NGD: Les Paul Custom, with built-in multi-band EQ and boost, no routing required

[TheGreatGreen]

Recently I picked up a guitar I’ve wanted since pretty much forever, but never got along with one enough to pull the trigger. Well I finally found a keeper.

I ended up taking it home around September of last year. It’s a 68 Reissue which means no weight relief, bigger neck, shallower headstock angle, etc. Love this thing. I've never really gotten along with Les Pauls I've played, no idea why. But I've always loved the idea of them, so I finally decided it was now or never and went between two stores around town and between them I played around ten different ebony LPC's. They all played well, but this one stood out head and shoulders over all the other ones in terms of sound, weight, acoustic resonance. However, while it plays great and sounds great acoustically, I wasn’t a huge fan of the pickups. Or the tuners. Or the knobs. BUT! After a bunch of messing around with pickups and electronics, and putting in locking tuners, I think it’s finally where it needs to be. It’s a monster now.

So what’s the deal with the EQ and boost stuff? Well you may have noticed a couple strange things going on with the knobs. Here's a closer look:

The stacked pots are these things:


EMG BTC

This is the EMG Bass Treble Control, a 2-band EQ, the top knob controls Treble by +-12 db, and the bottom knob controls Bass by +-12 db.

I found this thing when I was just messing around looking through the EMG site. It's marketed toward Bass guitars only, but I figured what the hell, maybe it will work for guitar too, might as well give it a shot, so I tried it. Turns out it sounds great! Also, there are two dip switches on the board that let you choose between 4 different Treble boost curves, pictured here. It gives you a pretty decent amount of flexibility. IMO the two lower frequency centered settings don't work all that great for guitar, at least this one, as they make it sound kinda like it's going through a half-cocked wah, but the other settings (switches set to "ON/OFF" and "OFF/OFF") are really good. It's basically either a peaking EQ control centered around 3.5 kHz, or a High Shelf that peaks around 10 kHz without messing with the mids. On this guitar, each pickup is directly wired into a BTC's input, so each pickup gets its own BTC. Top one for the bridge, bottom one for the neck.


Ok that leaves two more controls. The one closest to the bridge is a plain old Master Volume, and the pot below it is a...



EMG AB 220

This is the EMG Afterburner 220. It's boost that goes up to 20 db, with two detents along the sweep, one at 6 db and the other at 15 db.

For this guitar, 6 db feels like plenty, and that amount of boost happens relatively early in the sweep. This plus the detent in the pot at 6 db makes it easy to just kinda flip on and off almost like a switch.


Here's the basic wiring diagram:

It was pretty straight forward to put together all things considered. I did solder some wires to the existing pickup selector switch to use with the pickup/power hub, but aside from that it was all plug and play, and EMG makes switches that are also plug and play if you don't want to solder anything at all.


The pickups are an EMG 85 in the bridge and EMG 60 in the neck. I've always been an EMG 81 bridge guy and if I was just plugging straight into an amp, I'd still go 81, but with the on-board EQ, the 85 makes more sense. With an 81 in the bridge, cranking the BTC's Treble can kind of blow out the high end and make things sound kinda clicky and even a bit broken if you max it out. Boosting the highs on the BTC with an 85 in the bridge sounds a bit better overall, plenty of clarity with less harsh presency stuff going on. Also, the 85 has more low end content when you want it, but can be tamed in a pretty musical way with the BTC's bass control when you don't want it. Also, the 85 seems to have clearer mids overall. I'm hearing a lot more string detail with this pickup than I do with an 81. Plus, if you take an 85 and boost the BTC's treble on "high shelf" mode just a hair, and cut the bass just a little bit, you've pretty much got a dead ringer of an EMG 81 emulation anyway.


