Les Paul upgrades -- what's your experience?

[Eskimo_Joe]

I feel I may have stepped into yet another "slippery slope" type world -- I guess there's a million things you can do to supposedly upgrade your Les Paul.

Pickups
Tailpieces
the "mapleflame" mod (replacing the ABR1 screws with longer ones -- drilling into body if necessary
pots
caps
modern wiring vs. vintage wiring
Jimmy Page mod
Etc
Etc

For you Les Paul folks out there, what have you done to your LP and how has it worked? Did it help?

I should preface this by saying, I love my LP as is, but like many of you, if there's "better", I may be tempted to try it if it is not too expensive.

Also, I've already bought new caps and an RS Wiring kit so please don't talk me out of that.

[mfolet]

Aluminum tailpiece and if you don't use them disconnect the tone pots.

[Eskimo_Joe]

Aluminum tailpiece and if you don't use them disconnect the tone pots.

What effect does the aluminum tailpiece have?

[BJF]

Hi,

On my favourite Les Paul I have a badass tailpiece, one P-90 in neck position, that's because I generally prefer that in neck and in bridge a medium output humbucker but one that does not squeal but that can be used to play on feedback. I have tried many wirings but settled for wiring the tonecontrol so that it can dial in a 'speeding' capacitor when on '10' and remove it at '8' and slightly different values of that capacitor for each pick up while the same value for treble cut capacitor- actually it's the type of wiring that was used in several early Gibson amps.
This makes use of volumecontrol and tonecontrol a lot more flexible and so I'd set volume control for neck pick up maybe at 2-4 and control the treble with the tonecontrol and use bridge pick up on full sometimes cutting a little treble with tonecontrol at maybe '6' while only occasionally.

I have also installed a push pull pot to connect a capacitor of 5nF in series with the hot of the neck pick up so a slightly outof phase sound can be had when combining the pick ups and a slight bass loss be had when just using the neck pick up- I thought it was a cool idea but then later rarely used it.

Uh and what's the Jimi Page mod?

Have fun
BJ

[Tonefishin]

BJ, That sounds like a sweet pickup combination and killer wiring mod! Did you find an LP routed that way, or customize, or is your P-90 one of the humbucker sized ones?

Hi,

On my favourite Les Paul I have a badass tailpiece, one P-90 in neck position, that's because I generally prefer that in neck and in bridge a medium output humbucker but one that does not squeal but that can be used to play on feedback. I have tried many wirings but settled for wiring the tonecontrol so that it can dial in a 'speeding' capacitor when on '10' and remove it at '8' and slightly different values of that capacitor for each pick up while the same value for treble cut capacitor- actually it's the type of wiring that was used in several early Gibson amps.
This makes use of volumecontrol and tonecontrol a lot more flexible and so I'd set volume control for neck pick up maybe at 2-4 and control the treble with the tonecontrol and use bridge pick up on full sometimes cutting a little treble with tonecontrol at maybe '6' while only occasionally.

I have also installed a push pull pot to connect a capacitor of 5nF in series with the hot of the neck pick up so a slightly outof phase sound can be had when combining the pick ups and a slight bass loss be had when just using the neck pick up- I thought it was a cool idea but then later rarely used it.

Uh and what's the Jimi Page mod?

Have fun
BJ

[mfolet]

Aluminum tailpiece and if you don't use them disconnect the tone pots.

What effect does the aluminum tailpiece have?

It has a nice string vibration transfer to the body and it takes away some of the weight to the guitar.

[Eskimo_Joe]

Aluminum tailpiece and if you don't use them disconnect the tone pots.

What effect does the aluminum tailpiece have?

It has a nice string vibration transfer to the body and it takes away some of the weight to the guitar.

Cool, thanks for the explanation! I appreciate it!

[Eskimo_Joe]

Hi,

On my favourite Les Paul I have a badass tailpiece, one P-90 in neck position, that's because I generally prefer that in neck and in bridge a medium output humbucker but one that does not squeal but that can be used to play on feedback. I have tried many wirings but settled for wiring the tonecontrol so that it can dial in a 'speeding' capacitor when on '10' and remove it at '8' and slightly different values of that capacitor for each pick up while the same value for treble cut capacitor- actually it's the type of wiring that was used in several early Gibson amps.
This makes use of volumecontrol and tonecontrol a lot more flexible and so I'd set volume control for neck pick up maybe at 2-4 and control the treble with the tonecontrol and use bridge pick up on full sometimes cutting a little treble with tonecontrol at maybe '6' while only occasionally.

