tone knob rewiring
- Thread starter klover
- Start date
klover
New member
hmm what does it do?
The blender might not be as useful because the RG's switching already gets a vast sweep of different sounds.
Threadstarter - you do know, removing the tone knob will bump up your guitar's presence a little bit?
Anyway, for an RG... hmmm... actually, if you don't use the tone knob... I don't know much you could do other than add either another volume pot, some extra switching or a passive mid-cut.
Maybe just this, a mini toggle to split position 1 & 5, your humbuckers.
Normal switching is:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge split + middle coil
3: Middle coil
4: Middle coil + neck split
5: Neck
So the mini toggle only affects position 1 & 5. The rest function as per normal.
Or if it can be done (might have to purchase a new switch), have the mini toggle switch out the middle coil. So you have this:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge split
3: Bridge split + Neck Split
4: Neck split
5: Neck
Threadstarter - you do know, removing the tone knob will bump up your guitar's presence a little bit?
Anyway, for an RG... hmmm... actually, if you don't use the tone knob... I don't know much you could do other than add either another volume pot, some extra switching or a passive mid-cut.
Maybe just this, a mini toggle to split position 1 & 5, your humbuckers.
Normal switching is:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge split + middle coil
3: Middle coil
4: Middle coil + neck split
5: Neck
So the mini toggle only affects position 1 & 5. The rest function as per normal.
Or if it can be done (might have to purchase a new switch), have the mini toggle switch out the middle coil. So you have this:
1: Bridge
2: Bridge split
3: Bridge split + Neck Split
4: Neck split
5: Neck
klover
New member
yeah shredcow i do know that removing the toneknob will add presence to my axe.. hmm what i'm intending to do is (and this seems to be unheard of =] ) is to remove the v7s1v8 HSH pickups on my guitar and stuff in my fralins HSH paf and vintage hot as replacements =] would your abovementioned rewiring examples work well with these pickups in your opinion? I'm a greenhorn when it comes to all the electronics of the guitar. thanks for the help so far
I don't know about how the Fralins take to splitting, in fact, you should email the company for advice, but dude...
Does your RG sound EXCEPTIONALLY good? Because... it is an RG and those guitars have a certain sound which might not bring out the sounds you except off the Fralins. For instance - the Edge trem on RGs, regardless of models, have a dull sound to them... if you replaced an Edge with a Floyd Rose with say, a brass block, you would notice the guitar suddenly comes to life, there's a restoration of treble. So, yeah, you get the picture? The RG has a certain sound so... that's probably why this thing you're doing seems to be unheard of...
But if you want to...
Email the company to ask abt the coil split tone of your humbuckers - especially how do they balance with the middle single coil then.
Wiring is really about experiencing it - you can conceptualise, plan, ponder but... only experience tells you whether you will really use it. There's quite a bit more you can do...
klover
New member
hmm yeah just experimenting around haha but any suggestions on what i can do to bring my guitar to life? can tell me more about changing the edge trem to other floyd rose trems or to a hardtail/other tails as to it's effects on changes in tone? tried searching all these online but very hard to get relevant hits.
Well, bringing your RG back to "life" would be... really subjective?
What I mentioned above are my observations AND opinions... so...
Maybe how we can start is by just sitting back and understanding the music you want to go for and then build on / modify the the RG from there - or, move to another guitar.
1st, lemme say that, guitars are finicky things...
You can have a designated-as-metal-heavy-metal-heaviest-metal guitar ... but turns out, it cops a jazzy tone very well.
But, then... who brings a BC Rich Warlock to a jazz gig? You might have jazz listeners scoffing and walking out on you.
Image matters... or does it not?
Or maybe, there's this bluesman who plays on an RG and... he gets some wicked tones out of it (btw, I haven't heard such a thing before... hehe) so... yeah, there's a surprise there.
Or maybe, you just like the sound of the RG lah. Regardless of the music you play, you just find yourself reaching for your RG all the time.
You can see, regardless of intended application, a guitar can sound good in "alien" applications... a guitar can have the preferred sound of the player.. so on so forth.
So with the possibility that your RG might be one of THE RGs or/and that you may be a guy who just loves the sound of an RG or your RG might not be the best guitar for splurging on...
What kind of music would you want to play on the RG?