Wait, an EQ and a boost together sounds like it's pretty much just a simple built-in EQ pedal. Does it replace your favorite boost?
I wondered if this would be the case while I was installing this stuff, and the answer after playing around with it for a while is that, yeah it absolutely can act as an EQ boost pedal. It might not be the exact same as whatever your favorite one is, and it does sound a little bit more subtle than a full-on EQ boost pedal. But it does give you a ton of options and tweakability.

So if it doesn't replace your favorite EQ boost, why would you bother with it instead of just doing all this from a pedal?
It does a lot. These controls being on your guitar means you have a ton of extra flexibility you can access without bending down to the floor in the middle of what you're doing. The treble boost can be dialed subtle enough that just simulates a newer set of strings, or you can crank it and cut through a lot of distortion to give you a ton of extra clarity. Or you can dial down the lows a bit to clear some mud without messing with the mids and highs of your core sound. Or you can back the treble off a little and boost the bass just enough to smooth things out for solos without muddying up everything like what happens when you lower a Tone control. This setup gives you a ton of options.

So how much battery life do you get out of a 9v with all that shit in there?
I calculated it up and even with 5 separate components using juice, You still get around 500 hours out of a single battery. For comparison, that's more time than you'd get out of a pair of active Fishmans.


Blah blah that's a bunch of words I'm not reading like some nerd. Thread is useless without clips.
Don't worry I got you fam.

EMG 85 - flat, no boost:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting, plus 6 db boost:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting, plus bass cut half way, plus 6 db boost:

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Here are a couple of clips that show the BTC set to the High Shelf mode:

EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "high shelf" setting, plus 6 db boost:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "high shelf" setting, plus bass cut half way, plus 6 db boost:




A few other random clips:

Les Paul Custom with EMG 85, BTC into Wizard HR KT88:


Les Paul Custom with EMG 85, BTC into Mesa Mark IV dialed pretty dark:



BONUS INFO: The BTC pots themselves in addition to being EQ controls also act as buffers. That means you can use this exact control setup with passive pickups too if you wanted, because the BTC converts the signal from any signal it gets into an active signal you'd use 25k pots to control. If you did that, you'd probably want to add a 250k resistor right after each pickup to simulate the load of a pair of 500k passive pots to avoid geting blasted out by the strident nature of unloaded pickups, but you could absolutely do it.

 

[thegame]

Unless this gives me that 1000 db Eric Clapton sig. boost, not interested

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Here's the guitar straight into a Mesa Recto 90's Red channel, same amp settings in both clips.
I think these two clips do a pretty good job showing just how much difference these extra controls can make.


Les Paul EMG 85 into Recto 90's Red - flat


Les Paul EMG 85 into Recto 90's Red - BTC Treble and AB boost

 

[TheGreatGreen]

If you use passive pickups and want to incorporate this stuff into your guitar with a master volume and tone knob, this wiring will get you there.

Also, again, these components act as buffers, so you'd be able to use passive pickups for tone but get the benefit of an active output signal, reduced loss of high end over long cable distances, etc.

 

[glpg80]

What’s the difference you notice in the noise floor with the various features and settings? Some pedals might do the same thing but the real win or lose here might be the noise differences from a boost pedal versus a really early boost right in the guitar.

I really like the afterburner boost with the stock EMG tone. I think the EQ being on the guitar is a game changer between songs on the fly, but can be done anywhere post guitar as well once your signal is buffered - it’s a convenience trade IMO

Killer comparison and thanks for making so many recordings. I’d like to run the AB with passive blackouts to see what that offers sonically.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

What’s the difference you notice in the noise floor with the various features and settings? Some pedals might do the same thing but the real win or lose here might be the noise differences from a boost pedal versus a really early boost right in the guitar.

I really like the afterburner boost with the stock EMG tone. I think the EQ being on the guitar is a game changer between songs on the fly, but can be done anywhere post guitar as well once your signal is buffered - it’s a convenience trade IMO

Killer comparison and thanks for making so many recordings. I’d like to run the AB with passive blackouts to see what that offers sonically.

Thanks!

