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Post subject: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 8:43 am
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Hi, what is the best method for treble bleed on a Baja Tele. I have heard of two ways ,one changing cap and two taking a wire from the vol pot to the tone pot. Not sure how either of these are done. Any suggestions a I prefer not to lose bite when I turn down. Also I want to move the neck pup from position 3 to position 4 on the four way switch. The S1 seems to make this a little less straight forward and Fender cannot suggest anything because they do no not sanction this mod but it makes more sense to me. I know it is possible . Has anyone done this?


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 10:42 am
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I own Classic Player Baja '60s tele. I can't help you with the wiring question but I will offer my support that, intuitively, having the positions arranged as Position 1-Bridge Pickup, Position 2-Bridge and Neck Pickups (In Parallel), Position 3-Bridge and Neck Pickups (In Series), Position 4-Neck Pickup makes more sense than the current arrangement with the neck in the third position.

Maybe there is a technical issue with the wiring but I can't think of what it would be.


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Wed May 11, 2016 1:52 pm
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elsie wrote:
Hi, what is the best method for treble bleed on a Baja Tele. I have heard of two ways ,one changing cap and two taking a wire from the vol pot to the tone pot. Not sure how either of these are done. Any suggestions a I prefer not to lose bite when I turn down.

Hi elsie,
Before you commit to the treble bleed, which will affect your over-all sound, you may want to check out this replacement wiring kit.
http://rs-guitarworks.myshopify.com/col ... pgrade-kit
NOTE: The web page states that "in order to use the RS 4-way Tele® kit, you must have a Tele® neck pickup with 3 conductors, or modify your existing neck pickup."
They don't show a wiring diagram, but I believe that you have to ground the chrome neck pickup cover, unless you do away with the chrome cover.

I've never used the treble bleed mod.
Some people swear by it.
But others say it makes their pickups sound thin, with too much treble at normal volumes.
For this reason, you should probably use a .047uF capacitor in addition to the treble bleed mod.
You may also want to consider installing a mini toggle between the volume and tone pots, and add the on-off switch to the treble bleed mod circuit on the volume control.

The treble mod is shown (without mini-toggle) in this wiring diagram.
http://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Re ... tions.html
Here is a complete 4-way switch wiring kit - without - the treble mod.
http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Elec ... witch.html
If you want to use your existing volume and tone pots, here is the 4-way, two pole, Oaks Grigsby switch:
http://www.stewmac.com/SiteSearch/?sear ... r%20switch
Note that a .047uF capacitor is used in addition to the treble mod in the above linked wiring diagram.
Since you may not be able to tell what capacitor is presently in your guitar, I would replace your present capacitor with a 047uF Orange Drop capacitor.
http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Elec ... _Caps.html
Here is the treble mod capacitor and resistor:
http://www.stewmac.com/Pickups_and_Elec ... ml#reviews

Finally, I always advocate eliminating almost all ground wires from the back of the caps, as I believe it's a lot easier and cleaner to use a "ground star" for all of your grounds.
The "ground star" is covered with electrical tape or another suitable insulator.
In the picture below showing "star grounding," there is only one capacitor, which is reflected, showing a second reflected image of the capacitor in the plate.

The black ground wire to the volume pot is attached at the third terminal on the right side with the 047uF Orange Drop capacitor, which is also soldered to the middle terminal of the tone pot.
Bend the third volume terminal up to touch the back of the pot, and solder both the ground wire and the capacitor to the back edge of the pot and to the terminal.
By only soldering once to the pot, you will eliminate possible heat damage to the volume pot, and it will greatly simplify your soldering.

Image

In addition, use a low wattage soldering iron if possible, and always keep your soldering iron or gun, away from the pickups as much as possible, as the electric field of soldering irons can supposedly reduce the magnetism of your pickups.
I have never had this experience.
But try to keep the soldering iron or gun as far away from the pickups as possible, and solder for as short of a time as is necessary for a good soldering connection.
I have in the past, shielded the pickups with aluminum foil while soldering.
I have also used a Weller 100W/140W soldering gun, using the techniques described, with no ill effects.
This is generally not recommended, but a high wattage soldering gun can be used with care.

Good luck!!


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 2:26 am
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Hi, Pudbert thanks for your support on this. There is no technical reason for this just lack of end user thought put into it. I have queried this with Fender and they say they fully understand my comments but have no changes planned. Mick thanks for your help and pics. I will try these mods and comment on the results. Cheers all.


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 2:37 am
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For the treble loss problem:
The original Baja wiring has a .05μF tone cap, which is rather "dark". Changing to a smaller cap (e.g. .022μF, but if that gets too shrieky go a bit higher) might help some. That woulf be the easiest and simplest fix.
Note that the cap value is only effective when the tone pot is set to "less than full open" positions (although no-loads may give some sound difference to some people, but that side topic is way too long).

On the endless variety of treble mods, check out tdpri.com via google; the Baja wiring seems to give various results (and in many cases, the modder has taken the treble bleed mod off).

On the 4way switch mod, I refer to your earlier post & my answer & the tdpri link on it: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=100998
For some reason, the S1 switch (or something in the Baja wiring) seems to complicate the usual "just reverse wires A&B" advice.


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Thu May 12, 2016 1:21 pm
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jmattis wrote:
For the treble loss problem:
The original Baja wiring has a .05μF tone cap, which is rather "dark". Changing to a smaller cap (e.g. .022μF, but if that gets too shrieky go a bit higher) might help some. That would be the easiest and simplest fix.
Note that the cap value is only effective when the tone pot is set to "less than full open" positions

Agreed.
If the original Baja wiring does have a .050μF / .049μF tone cap (between the two pots), the easiest fix would be to try a .022μF capacitor.
I would try this first.
If you install the treble bleed mod, I would start with a 049μF tone cap.
You can always get a couple feet of wire, cut it in half and install 4 alligator clips on the ends to try to test the sound of different capacitors.

I didn't look at the specs for the Baja Tele before posting my comments above.
I didn't realize that you had the S-1 volume pot switch.
Since I personally don't like the S-1 switch, and find that it doesn't provide alternative tones that I consider to be useful, I would get rid of it, unless you are a fan of the S-1 switch.
My above comments were based on using a normal 250K volume pot.

Apparently, you already have a 4-way switch.
Without having a 4-way switch to play with, I don't know if it is possible move the neck pickup from position 3 to position 4 on the four way switch.
I haven't seen a wiring diagram on line that does this.


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Post subject: Re: Baja Tele treble bleed
Posted: Fri May 13, 2016 5:34 am
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Aspiring Musician
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When I modified my main squeeze (the MIM Tele Special, "Big Tex"), I put a four-way switch and a Fender No-Load Tone Pot (amongst other things); it really gave me more usable switching and tone options than the guitars equipped with the S1 circuit...IMHO, the S1 has more options, but not more usable options.

The circuit I described might be a suitable alternative to the treble bleed circuit you're thinking about...and it would be significantly easier to switch position 3 and position 4 with my circuit than the S1 wiring.

Image

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