Please help with project guitar electronics upgrade to achieve ES-175 / Metheny jazz tone.

[DC-Choppah]

Metheny also says that on the Secret Story album (one of my favorites), that he plays both the 175 and the Ibanez depending on the tune. He says nobody has ever been able to tell which tunes use which and that folks are only 50% accurate in guessing. I find that encouraging for my little project.

If he always plays with the tone rolled off completely, then I'm not surprised. There will be very little harmonic variation left in the sound to tell the guitars apart.

He plays the 175 on "Rain River" here. Notice how he has a flute playing with him. The flute compliments the rolled-off tone of his guitar. But then when he solos he seems to adjust the tone a bit. Anyways, this is the sound!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mz_EcyurNo

[Sam Spoons]

He seems to fiddle constantly with both volume and tone but the tone changes are pretty subtle (actually non existent on my laptop speakers, will listen on the monitors later). to my ears. I wonder if it's just a 'nervous twitch' sort of thing?

[DC-Choppah]

If it only worked in the 'both pickups on' position, then it was probably a phase reversal switch for one of the pickups. That 'Peter Green' style sound. You wouldn't notice it with just one pickup at all. So you'd certainly get a thin 'out of phase' sound. Easy to do with a 4-wire pickup.

Yes that was it, only worked when both pickups were on. It made the sound thinner and brighter. 'Black Magic Woman' guitar solo. Yes. Thank you, that's the sound!

OK I see, phase switch. Just flips the polarity of one of the pickups. Hot becomes cold. Cold becomes hot. I see how to do that with my push pull switch. Cool!

My pickups are both Seymor Duncan 4-wire jobbies.

The pickup I am putting in the bridge position is this (model SH-2N, marked with JN on the back): https://www.seymourduncan.com/single-product/jazz-model

It is a classic output (not high output) pickup. Supposed to go in the neck, but I will try it in the bridge.

So I will run them both in humbucker mode and not use the coil tap.

[DC-Choppah]

When you had the three way pickup selector switch in the middle position, and threw the little switch, the tone would change radically. Sort of got a strat-sound, but different.

If it only worked when both pick-ups are on, maybe a parallel/series switch?

I looked into the parallel/series thing. That's interesting. Thanks for that too. Looks like the sound I was after was actually the phase reversal of one of the pickups.

But now I have got this other push pull control too. So I like your idea. I am going to use that push pull switch to control the series vs. parallel wiring of one of the humbuckers.

And then I will have the ability to flip the phase with the other push/pull. Cool!

I love having lots of sounds available at the fingers!

So now, which pickup to control? Should I wire the bridge or the neck for series/parallel switching?

[Sam Spoons]

I have series wiring mod on both my Strats, one a standard 'vintage' setup but with the mid tone control rewired to roll the (IIRC) bridge pickup in series with whichever of the others is active the second, with two P90s, switches the pickups between parallel and series. It offers a useful extra mid range push and is very simple to do. My LP Custom has phase and coil tap switches, it's a 1975 with standard lowish output pickups and the coil tap never gets used, the phase switch is useful though, maybe I should replace the coil tap switch with a series switch.

As an aside, I saw an ad on FB Marketplace recently for this LP in which the neck pickup had been reversed for a 'Peter Green' out of phase sound



I didn't have the heart to tell him...

[DC-Choppah]

My LP Custom has phase and coil tap switches, it's a 1975 with standard lowish output pickups and the coil tap never gets used, the phase switch is useful though, maybe I should replace the coil tap switch with a series switch.

OK, so if you were to add the series/parallel swatch, would you do it for the neck or the bridge pickup?

[Sam Spoons]

I'll have to dig out the wiring diagram but IIRC it is very simple. Will get back to you

[Wonks]

Series option for two single coils has a definite benefit, but for two humbuckers in series? Definitely more output but you'll get a big mid resonant peak and a loss of treble. Not saying you couldn't find the occasional use for it, but it's probably far more niche than an 'out of phase' sound. I occasionally use the 'out of phase' sound on my LP when doing some blues numbers as it does get that peter Green sound, as well as various other 50s and 60s blues guitar sounds where their pickups weren't always wired with the same polarity.

[DC-Choppah]

I found this: https://guitarelectronics.com/humbucker ... -parallel/

So I am thinking that I could wire the bridge pickup so that the two coils of the bridge humbucker would either be in series or parallel depending on the push/pull knob.

Then the other push/pull knob would flip the polarity of the neck pickup.

So I would get all those different tone combinations.

[DC-Choppah]

Here is the wiring diagram I made for the guitar.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NfOduZ ... sp=sharing

Please let me know what you think.

Features:

• Vintage tone wiring
• Push pull on neck volume switches between series and parallel for the two coils in the neck humbucker.
• Push pull on bridge volume switches the bridge humbucker between in/out of phase with the neck humbucker.

[Wonks]

He plays the 175 on "Rain River" here. Notice how he has a flute playing with him. The flute compliments the rolled-off tone of his guitar. But then when he solos he seems to adjust the tone a bit. Anyways, this is the sound!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mz_EcyurNo

I thought it sounded quite a strange tone, slightly synthetic, and then I noticed the Roland MIDI pickup (confirmed after some digging on the web). So I strongly suspect that the sound is a mix of guitar and synth. If you are after that exact sound, you may not get it with the guitar alone. Of course he may not be using the MIDI pickup on that song, but it does sound to rather like he might be.

You may find that a Boss SY300 will give you a similar sound without the need to fit a MIDI pickup.