I don't think the BTC or AB are adding any additional noise to the guitar at all that's not already there. Yes, when I boost the BTC's Treble knob and/or turn up the AB while I've got a lot of gain dialed in, I do hear an increase in the noise floor from the pickups that is always there, but that's going to happen with any boost.

Also to note, in a few of the comparison clips, you can hear some buzzing at the end after the playing stops, but I discovered that was due to a faulty cable in the rig. Replacing it made the buzz go away.

Regarding passive pickups, before installing the EMG's, I actually did wire up the guitar with the passive wiring diagram above using a JB / Jazz combo. It sounded great and the boost and EQ worked perfectly. I changed to EMG's because those feel more like home to me, but yeah absolutely no issues combining the passives and the active pots at the end of the chain whatsoever.

And finally, the last thing to note is that when I wired up the passives, I put the EMG pots on a standard double throw switch that I recessed to only stick out a few mm and mounted to the rear control cavity cover. Switch up to loop them into the circuit, switch down to bypass them completely. Using a fairly short cable, with the EMG boost set to minimum and the BTC set to neutral, I heard absolutely zero difference in tone or noise level overall compared to them being hard bypassed via toggle switch.

Top switch was to bypass the pots, bottom switch was to bypass the battery to save it for when the pots weren't being used or to get power externally. The angle on that pic isn't great but again the switches were recessed and just barely stuck out above the control cavity surface. Zero chance of switching them accidentally or even feeling them unless you reach for them with your hands.

 

[VonBonfire]

Recently I picked up a guitar I’ve wanted since pretty much forever, but never got along with one enough to pull the trigger. Well I finally found a keeper.

I ended up taking it home around September of last year. It’s a 68 Reissue which means no weight relief, bigger neck, shallower headstock angle, etc. Love this thing. I've never really gotten along with Les Pauls I've played, no idea why. But I've always loved the idea of them, so I finally decided it was now or never and went between two stores around town and between them I played around ten different ebony LPC's. They all played well, but this one stood out head and shoulders over all the other ones in terms of sound, weight, acoustic resonance. However, while it plays great and sounds great acoustically, I wasn’t a huge fan of the pickups. Or the tuners. Or the knobs. BUT! After a bunch of messing around with pickups and electronics, and putting in locking tuners, I think it’s finally where it needs to be. It’s a monster now.

So what’s the deal with the EQ and boost stuff? Well you may have noticed a couple strange things going on with the knobs. Here's a closer look:

The stacked pots are these things:


EMG BTC

This is the EMG Bass Treble Control, a 2-band EQ, the top knob controls Treble by +-12 db, and the bottom knob controls Bass by +-12 db.

I found this thing when I was just messing around looking through the EMG site. It's marketed toward Bass guitars only, but I figured what the hell, maybe it will work for guitar too, might as well give it a shot, so I tried it. Turns out it sounds great! Also, there are two dip switches on the board that let you choose between 4 different Treble boost curves, pictured here. It gives you a pretty decent amount of flexibility. IMO the two lower frequency centered settings don't work all that great for guitar, they make it sound kinda like you're playing through a half-cocked wah, but the other settings (switches set to "ON/OFF" and "OFF/OFF") are really good. It's basically either a peaking EQ control centered around 3.5 kHz, or a High Shelf that peaks around 10 kHz without messing with the mids.

On this guitar, each pickup is directly wired into a BTC's input, so each pickup gets its own BTC. Top one for the bridge, bottom one for the neck.


That leaves two more controls. The one closest to the bridge is a plain old Master Volume, and the pot below it is a...



EMG AB 220

This is the EMG Afterburner 220. It's boost that goes up to 20 db, with two detents along the sweep, one at 6 db and the other at 15 db.

For this guitar, 6 db feels like plenty, and that amount of boost happens relatively early in the sweep. This plus the detent in the pot at 6 db makes it easy to just kinda flip on and off almost like a switch.


