Alex Lifeson Les Paul Wiring Help

[deadringer]

So I got myself a Lifeson Les Paul. I didn't care for the wiring so I rewired it using the diagram below:

Guitar wiring diagram with 2 humbuckers, 3-way toggle switch, two volumes and one tone control, plus one push/pull switch to select humbucker or single coil mode and one push/pull switch to combine the neck and bridge pickups in series or parallel. In single coil mode, the North coil of the neck pickup and the South coil of the bridge pickup are selected. Note: to access the series mode, the pickup selector switch must be in the neck position. (It currently doesn't work "exactly" like this. Read on.)

Now there is a third volume pot that is a push/pull that is controlling the piezo. That's one is fine, no problems there.

I added a 4th push/pull pot for the master tone. I wired it with the capacitor to the middle lug, capacitor grounded, with a wire running to the bottom terminal of the push/pull switch, connected to the same lug the capacitor is going to. The series link (green/white) is soldered to the middle terminal of the push/pull switch. The output of the switch is soldered to the far right pot terminal, as well as a green wire from the piezo.

So my current setup is working like this:

Piezo volume pot - pulled up activates the piezo, down is no piezo. - Good no issues!
Neck volume pot - pulled up is splitting the coil and turning on the screw coil. - I believe this is right? I tap on the screw coil and it is the only coil on.
Bridge volume pot - pulled up and only when the switch is on the neck pickup, is activating series wiring of all pickups simultaneously. - Good no issues!
Master tone pot - pulled up is giving me a single coil sound, but both coils on the bridge are still active. Could I be getting a coil tap instead of a coil split? - No idea if this is right. My guess is no. I am however getting a coil split sort of sound. But I can tap on both the screw coil and slug coil and they are both on. When not activated the bridge pickup is normal.

All volumes and tone controls are working just fine. I'm just confused on what is happening with the tone pot coil tap and the neck volume coil split. Anyone care to explain? FYI the pickups are Gibson color coding.

Neck volume pot:

Bridge volume pot:

Master tone pot:

 

[carydad]

Wow. A lot to look at in there
I did a large rewire myself, but very different. I suck at directions, and I don't quite get what you are doing with the master tone(I just dedicate the tone to the bridge pup).

First thing I'd do it break out the meter and see what you are really hearing(if you havent). It can seem like both coils are on, when they arent.

The other thing that is confusing me is the terminology. Coil split and tap get a little wierd. Some single coil pickups can be tapped early, before the normal output at the end of the coil. Unless you stuck an extra wire somewhere, that aint happening. So you are splitting the humbucker(or want to) into two coils. Which one is live is up to you. I usually like to use one side of one pup and the other from the other pup-so in the middle you get noise cancelling. How? You change which wire is going to the hot lug. The regular hot wire(full humbuggy), or the green/white combo. What that does, instead of grounding out your pup in the middle, it plugs the hot into the middle. Your ground is already placed at the end of the second coil, so it's just a matter of where you stick the hot in.

So-you are probably okay, if it sounds split, it probably is. Tapping on the pup isnt the best indicator.

You sent me a PM, but I am replying here-I am no expert, and others can chime in and correct me where i am wrong.

More food for thought-my lifeson is wired like this:
Bridge Vol-just that(I dont split it)
Neck Vol--pull to split neck pup(ground after 1st coil, used usually in balance with the piezo)
PVol-Volume for acoustics, pull-isnt doing anything at the moment
Tone-just bridge tone, connected to the hot wire of the bridge pup at the blower switch
SW1-acoustic/mag-aco/mag
SW2-blower(bridge pup w/tone, takes all selectors and volumes out of the mix)

SW2 is for when I want to bounce from a specific set up, say acoustic mixed with the split neck pup with the volumes for both at a certain balanced point-to a lead mode-and I want to get right back to that balanced "pretty" setting. I need to do this a bunch live and with my aging eyes it makes it easy to go from extremes in a simple flick of a switch. Yeah, I actually stuck holes in my LP for two little black mini-switches.

 

[deadringer]

Well what I was after essentially was easy, it just got complicated along the way.

Ideally I would like to do this with the push/pulls:

Neck volume: pulled up splits the neck pickup.
Bridge volume: pulled up splits the bridge pickup.
Master tone: pulled up does series wiring of both pickups.
Piezo volume: pulled up activates the piezo.

I think I'm going to have to pull it all and rework it.