Based on your music preferences, have you compared your RG to the staple, standard guitars for that particular genre? (E.g. Jazz uh, is hollowbody ah, rawk is uh, Les Paul ah, etc etc, whichever is your perceived standards.)
What I mentioned above are my observations AND opinions... so...
Maybe how we can start is by just sitting back and understanding the music you want to go for and then build on / modify the the RG from there - or, move to another guitar.
1st, lemme say that, guitars are finicky things...
You can have a designated-as-metal-heavy-metal-heaviest-metal guitar ... but turns out, it cops a jazzy tone very well.
But, then... who brings a BC Rich Warlock to a jazz gig? You might have jazz listeners scoffing and walking out on you.
Image matters... or does it not?
Or maybe, there's this bluesman who plays on an RG and... he gets some wicked tones out of it (btw, I haven't heard such a thing before... hehe) so... yeah, there's a surprise there.
Or maybe, you just like the sound of the RG lah. Regardless of the music you play, you just find yourself reaching for your RG all the time.
You can see, regardless of intended application, a guitar can sound good in "alien" applications... a guitar can have the preferred sound of the player.. so on so forth.
So with the possibility that your RG might be one of THE RGs or/and that you may be a guy who just loves the sound of an RG or your RG might not be the best guitar for splurging on...
What kind of music would you want to play on the RG?
Based on your music preferences, have you compared your RG to the staple, standard guitars for that particular genre? (E.g. Jazz uh, is hollowbody ah, rawk is uh, Les Paul ah, etc etc, whichever is your perceived standards.)
klover
New member
i play mostly rock and sometimes a tad of jazz.. not really metal stuff. well my main axe is my nosnuma strat built by malcolm which is great for everything especially cleans which i do use quite a bit and it will always be my reach-to axe.. but i'm just interested in seeing what tones i can coo out of my old rg550ex so that it's not wasted since it's really not worth it to sell as 2nd hand imo coz i got it 1st hand. i'm really not looking to get a metal head banging tone.. i dun fancy the v7s1v8 pups coz they're kinda muddy. more into something punchy, thick but clear and with good note definition and separation. the fralins are here to stay coz i already bought them haha any suggestions to what i can do to the body/hardware of the guitar to fit the aforementioned playing profile?
thor666
New member
My 2 cents:
I don't think the RG is designed for that traditional style applications, so putting in "vintagey" pickups may not likely yield good results.
If you know how to swap pickups, you only have to spend time and some solder work effort. Just do it, then see how it goes.
Don't bother with the tone knob yet. One at a time.
I don't think the RG is designed for that traditional style applications, so putting in "vintagey" pickups may not likely yield good results.
If you know how to swap pickups, you only have to spend time and some solder work effort. Just do it, then see how it goes.
Don't bother with the tone knob yet. One at a time.
Well, do what Thor says... go try it out and lets hear the results.
Rock and a touch of Jazz - the RG can do it. The jazz tones probably wouldn't buy jazzers over but I'm sure its passable especially with the lower output Fralins (they are PAF spec-ed right?)
I don't think you can do much to the RG... the thin neck, the slim neck joint, the body wood, the Edge trem - these are not easily replaced just like that except maybe the Edge but those are killer trems in terms of functionality.
Besides, to like start replacing one by one, would defeat the whole purpose of an RG for what its intended to be. Might as well get a new guitar.
Why don't you go over to the NosNuma and play the 2 guitars acoustically, side by side. Compare and contrast the difference you hear.
The Fralins should translate some of the acoustic characteristics... so yeah... you can get somewhat of an idea like that.
Scott Henderson played plenty of Jazz on an RG.
Unless you do whammy stuff, I'd block the trem up. That will improve the sustain and tone. I'd leave the tone control on there. Rolling the tone off for rhythm playing is handy especially if you want a trad jazz sound. I'd whack some really heavy strings on it too.
Unless you do whammy stuff, I'd block the trem up. That will improve the sustain and tone. I'd leave the tone control on there. Rolling the tone off for rhythm playing is handy especially if you want a trad jazz sound. I'd whack some really heavy strings on it too.
Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKhSzbhn_oo
More like Jazz Fusion or Jazz Rock?
I was assuming the threadstarter was talking about more "traditional" jazz tones - e.g. clean tones off a hollowbody...
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