Rev's MK-2 Build

[Rev]

Heres a random question Ill throw out ahead of time in case anyone knows the answer. In my current project I'm usually playing my Mockingbird, because its got this unique "balanced" tone - not brassy or all high-end. If anything it tends to be a little weak on the high notes - which works well here, because Im mainly thickening up the bass player's work and keeping things solid while the other guy gets to do most of the piercing wheedly noises. I have only one other guitar that sounds similar (its an ESP LP type). I rarely roll down the tone control, and the pickups and wood types are quite different between the two guitars. Should I perhaps be looking into a specific capacitor to get that sound?

[wazkelly]

Why not. They are relatively cheap enough, about five bucks here in Oz for Sprague Orange drops and suggest getting one each of 0.022 & 0.047 and experiment to figure out which one sounds best as from memory this kit comes with a neck single coil and bridge humbucker?

For me, tone control is usually flat out all the time but since starting these builds I have played around with them a bit but they still mostly sit on 10 but there if needed.

Cheers, Waz

[Simon Barden]

From looking at a bunch of theoretical technical calculations on the effect of tone capacitors, the capacitor value actually makes no audible difference with the tone control fully up. It's like a very small fraction of a dB difference in the resonance peak of the pickup, and you're never going to hear it. And that was with a 250k pot, so with 300k or 500k pots, there will be even less difference. The capacitor value (supposedly) only makes a difference how it sounds once you start to wind the pot down. (Note that these were theoretical response plots based on circuit assumptions, and not real-world test values, but quite a few people have posted them and stated their accuracy).

What will make a bigger and much more noticeable difference to the tone is the tone and/or volume pot value, with lower values being duller and higher values being brighter. There's nothing to say that the two pot values have to be the same.

So before you install the pots, you could get a bunch of resistors from 100 ohms up to 1 meg ohm, plus some different value caps (get some cheap ones for the test bit) wire in a bit of 'chocolate block' screw electrical connector instead of the volume and tone pots, (bring the wiring out through the scratchplate holes first), wire everything as if the pots are in the fully on position and see what combination you like. Start with the common 500k and 250k values, but don't be afraid to try other values as well. You can change the tone cap values here as well, but you should find that the cap value makes far less difference than the tone pot resistor.

[Rev]

Hmm. The Mockingbird has a Varitone switch... if I remember correctly, it runs the pickup output thru its selected capacitor either at the front or tail end of the circuit (I cant recall which). Theres definitely a position on that switch I favor (yes, Ive tested them all with demos - to the ear at the time they dont seem different, but theres a large difference when listening to recordings). I should look inside the Bird and note all the components and their order. Maybe I can mimic it in a stripped down fashion on this kit's wiring.

[Rev]

At least thatd help me track down the source of the "blended" sound it has.

[Rev]

What are the resistors for, Simon? For use with the block? Never wired any on a guitar circuit.

[Simon Barden]

To simulate the resistance of the potentiometers to ground. The volume pot turned to 10 is the equivalent of a 250k or 500k resistor connected to ground connected to the pickup output. Likewise the tone pot turned to 10 is the equivalent of a 250k or 500k resistor in series with a capacitor (normally between 0.22uF and 0.47uF) connected to the pickup output and wired to ground.

So you can simulate the effect on the sound of changing the pots and capacitors with all the controls turned up using very cheap components. You can also do it fairly quickly so you don't forget what the previous combination sounded like (though making a recording can help as well).

The block's only there so you can change the resistors and caps with a screwdriver and not a soldering iron.

[Rev]

Oh, I got ya. Thought Id been missing something all this time when I rewired things, ha!

[Rev]

Did a quick mockup so I could make sure everything was still fitting together (I've taped off the neck pocket for a lot of the coats, but I wanted at least one coat to get in there just for preservation).

[Rev]

Heh, after catching myself plotting out a different design on same kit, I guess I now see how some of you are doing multiple kits at once.