I have also installed a push pull pot to connect a capacitor of 5nF in series with the hot of the neck pick up so a slightly outof phase sound can be had when combining the pick ups and a slight bass loss be had when just using the neck pick up- I thought it was a cool idea but then later rarely used it.

Uh and what's the Jimi Page mod?

Have fun
BJ

WOW! That sounds cool. Thanks for sharing BJ!

As far as the Jimmy page mod, I do not have a lot of details, but I remember reading somewhere on the Les Paul Forum that he had his wiring modded to allow one of his humbuckers to act as a single coil if he engaged it as such (maybe with a push/pull).

[BJF]

Hi,

Ah I had to fill out the sides and make the hole longer for the P-90.
I really wanted this P-90 in the neck and selected that from 38 P-90's- it's a 1959 P-90
It took two days to do the work with plastic wood- I had only primitive tools and then painting it black and rubbing the finish to get the pale black I wanted.

I'll see if I can fin a way of posting the wiring -it's quite simple and can be done to any Les Paul without any wood work-the wiring has worked many sounds from that guitar that I'd otherwise would have had a spare to use to get, but then I'd really like to use just one guitar at shows and got at least I used to be swift in changing strings and getting in tune- something I also used when working as a guitartech on liveshows..ahum I haven't done that in a while.

Have fun
BJ

BJ, That sounds like a sweet pickup combination and killer wiring mod! Did you find an LP routed that way, or customize, or is your P-90 one of the humbucker sized ones?

Hi,

On my favourite Les Paul I have a badass tailpiece, one P-90 in neck position, that's because I generally prefer that in neck and in bridge a medium output humbucker but one that does not squeal but that can be used to play on feedback. I have tried many wirings but settled for wiring the tonecontrol so that it can dial in a 'speeding' capacitor when on '10' and remove it at '8' and slightly different values of that capacitor for each pick up while the same value for treble cut capacitor- actually it's the type of wiring that was used in several early Gibson amps.
This makes use of volumecontrol and tonecontrol a lot more flexible and so I'd set volume control for neck pick up maybe at 2-4 and control the treble with the tonecontrol and use bridge pick up on full sometimes cutting a little treble with tonecontrol at maybe '6' while only occasionally.

I have also installed a push pull pot to connect a capacitor of 5nF in series with the hot of the neck pick up so a slightly outof phase sound can be had when combining the pick ups and a slight bass loss be had when just using the neck pick up- I thought it was a cool idea but then later rarely used it.

Uh and what's the Jimi Page mod?

Have fun
BJ

[BJF]

Hi,

-------


WOW! That sounds cool. Thanks for sharing BJ!

As far as the Jimmy page mod, I do not have a lot of details, but I remember reading somewhere on the Les Paul Forum that he had his wiring modded to allow one of his humbuckers to act as a single coil if he engaged it as such (maybe with a push/pull).

Hi,

Oh if it can be of use go ahead-it's just something I have had use for.

Aha, well I have had such connections on some guitars and also on the TV Special when I had a P100 in bridge and I brought out a wire from the connection of the both coils and wired that to the tonepot so that it'd cut the coils so only the top coil would work when tone was on '10' and then both coils on the rest of the dial. This worked since the tonecontrol had it's viper connected to ground.
By this I could use P-100 setting for intros to get silence or close to silence anyway and dial it so I could use P-90 setting for the meatier parts.......
Right well I have had this connection also on a Melody Maker with two humbuckers and might have modified somebodies Les Paul too at some point.

I had no idea doing this would be called a Jimi Page mod- it's just plain to see when you know a little about pick ups.
Actually at one point I was into making pick ups but the winding machines were so expensive and also getting the right materials and the right fingerprint of the magnets.......nah, I made just a couple of pick ups and forgot about it, woohoo these days there are so many nice pick ups.

Have fun
BJ