 

[deadringer]

Okay so I drew myself a diagram with illustrator (I used to do design) and here is how it is currently wired up. The only issues that I see that I'm having are with the coil splits.

Are they wired up correctly? It seems that the series mod is working however.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[carydad]

I think the big unknown for me here-the pie tone. Since it has it's own tone in the back-albiet not easy to mess with on the fly, I dont mess with that. I usually EQ to the neck bucker, eq the piezo so it also sounds good there, and then dedicate the tone to the bridge to either tame it, or womanize it. But all that rambling aside, it looks fine.

MT looks fine. Easy peasy.

NV-umm. It looks off. If the intent is to ground out the green wire-it should be over 1 point so it does that. Right now, it looks like you are connecting the tap wire to the hot which would not have the desired affect. Not really sure you need the red start wire connected to that switch at all, since you dont seem to want to modify that connection. You could make it a parallel wiring option by connecting the top two connections, connecting the white to the right-middle point and leaving the green there. THEN I would see the need to have the hot living on that switch. I'm probably confusing both of us now.

BV-probably not what you wanted either. Pulling it will connect the neck out to hot, IN PARALLEL with the bridge start. That's like crossing the streams in ghostbusters. Both sides of the neck would be connected to HOT. Seems wrong to me, but I aint no expert
To make them really in series, running through all 4 coils as one large pup, you would need to change that. You want to modify where the bridge start is as well as the neck end. So if you stick the bridge red on the middle right switch connection, run a wire from the top right connection to the hot lug. So in down-neck end goes to ground, check. Bridge start goes to hot, check. Normal operation. Now pull it up, we need a bridge wire across the bottom 2 switch connections to bridge the neck end to the bridge start. One 4 coil pup. At least that makes sense to me before any coffee. I need to go take care of that....

 

[carydad]

Okay, so half a cup of joe down, I find myself wondering what else changes when you hit series mode.

MT-Pulling this would make your 4 coil monster bucker a 3 coil. Interesting, and not in a bad way.

NV-Pulling this ends the conversation. Again, assuming that pulling it grounds the green wire and doesnt connected it to hot as shown. That would take your 4 coil down to one coil. At least I think it would ground everything down the line. I dont do series-and now I know why-it is giving me a headache. If it works as above, then it would toggle you from single coil to four coils, which again-interesting and not in a bad way.

 

[deadringer]

hmm... let me re-read through your post and see if I can draw a diagram up with what you're saying. I'm a visual learner!

Okay is this what you're saying?

 

[carydad]

Post a nekkid diagram and I'll draw it and post it
The real brain fry is what happens when you start flippin that 3 way around. If I didnt have practice tonight-and a spare LP to thrash-I'd wire it up for grins. I just put 4 wire sheps back in lp lifeson(had a bonamassa set in there for demo). But I like to keep that one ready to rock-gig saturday.

Know what we need-a guitar wiring java app. Way outta my league, but I'd even pay for that app.

 

[deadringer]

Alright here's a blank one. I left the toggle switch wires on there. I can delete them if you want me to. Thanks again man!

 

[carydad]

Geez, I've slept since then...
Here is one try. Simple split on NV and MT.
BV-normal, black from neck goes to ground, red from bridge goes to hot.
-pulled, black from neck goes to red from bridge. I forgot to draw it, but black is tied to ground. So the pickup volume is controlled from the neck. One big fat pickup, 4 coils.
Toggle impact when 4 coil mode:
Toggle NOT on neck-nothing connected to the bridge volume. deadsville
NV pull-overrides the last 3 coils. single coil neck results
MT pull-whacks the last coil on the bridge pup-3 coil operation.

Another option:
Having the coil splits on the volume for each pup makes more sense to me-control the volume and split the pup from that pups volume control-logical or something. But I added a twist here. It grounds the OTHER coil in the bridge so if both NV and BV are pulled, you get some hum cancellation. Assuming your pickups repel screw to screw.
So to re-hash
NV kills slug coil
BV also kills slug coil
MT-same thing, different place- connects the end of 1 pup to the start of the other. Crap. I missed another connection. The top two poles on the BV switch need to be connected together (normal operation).

Any number of ways to twist this around to what you want it to do. Before you wire yourself into nutsville, if possible-figure out what you will really use. Playing live, the more options-the more potential for messup. Especially when you create dead zone potential in switch positions. That scares me.

Personally not a fan of split coils. I like parallel better. Still uses the whole pickup, but with both coils running side by side.

