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Hey all, two more questions about guitar electronics.

First, what is the Jimmy Page wiring and what are the options it allows you to do?

And second, has anyone experimented with the Black Ice capacitor from Stew-Mac? Its supposed to be a control for passive guitars that controls overdrive using one of the tone knobs, seems pretty interesting.

from : localhost/www.stewmac.com/shop/Electron...overdrive.html

Thanks!

Jimmy Page wiring allows all standard Les Paul positions, Each PU split individually (so you can have the neck split and the bridge full), switch the phase between the pickups (only useful when both are activated) and combine the two pickups in series rather than in parallel, I think it's somewhere around 21 options. If you have 4 pots I recommend this mod highly. It's difficult to solder and a ***** to diagnose problems, so make sure you have the correct schematic, a good solder iron and good thin electronics solder, and some patience. I have a Custom/59 combo wired this way and I really like it. I'm going to try an Alnico 5 and 8 in the bridge, but I basically like where this guitar is, very versatile.

Some of the positions are less useful than others, I feel the splits are far more useful than say the phase, but with all the pots pulled up (both PUs split, in series and out of phase) it's a great tone with distortion for leads.

The black ice is basically a diode (or two) that clips the passice guitar's signal. I've never heard it, but I don't think it sounds very good. Although, some people love ratty fuzz pedals and stuff like The Rat, so maybe you'll like it.

Hi,

I too have been looking at Page wiring ( maybe you came across some of my many inquiries ). One word of caution if you try to do it yourself, is that a few people on the forum at the Gibson site said that the official diagram there was incorrect.

PFDarkside, I was thinking of a JB in the bridge with my AIIP in the neck, but your custom sounds like a good idea. What would your guess about versatility etc. be vs a JB in the bridge ?

I asked about the Black Ice thing here a few years ago. I think that the concensus was that it sucked pretty badly. Terrible tone, etc.

I recently had the jimmy paige mod put into my agile. i wiredeverything and there was serious ground noise. i brought it somewhere and they figured i had the jack reversed. so they gave me a setup too for a good price.

i like it a lot, but im having trouble figuiring out which combination of push n pull result inwhat... ive got a diagram i have to keep hanydy. i highly recommendit!


Originally Posted by MVIHi,

I too have been looking at Page wiring ( maybe you came across some of my many inquiries ). One word of caution if you try to do it yourself, is that a few people on the forum at the Gibson site said that the official diagram there was incorrect.

PFDarkside, I was thinking of a JB in the bridge with my AIIP in the neck, but your custom sounds like a good idea. What would your guess about versatility etc. be vs a JB in the bridge ?

According to Robert (the guru of JP wiring) the schematic on the Gibson site is the only one that's actually right. It's the one I used and mine works.

Ignoring the JP wiring, the JB is a different animal than the Custom. The JB is very crunchy, very 80's hard rock and metal, and the Custom actually seems more quot;modernquot; to me, a full bass, enough low mids to quot;chunkquot;, the lack of high mids that made the JB horrible on cleans and an average treble. What was cool about my JB/A2P combo was that it was two completely different animals in one. Smooth, vintage neck and the JB in the bridge. The middle position was never quite there for me, I like an almost acoustic sound mixed with a tele sound, that's good for strumming. The Custom's lack of high mids gives this to me in my current setup.

I think the JP wiring will be as useful if you like the JB. It's great for what it does do, and if that's what you are looking for I think it will be great. The JP wiring works a little better with a slightly hotter bridge pickup, so either could be really cool.

Would it be possible to wire a Strat with the Jimmy Page wiring? Maybe a custom strat with 4 knobs and an HSH pickup combo? A Strato-paul...hmmm....Les Strat? Interesting...yet strange...ideas.

I don't know that I'm a guru but I've wired the JP thing a few times and I usually get it right.

The JP schematic on the main Gibson site isn't wrong but it is missing a connection. I have an older copy that I got from Gibson that is complete. The missing quot;wirequot; runs from the coil link of the neck pickup to the neck volume pot push pull. The tais are there but they lost a line or too somehow.

The variations I have seen online are sometimes pretty squirrelly and there have been in the past JP schematics that just dont work properly. Usually the variations attempt to do one of 2 things, sometimes both. The first variation attempts to work around the 3 way switch. Switchcraft switches have 4 main terminals and each side of the switch has its own in and out. There is a different style 3 way that has the output for both sides of the switch on one terminal, which causes issues with the series/parallel push pull.

The other variation usually has a different series/parallel wiring for the neck tone pot push pull unrelated to the 3 way. It changes the phase of some of the positions and sometime just doesn't work.

I like the Gibson wiring just because it works. It takes a little extra wiring but it's worth it.