[Wonks]

Here is the wiring diagram I made for the guitar.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NfOduZ ... sp=sharing

Please let me know what you think.

Generally looks OK to me, except that the Bendetto pickup has different wiring colours to a Seymour Duncan.

https://madhatterguitarproducts.com/pag ... references

So you'll need to change the colours for the neck pickup. You'll also need to double check on the connection of the black and white wires so that they correspond exactly to those of the white and red wires on the SD. On a SD, the green wire is the other end of the coil with red wire coming from it, and the white wire is the other end of the coil with black wire coming it. If you get the white and black wires round the wrong way on the Benedetto, the series mode will still work but you'll just get silence or hum in the parallel mode. It's easy enough to swap the two wires over, but you don't want to find that out after you've installed the wiring harness. So test out the harness before you put it in the guitar by tapping the pickups using all the switches .

I'd also draw in the ground connections (so you've got something to follow when wiring), making sure that you don't create a loop.

You wont need the extra ground connection that's shown on the neck volume switch connection, as that tab is already connected to a grounded wire coming from the volume pot.

I'd show the ground tab of the selector switch being grounded, so you don't forget.

I'd also try and use braided cable for the longer runs, to minimise any noise pickup. You can't shield the inside of the guitar, so the next best thing is to use shielded cable where you can.

[DC-Choppah]

Generally looks OK to me, except that the Bendetto pickup has different wiring colours to a Seymour Duncan.

Hmmm. The wiring diagram that came with the Benedetto shows that the

• red and white wires are connected together and insulated
• black is the hot wire and goes to the input of the volume pot
• green and drain wires go to ground

which is the same as the Seymor Duncan's.

Here is the diagram that came with: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gac2gm ... sp=sharing

I wonder if they have changed now that it appears that they are part of Seymor Duncan?

When I try to go to http://www.benedettopickups.com it takes me to Seymor Duncan.

[Wonks]

That would seem logical. So the colours remain as the diagram.

[DC-Choppah]

Updated drawing. Thanks for the tips Wonks. I traced the original Ibanez ground wires and the drawing reflects the way they were originally routed. The guitar was dead silent with no hum, so I am keeping what they had.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18tt0ze ... sp=sharing

[Wonks]

All good, except that you've currently got no ground connection for the bridge pickup & pots all the way back to the output jack. You could link the rear of the two tone pots, or you could run another ground wire to the ground tab on the pickup selector switch. Or if you use a braided wire connection for the signal wires from the volume pots to the selector switch, then you can use the braid as the ground connection if it's connected at both ends.

[BJG145]

Notice how he has a flute playing with him. The flute compliments the rolled-off tone of his guitar.

BTW that ain't a flute, it's a recorder.

(I'm glad you posted it as it's actually the first time I've paid proper attention to Metheny.)

[DC-Choppah]

Updated drawing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xOWKYp ... sp=sharing

[Wonks]

That all works. Physically, you'll probably better connecting the screen braid of the neck pickup to the back of neck volume pot. It's hard enough getting two wires connected to a pin on the push/pull switch, let alone three.

And looking on a big screen, i see you've go the volume pots as 250k. You'd normally have 500k audio pots here. It was only 250k on the tone pots that I suggested. 250k volume pots could take off too much top end from the pickups, leaving a very muddy tone indeed with the tone control turned down. I say 'could' because I've never tried it, and it may give a tone that you like. But a vintage 175 would normally have 500k volume pots (certainly a 1960 model like Pat's), whilst Norlin-era 175s had 300k volume pots. Possibly because the T-top pickups fitted to those guitars could be very bright (especially the bridge pickup) and the 300k pots would take some of the edge off them.

So I wouldn't go below 300k and personally I'd stick to 500k.

[arkieboy]

He plays the 175 on "Rain River" here. Notice how he has a flute playing with him. The flute compliments the rolled-off tone of his guitar. But then when he solos he seems to adjust the tone a bit. Anyways, this is the sound!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mz_EcyurNo

I thought it sounded quite a strange tone, slightly synthetic, and then I noticed the Roland MIDI pickup (confirmed after some digging on the web). So I strongly suspect that the sound is a mix of guitar and synth. If you are after that exact sound, you may not get it with the guitar alone. Of course he may not be using the MIDI pickup on that song, but it does sound to rather like he might be.

You may find that a Boss SY300 will give you a similar sound without the need to fit a MIDI pickup.

I'm fairly sure that he's not playing the layered synth sound in this vid.

The Hex pickup on the guitar looks very much like a Roland GK1 - this is an old 24 pin unit that came in two pieces - detachable electronics, controls and cables, and a pickup and mounting plate unit that remained attached to the guitar. If you forward to 3:29, you can see the plate doesn't have the electronics box fitted, so I think that someone else in the band - probably Lyle - was playing a synth in unison. There are some good pictures of the unit on a Reverb listing here https://reverb.com/item/14491850-roland ... g-hardware

There are quite a few pictures of his ES175 with a GR1 plate/pickup attached on the web - here's a decent one



Wonks is completely right in that you would be able to get the kind of synth sounds Metheney uses out of a SY300, and this would be the most practical choice to get some of that tone pallet into your rig. However despite reusing the colour and design cues from the iconic GR300 'Blue box', the SY300 lacks a direct emulation of that unit, so getting the kind of sounds Metheney uses on 'End of the Game' won't be as straightforward. For that you'll need a hex pickup and either a VG99, GP10s or a SY1000. The emulations are really rather good though. If you get the 99, you'll also need to budget for a couple of Roland FS units to switch octaves and the like.