also used on flat tops. The bracing system was adopted from D’Aquisto, the Circle of Sound. There are four K&K transducer pickups mounted inside the guitar on the bridgeplate, a system Schneider feels is more natural sounding than bridge saddle-mounted transducers.
schneiderguitars.com