Here's the basic wiring diagram:

It was pretty straight forward to put together all things considered. I did solder some wires to the existing pickup selector switch to use with the pickup/power hub, but aside from that it was all plug and play, and EMG makes switches that are also plug and play if you don't want to solder anything at all.


The pickups are an EMG 85 in the bridge and EMG 60 in the neck. I've always been an EMG 81 bridge guy and if I was just plugging straight into an amp, I'd still go 81, but with the on-board EQ, the 85 makes more sense. With an 81 in the bridge, cranking the BTC's Treble can kind of blow out the high end and make things sound kinda clicky and even a bit broken if you max it out. Boosting the highs on the BTC with an 85 in the bridge sounds a bit better overall, plenty of clarity with less harsh presency stuff going on. Also, the 85 has more low end content when you want it, but can be tamed in a pretty musical way with the BTC's bass control when you don't want it. Also, the 85 seems to have clearer mids overall. I'm hearing a lot more string detail with this pickup than I do with an 81. Plus, if you take an 85 and boost the BTC's treble on "high shelf" mode just a hair, and cut the bass just a little bit, you've pretty much got a dead ringer of an EMG 81 emulation anyway.


Wait, an EQ and a boost together sounds like it's pretty much just a simple built-in EQ pedal. Does it replace your favorite boost?
I wondered if this would be the case while I was installing this stuff, and the answer after playing around with it for a while is that, yeah it absolutely can act as an EQ boost pedal. It might not be the exact same as whatever you’re favorite one is, and it does sound a little bit more subtle than a full-on EQ boost pedal. But it does give you a ton of options and tweakability.

So if it doesn't replace your favorite EQ boost, why would you bother with it instead of just doing all this from a pedal?
It does a lot. These controls being on your guitar means you have a ton of extra flexibility you can access without bending down to the floor in the middle of what you're doing. The treble boost can be dialed subtle enough that just simulates a newer set of strings, or you can crank it and cut through a lot of distortion to give you a ton of extra clarity. Or you can dial down the lows a bit to clear some mud without messing with the mids and highs of your core sound. Or you can back the treble off a little and boost the bass just enough to smooth things out for solos without muddying up everything like what happens when you lower a Tone control. This setup gives you a ton of options.

So how much battery life do you get out of a 9v with all that shit in there?
I calculated it up and even with 5 separate components using juice, You still get around 500 hours out of a single battery. For comparison, that's more time than you'd get out of a pair of active Fishmans.


Blah blah that's a bunch of words I'm not reading like some nerd. Thread is useless without clips.
Don't worry I got you fam.

EMG 85 - flat, no boost:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting, plus 6 db boost:


EMG 85 - Treble Boost maxed out in "peaking" setting, plus bass cut half way, plus 6 db boost:

I'm can't say I'm a EMG or active electronics guy but I just wanted to stop in and say congrats on finding the sweet LP of the bunch. Not too many axes as sweet as a LP custom and I know the great feeling of finding the gem Gibson among the mediocre and dud guitars. I would imagine that like I was with my 335 last october you are enthralled with this right now. May it bring you many years of musical success and tonal enjoyment bro!!!

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I'm can't say I'm a EMG or active electronics guy but I just wanted to stop in and say congrats on finding the sweet LP of the bunch. Not too many axes as sweet as a LP custom and I know the great feeling of finding the gem Gibson among the mediocre and dud guitars. I would imagine that like I was with my 335 last october you are enthralled with this right now. May it bring you many years of musical success and tonal enjoyment bro!!!

Thanks man! Yeah I haven't really been able to put it down. Coming from my main guitar for years being a late 90's PRS, this LP's deeper body and bigger neck make it feel less like a guitar and more like a battleaxe or something, lol. But it's great. Sounds awesome and after a minute or two I'm used to it and off to the races.

 

[cobrahead1030]

That’s awesome. It took me a long time to find an LP that really stood out amongst the others as well, very much worth the effort once I did.