Les Paul Wiring Issue (Never needed the forums help more!)

[iandy4]

The problem is the behavior of the volume pots on a les paul style guitar.  The guitar has the standard les paul wiring.  the owner had the pickups replaced and he says that since then the volume controls behave differently when the pickup switch has the two humbuckers together in Parallel.  He likes to put both volumes at ten with the pickup selector switch in the middle and then roll off the bridge volume pot to about 7.  He says the pickups used to blend much smoother before the pickups were switched out.  I hear what he means and there is an abrupt change in tone as you hear the one pick pretty much switch to the other at about 7 on either volume control (in each case with the other pot set at 10).

I went over the wiring over and over and it's done correctly in the Les Paul style.  I am not sure if the issue I have is common to all les pauls or not because I don't recall it coming up when I used to own one however I didn't use the guitar like he is using it.

If someone can suggest where to go from here I'd be delighted because if I can fix this guitar the owner will give me an amazing deal on a 77 twin reverb that I've been looking for for months.  I figured it may be caused by non matching pickup values which I'm going to test now.  Any help is GREATLY APPRECIATED! I NEED THIS AMP!

[iandy4]

Ok, so I just desoldered the leads of both pickups (on the hot side) to make sure they weren't in parallel with anything else and tested the resistance of each.  The one reads 14k-17k ohms (Bridge, Seymour Duncan, 4 lead, white and green connected black and ground to volume pot, red to volume lug) and the other only 140 ohms (Neck, PAF, white and red connected, green and ground to other volume pot, black to volume lug)!

They both sounded ok volume and tone wise but the PAF can't possibly be wired right if it's measuring such low resistance right?  and the Seymour is unusually high?  Any Ideas? I don't think I have to disconnect the ground wires for each pick up as well as the hot wire to test their resistance right?

[PRR]

> I don't think I have to disconnect the ground

I wouldn't think so...... but 15K versus 140 is SO wrong that you probably need to dig deep to find out what's really going on.

Good Luck.

[iandy4]

Well luckily I figured it out and got the amp the same day. It turned out to be the PAF pickup wired all wrong.  I just checked the resistances until I had a good idea what lead was for what coil.  Fixing gear is starting to pay off! $450 for a 77 Twin Reverb is a steal!

[Quackzed]

 
yes it is!

[Tony Forestiere]

Glad you got it figured out.

$450 for a 77 Twin Reverb is a steal!

I played one back in around '80. Be ready for a very LOUD, CLEAN amp!