Gibsons And Pcb In The Control Cavity Options

[VikingBlues]

Last year I got a Gibson SG Classic with P90 pickups. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

But after the "honeymoon" period I realised the sound needed tweaking. Not enough clarity and natural sustain for my liking. I have Tonerider Vintage Alnico 2 P90s in a PRS SE guitar and they sustain wonderfully well and have a crystal clarity when payed clean. Moving the pickups away from the strings and playing around with polepiece heights on the SG helped a bit, but not enough. Currently it is, for what I want to play, and to my ears, a long way behind the PRS SE in qualities.

So I started wondering about pickups, and then when researching those found that the Sg has 500k tone pots but 300k volume pots. Wondered about the effect of changing the volume pots to 500k and maybe something on the wiring.

So I opened up the control cavity and was surprised to find this:

Apparently since 2008 SGs have their pots and electrics mounted on a PCB.

There's a good picture at the top left of one of these boards in the link below to the "The Guitar Aging Studio".
Gibson PCBs - Guitar Aging Studio
I see that the summary that went with the picture said in particular (I've underlined the bit that caught my attention):-
The first thought was to replace the 300k volume pots with regular 500k ones, but viewing at the pcb, it was clear that the flat, narrow signal paths on the board are also a very significant reason for sound degradation, since they obviously kill higher frequencies, compared to a good quality, branched wire, which offers way more surface and supports higher frequencies on the signal.

I have seen a number of reports suggesting that ripping out the PCB (possibbly voiding the warranty?) and changing to convential wiring with 500k volume pots instead of 300k cleans up a lot of the muddiness and make sthe instrument totally different tonally. This benefit is mentioned in the text of the top middle picture of that link above.

It's a PCB that is not greatly user friendly for the player upgrading with aftermarket pups and electrics. "We are now working on making this system more friendly by allowing mods and aftermarket parts. I am hoping to release this in the next few months. It really isn't easy right now and we have to improve it". The words of Henry Juszkiewicz (no less) posted on a Gibson forum in July 2010. I have so far seen no signs or comments to sggest that this happened.

Though there is a small business in the Netherlands that makes replacement PCBs for Les Pauls (don't know if any use for an SG) which ARE user friendly ... non solder capacitor changes, and supplied with replacement moulex connectors for pickup changes, with the little bonus of a few switches for changing the PCB between 50s and modern wiring.

Generally many comments on Gibson and other forums point to the use of the PCB as being purely a way of saving labour in the guitar construction. I don't feel much inclined to investigate the PCB further - I don't have the technical knowledge to know what I'm looking at! Everything is soldered to the PCB and the pickup connectors are particular moulex connectors.

I'm feeling that any attempt I make to upgrade the guitar will, if I don't get the right result for me, leave me with a guitar without the stock Gibson parts that will reduce its resale value. With it's all mahogany neck and body and P90s it is a much more similarto my PRS SE than I thought at first (except for thehot pickups and the PCB) so I'm feeling inclined just to cut my losses at this point and sell it. It would be a fine guitar for someone that plays music with more overdrive and power - just a bad choice for me given my musical tastes.

Always good to get other peoples thoughts in these situations though - sometimes get to close to a problem like this and can't see the wood for the trees.

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