School me on guitar electronics.

[ThurberMingus]

So I have this guitar. It's a really quirky old 70's National MIJ Telecaster type deal. It's a pretty sweet axe but the tone leaves me a little hungry. It's about 75% there. I originally thought about putting in new pickups, but surprise, being a weird old goofy assed guitar, it has proprietary pickups. I emailed a dude about rewinding them to give me a brighter, snappier tone, and he quoted me at $40 a piece, not bad, but I just got back from a weeklong trip, and then got sick, so I'm a little short in the wallet. I was wondering if I would get good results from just replacing all the electronics and having a pro set it up. I am assuming that it has 250k pots in it, so I was wondering if it's a good idea to replace them with 500k and go for a nicer tone cap. I don't really mess with the tone control much, but maybe this would inspire me to. I just changed strings on it today and it was sounding pretty glorious just straight into the amp, but with all the pedals and buffers and bullshit that I normally use, I think a higher value pot would help me. I would like for this specific guitar to be a little on the bright side, while still being somewhat chimey. Is this a good idea? is there anything else I should do to improve the tone before I ship the pickups to be rewound?

TLDR: I want my pickups to be brighter, without replacing them.

EDIT: my guitar looks like this, but WAYY more beat up and with a maple fretboard

[doommeow]

If you're handy if a soldering iron and know what you're doing, what've you got to lose?

I'd say, start with the Neil Young trick - wire the pickups direct to the output jack, taking all of the other wiring out of the equation, then listen. If it's still not bright enough, then you know that changing pots and caps isn't likely to get you anywhere. If it is too bright, then start playing with part values.

[ThurberMingus]

The thing is, I'm not so handy with a soldering iron, and I'm not sure if my leads are long enough to make it to the output jack. If I do this and am happy with the sound, then what should I do for pots?

Also! Pulled off the control plate and they are 500k.

[Decibill]

If you aren't able to solder or pay some one to do it, then I don't think that there is anything you can do. But really, its not a difficult skill to learn. If you are willing and able to buy a basic solder set up, you can practice on scrap wire and then move on to snipping some leads in your guitar and bypassing the pots for a pure direct signal as doommeow suggested.

[AxAxSxS]

A nice trick if you are testing out values is to attach alligator clips to the ends of your leads. this way you don't need to re solder things, remove solder, wait for the iron to heat up etc. Once you have a circuit that gives you what you are looking for sonicaly, then go ahead and join it with solder.

As others have said, it's easy to learn. Half an hour on youtube will yield a wealth of demos of soldering.

[skullservant]

Yep, it's not hard to learn. Also, if there are 500k pots in there, step them up to 1M and see if that helps anything. Sweet guitar!

[KaosCill8r]

So I have this guitar. It's a really quirky old 70's National MIJ Telecaster type deal. It's a pretty sweet axe but the tone leaves me a little hungry. It's about 75% there. I originally thought about putting in new pickups, but surprise, being a weird old goofy assed guitar, it has proprietary pickups. I emailed a dude about rewinding them to give me a brighter, snappier tone, and he quoted me at $40 a piece, not bad, but I just got back from a weeklong trip, and then got sick, so I'm a little short in the wallet. I was wondering if I would get good results from just replacing all the electronics and having a pro set it up. I am assuming that it has 250k pots in it, so I was wondering if it's a good idea to replace them with 500k and go for a nicer tone cap. I don't really mess with the tone control much, but maybe this would inspire me to. I just changed strings on it today and it was sounding pretty glorious just straight into the amp, but with all the pedals and buffers and bullshit that I normally use, I think a higher value pot would help me. I would like for this specific guitar to be a little on the bright side, while still being somewhat chimey. Is this a good idea? is there anything else I should do to improve the tone before I ship the pickups to be rewound?

TLDR: I want my pickups to be brighter, without replacing them.

EDIT: my guitar looks like this, but WAYY more beat up and with a maple fretboard

I have the same maple fretboard guitar. They were manufactured at the Ibanez factory. Mine is Ibanez branded and from their 1971-72 catalog. The neck pickups are awesome. The bridge pickups I find a bit to brittle and thin in tone. They make great guitars for playing noise. I've modded mine to the nth degree. Mine also feeds back like a motherfucker at high volumes. They are great guitars though. Love the chunky necks on them. Like a baseball bat.

[ThurberMingus]

What all mods have you done to yours? Do you have any pictures? I wax potted the pickups on mine to fight feedback. Works pretty hood until I hit it with high volume and gain.

[KaosCill8r]

I wax potted the pickups on mine to fight feedback. Works pretty hood until I hit it with high volume and gain.

I actually melted some of the wax off my pickups so I could also scream vocals into them. They are very micro-phonic pickups, and I love feedback. I'm into feedback drenched noise rock. As for mods, I put in a kill/stutter switch, C.T.S custom taper pots, brass compensated bridge saddles, switchable n.o.s soviet tone caps, treble bleed kit, new output jack, all vintage style cloth covered wiring, individual toggle switches for each pickup, new tuners, only because the chrome had lifted on the originals and while tuning once it sliced my finger open real bad. They had to go. It is quite a beastly guitar and very far from what you would call hi/fi. I call it the slut because its dirty and blonde like Pamela Anderson or Sharon Stone Pics on the way.