Help me out with some parts . . .

[HarlowTheFish]

Hey all,
So I got a Mustang a little while ago and now I have a problem: it's too damn comfortable and I want another one!

Since I've been looking for both Jazzmaster and something P90-y for a while now, I figured I'd get a Mustang body routed for a 25.5" neck and a JM trem, and put either a set of P90s or a set of JM pickups in it. I'm a bit conflicted on this, because while the idea of JM pickups sounds nice, I also know that in purely practical terms, odds are a P90 set would work a lot better for what I play and the kind of sounds I enjoy. It's either a set of the Fralin Noiseless JM pickups or a set of Dimarzio Fantom P90s. The Dimarzios are cheaper, which is nice, and I know the Fralins are gonna have a bit more of a P90 character than a traditional JM set, but noiseless is pretty much a must for me. So that's item #1 - school me on pickups please.

The second thing is parts - specifically the bridge and trem unit. I've been sort of assuming that I'd go with an AmPro Mustang bridge (the newer 9.5" radius 52mm spacing one) and a matching AmPro JM/Jag tremolo, with the screw-in arm. It's a bit of a pricey setup, especially considering Allparts has a trem with a lock for like $40 and it seems decently well-received. I'm willing to pay a bit extra to make sure the bridge spacing works well with the pickups and the neck, because with my Vintera Mustang the 56mm bridge isn't great and I'm putting a Marr 52mm bridge on it pretty soon. What's the recommended bridge/trem combo? I don't wanna shell out for a Mastery because it's hella overpriced and I actually really like the feel of the Mustang bridge under the hand, but I also don't wanna cheap out and get something crummy that'll need a ton of mods to work properly and won't need to be replaced imminently - looking for a setup that works well without futzing and will stay solid.

The third and probably easiest thing is wiring - I'm gonna go with a 3-way blade switch and a modified G&L-style PTB system, with a master 1M volume with a treble bleed, 1M tone, and 1M bass rolloff. The idea is that I can dial back treble, bass, or output individually in a way that won't mess too much with the others (probably using a greasebucket tone circuit for this reason). I'm still a bit unsure about tapers, mostly: I mostly roll off volume to dial back a dirty channel or to kill my signal, so I'm not super concerned about swells; and for the treble and bass controls I'm unsure overall - G&L's diagram says to use a reverse-log 1M pot for the bass and a 500k log for the tone, but I'm not really super sure what to go with as far as values/taper for the pots & caps. My thinking is 1M will brighten the whole thing up, and since on my Mustang I'm always at 50% on the tone, I could do something similar with this and get a bit more flexibility between rolling up/down the treble or bass as needed.

Any thoughts or help are much appreciated!

[bodhi]

The third and probably easiest thing is wiring - I'm gonna go with a 3-way blade switch and a modified G&L-style PTB system, with a master 1M volume with a treble bleed, 1M tone, and 1M bass rolloff. The idea is that I can dial back treble, bass, or output individually in a way that won't mess too much with the others (probably using a greasebucket tone circuit for this reason). I'm still a bit unsure about tapers, mostly: I mostly roll off volume to dial back a dirty channel or to kill my signal, so I'm not super concerned about swells; and for the treble and bass controls I'm unsure overall - G&L's diagram says to use a reverse-log 1M pot for the bass and a 500k log for the tone, but I'm not really super sure what to go with as far as values/taper for the pots & caps. My thinking is 1M will brighten the whole thing up, and since on my Mustang I'm always at 50% on the tone, I could do something similar with this and get a bit more flexibility between rolling up/down the treble or bass as needed.

Re: wiring, do this after you've got the pickups bought and installed, and get a few of the typical pots, resistors and capacitors to test out, since it's relatively cheap compared to the rest but might have some of the largest impact on feel if nothing else.

If you want to get a bit scientific about the thing, there's an excel sheet at https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/threa ... calculator that'll allow you to simulate wirings and values to see how these might impact frequency response. However, while that's informative, you probably need to make decisions by ear, so it might be worthwhile to allow yourself a setup where you can toggle between values of a specific component to see what seems to work with your pickups and amps.

Reverse-log (C1M) pot for the bass is required for it to "turn up" in the same direction as the other pots, and if you check the frequency sheet you might notice that there's quite a bit of difference between 1 Meg and 500k. With the logarithmic taper, a 500k rev-log pot doesn't have as much usable range IMO.

Adding multiple different wiring tweaks to a single circuit might not work together necessarily, but who knows. Approach it with curiosity, try stuff out for a while and be ready to back away from pre-concieved notions

Personally my default starting point would be the default PTB wiring, with logarithmic pots for both volume and tone, but with a treble bleed on the volume that'll adjust the curve a bit. Adjust to taste, even that might be a bit much for certain genres if playing live...

[Lost In Autumn]

1 meg pots and p90s are magical

[HarlowTheFish]

Re: wiring, do this after you've got the pickups bought and installed, and get a few of the typical pots, resistors and capacitors to test out, since it's relatively cheap compared to the rest but might have some of the largest impact on feel if nothing else.

That's the plan(ish), I wanna get 500k/1M for the volume and tone to see which works better, plus the 1M for bass (I've found that the PTB works pretty here on my Legacy).

If you want to get a bit scientific about the thing, there's an excel sheet at https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/threa ... calculator that'll allow you to simulate wirings and values to see how these might impact frequency response. However, while that's informative, you probably need to make decisions by ear, so it might be worthwhile to allow yourself a setup where you can toggle between values of a specific component to see what seems to work with your pickups and amps.