 

[deadringer]

carydad you are my hero!

The last diagram is how I originally wanted to do it with the coil splits being on the volume controls, but when I first rewired it, I wired both coil splits to the bridge volume for a master coil split. I didn't like that so I added another push/pull to the master tone and just ran the bridge split over to it thinking it would work and be less work.

I'm going to try the last diagram you posted and see how it turns out tonight. Thanks again man!!!

Personally not a fan of split coils. I like parallel better. Still uses the whole pickup, but with both coils running side by side.

Don't when you put the humbucker in parallel you are getting less output than with split coil? Also parallel ends up being hum canceling correct?

 

[carydad]

Parallel is still both coils, so it wouldnt be quieter than one coil, certainly less than 2 in series, but the dropoff in volume is less of a shocker. Another option-which can be cool, is you make fat pickups-if you think of the two humbuckers as four single coils, there is a bunch of things you can do, like wire the screw and slug of the two pickups together as a really fat humbucker. yet another sound. I never stuck with that one either, mainly because the way I wired it, the neck position of the switch ended up sounding more trebly and that backwards feel wasnt worth the effort to get used to. Had I given it a chance and maybe reworked the wiring-who knows.

I dont mean to tell you the splits are evil either. I have a jackson that I love it on. Depends on the guitar, the pickups, what controls you have and what you want to get out of it.

 

[deadringer]

MT- The top two poles on the BV switch need to be connected together (normal operation).

Finally got around to rewiring it like this diagram you posted and everything works. I did miss the MT bridge between those top two connectors first time though. Soldered it up and everything works just fine! Thanks again man!

 

[rsrd]

This thread is giving me a headache

Okay, I want to start with just a simple pickup swap. How hard was it Scott? Did you get a 4 way conductor?

 

[deadringer]

Haha, the PUP swap is easy. Yes you need 4 conductor wired pickups. Let me know if you need any help!

On yeah, don't follow the wiring diagrams posted here unless you want to rewire it to function differently. If you just want to change the pickups, follow your original wiring.

 

[rsrd]

Haha, the PUP swap is easy. Yes you need 4 conductor wired pickups. Let me know if you need any help!

On yeah, don't follow the wiring diagrams posted here unless you want to rewire it to function differently. If you just want to change the pickups, follow your original wiring.

Right on brother. I'll keep you posted I need a few days with it stock before I decide what route to take it.

 

[Mindvirus]

Hey I just got a one of these but the the life o sound output jack does nothing. I replaced the battery and nothing trioed all the knobs in every which way nothing. opened up the back and there is a blue wire with blank shrink at the end not attached to anything and there is also a red wire the same. Maybe nothing but thought I'd mention it. Any clue or help as to what the problem may be. You guys seem pretty savy with the wiring so thought I'd try here first
Thanks

 

[deadringer]

From what I understand the Life-o-Sound jack isn't going to give you any sound when you're just plugged into it. It essentially is the Piezo sound by itself. You really need two cables running into it with either two different amps or another setup to utilize both jacks. You could probably use a Y cable as well.

Here's what Gibson's website says about it:

Output Jacks
The guitar features two high-quality ¼" Switchcraft output jacks labeled "Regular" and "Life-O-Sound." The "Regular" output jack carries a blend of magnetic and piezo signals when used as a regular mono jack with one guitar cable. Using two separate guitar cables, the "Life-O-Sound" output jack carries the piezo acoustic signal only, and the "Regular" output jack carries the magnetic pickup signal only, which allows routing to different electric and acoustic guitar amps, or independent channels of a mixing board or other PA or recording system.

Leave that Blue wire that's not connected to anything alone, it's supposed to be like that.

The blue wire with the white end is like the fat chick at the party...it just hangs out. Its not connected to anything. And other blue one goes to lower center pot tang seen in the pic. So says AL495

 

[strat714]

I have a Lifeson too and I would like to totally defeat the Life-O-sound piezo. Is there any easy way to undue this? I don't want to worry about the battery and the sound issues it can cause.

 

[deadringer]

I have a Lifeson too and I would like to totally defeat the Life-O-sound piezo. Is there any easy way to undue this? I don't want to worry about the battery and the sound issues it can cause.

The piezo is wired to its own push/pull pot so all you have to do is pull up on it with the original configuration and it will turn the piezo off. There's no sense in completely disabling it. You might want to use it one day.