I tried pulling this up but I don't have Excel proper and both GDocs and Libreoffice are butchering it for me. The general idea as far as frequency response is that I want the T of the PTB to roll off the top end and stop at the mids, and the B to roll down the bass and stop at the mids, so when both are rolled completely up I have a nice big full-range kinda sound and when they're both all the way down I have a more reedy kinda mid-focused sound. I'm thinking probably a 0.015uf (is uf the right unit here? same decimal place as a standard modern Fender 0.022 cap) cap for the treble to not mess with the mids too much, and I'm curious what the equivalent would be for the bass control to get a similar result.

Reverse-log (C1M) pot for the bass is required for it to "turn up" in the same direction as the other pots, and if you check the frequency sheet you might notice that there's quite a bit of difference between 1 Meg and 500k. With the logarithmic taper, a 500k rev-log pot doesn't have as much usable range IMO.

Would linear for both B and T work okay? I don't have enough experience with linear vs. log vs. vintage vs. "custom" (whatever that's supposed to mean) taper pots. Reverse-log doesn't seem too hard to find so if that's what's gonna work best then nbd.

Adding multiple different wiring tweaks to a single circuit might not work together necessarily, but who knows. Approach it with curiosity, try stuff out for a while and be ready to back away from pre-concieved notions

That's the plan! I don't wanna mess with too much stuff, just adjust the values to not have half the travel of a pot be useless to me. I'm probably gonna ditch the greasebucket idea, to be honest, because having heard a few comparisons and doing a bit more reading-up it doesn't seem that useful for what I want. I've never really worked with electronics much, so as far as preconceived notions it's just "don't stick a <250K in there or it's gonna be basically useless" because I've replaced a set of actives with passives before.

Personally my default starting point would be the default PTB wiring, with logarithmic pots for both volume and tone, but with a treble bleed on the volume that'll adjust the curve a bit. Adjust to taste, even that might be a bit much for certain genres if playing live...

Treble bleed on the volume is pretty much a given - the only guitars I actually use the volume on regularly are the ones that have one. Any recommendations for which kind/value to use as a starting point? I'm happy to experiment from there, I just don't really know where to start with this stuff.

[bodhi]

If you want to get a bit scientific about the thing, there's an excel sheet at https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/threa ... calculator that'll allow you to simulate wirings and values to see how these might impact frequency response. However, while that's informative, you probably need to make decisions by ear, so it might be worthwhile to allow yourself a setup where you can toggle between values of a specific component to see what seems to work with your pickups and amps.

I tried pulling this up but I don't have Excel proper and both GDocs and Libreoffice are butchering it for me. The general idea as far as frequency response is that I want the T of the PTB to roll off the top end and stop at the mids, and the B to roll down the bass and stop at the mids, so when both are rolled completely up I have a nice big full-range kinda sound and when they're both all the way down I have a more reedy kinda mid-focused sound. I'm thinking probably a 0.015uf (is uf the right unit here? same decimal place as a standard modern Fender 0.022 cap) cap for the treble to not mess with the mids too much, and I'm curious what the equivalent would be for the bass control to get a similar result.

Works for me with LibreOffice, assuming I allow macros in the settings, otherwise the calculations don't update properly... In any case, it's not hugely useful without a line in the sand to compare to, as the visuals by themselves aren't really all that easy to understand. But assuming you have something, you can see what values to change that will have an obvious change, and maybe eliminate some things that don't seem to have an impact beforehand.

Reverse-log (C1M) pot for the bass is required for it to "turn up" in the same direction as the other pots, and if you check the frequency sheet you might notice that there's quite a bit of difference between 1 Meg and 500k. With the logarithmic taper, a 500k rev-log pot doesn't have as much usable range IMO.

Would linear for both B and T work okay? I don't have enough experience with linear vs. log vs. vintage vs. "custom" (whatever that's supposed to mean) taper pots. Reverse-log doesn't seem too hard to find so if that's what's gonna work best then nbd.

Not sure what "vintage" and "custom" might mean in this context... Pots come in three general categories, logarithmic (A), linear (B) and reverse-logarithmic (C). There might be different variations on the exact tapers, but not really too important most of the time. The categories ie. type of pot matters a lot, since even if the resistance is the same, the tapers affect how much you need to turn it to get to a specfic value. Meaning you can have preferences, or then there are values that aren't worth messing with.

Regarding Treble, linear might work as well as logarithmic, but depends on what you're used to and if you'd like to have treble sweep swells. For Bass, linear will work, but might not be particularly usable. Reverse-log is the thing, and large value as mentioned.

Treble bleed on the volume is pretty much a given - the only guitars I actually use the volume on regularly are the ones that have one. Any recommendations for which kind/value to use as a starting point? I'm happy to experiment from there, I just don't really know where to start with this stuff.

Start somewhere, adjust from there. You can find some overview articles online, and there might be specific recommendations for types of pickups etc. See f.e.

https://drkevguitar.com/2016/11/24/treb ... d-roundup/

https://axegrinderz-guitar-tone-product ... ble-bleeds

[timtam]

If it's a choice between the $40 Allparts lock trem and the Classic Player's I'd lean towards the CP ...
https://darrenriley.com/store/fender-cl ... 076232049/