Here's a Harebrained Idea

[jimk]

Would it be possible to have my Gretsch Electromatic G5120 rewired like a Rickenbacker 360? I love stereo. Who could do it?
JimK

[aceonbass]

It's not hair brained, yes it can be done, and I could do it.

[jimk]

Cool! Send me a PM with cost estimate and so forth. I want to install a pair of TV Jones Classics before long.
JimK

[aceonbass]

You've been PM'd Jim....

[4000]

Curious to hear how it turned out for non-Rick guitars/pickups?

Just wondering if this just works, as in: it works for any two-PU guitar,
or that 'by craft' Rick did some things to make this work?

Bye/thanks

[aceonbass]

Although 4000 contacted me about building a harness, he's never ordered one. It should be possible with any two pickup guitar or bass, even if it has a single output.

[jimk]

Oops.....I've changed email addresses and forgot to update here. Sorry 'bout that.

I've had to put the whole idea on the back burner for a while. Personal discretionary finances and all that....
JimK

[4000]

Although 4000 contacted me about building a harness, he's never ordered one. It should be possible with any two pickup guitar or bass, even if it has a single output.

Wasn't me who contacted you, but I saw it's been corrected already.

Yep, I understand the 'stereo-out' can be accomplished on basically any two-PU guitar, but was wondering why it sounds as it does on a Rick (just right! ) while say an other attempt with another guitar didn't turn out to be so sonically happy-making. I realize this doesn't sound too scientific, but it could have been that people knew about special design-stuff that Rick did to make R-o-S not only 'technically working', but actually also sounding good. (Just wondering)

Bye/thanks

[jimk]

Yep, I understand the 'stereo-out' can be accomplished on basically any two-PU guitar, but was wondering why it sounds as it does on a Rick (just right! ) while say an other attempt with another guitar didn't turn out to be so sonically happy-making. I realize this doesn't sound too scientific, but it could have been that people knew about special design-stuff that Rick did to make R-o-S not only 'technically working', but actually also sounding good. (Just wondering)

Bye/thanks

I'm interested in your thoughts here. What quality or qualities would make the stereo out option less than desirable on for example a Gretsch? It would seem to me that one would dial in the signal to the neck pick up just so on amp A, then do the same on amp B.

Dialing in the sound shouldn't be that much more tedious than with a Rickenbacker which has the fifth knob to help out with balance. Or am I missing something here?
JimK

[Ric5150]

Yep, I understand the 'stereo-out' can be accomplished on basically any two-PU guitar, but was wondering why it sounds as it does on a Rick (just right! ) while say an other attempt with another guitar didn't turn out to be so sonically happy-making. I realize this doesn't sound too scientific, but it could have been that people knew about special design-stuff that Rick did to make R-o-S not only 'technically working', but actually also sounding good. (Just wondering)

Bye/thanks

I'm interested in your thoughts here. What quality or qualities would make the stereo out option less than desirable on for example a Gretsch? It would seem to me that one would dial in the signal to the neck pick up just so on amp A, then do the same on amp B.

Dialing in the sound shouldn't be that much more tedious than with a Rickenbacker which has the fifth knob to help out with balance. Or am I missing something here?
JimK

One factor behind it working for Ricks is the fact that the volume pots are wired to give independent control of the pickup volume when both pickups are selected. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure about Gretsch, but Gibson, for example, wires them such that if both pickups are selected, either volume pot affects the composite signal. You can flip that around, but many say it hurts the high end tone. I haven't tried, personally, but could see that it could affect brightness of some pickups. I'd have to play around with schematics, but there might be a way to leave the pot wiring the same and use a jack with an addition switch to separate the two when you plug into the 'stereo' jack (similar to how most effects pedals disconnect the battery when you unplug the input cable). Ultimately, they need to be separate, but you might have to change the 'non-stereo' tone of the guitar to do it.

Several years ago, I put some Nocaster RI pickups in a Tele and was struggling with whether to do traditional wiring or Nocaster wiring (with a blend). I ended up wiring it with a push/pull tone pot so that it would normally be "traditional" but if you use a stereo cable and pull the pot up, you bypass the controls and both pickup signals go to a separate little box that has Nocaster controls. Unfortunately, it turns out that the Nocaster controls didn't get me anything significantly different than the traditional ones. The point being that you can come up with all kinds of ideas, but you often don't know what it's going to buy you until you do it. It takes a decent amount of time to do the wiring and if you don't do it yourself, time is money.

Another factor behind how much benefit you might get depends upon how much different the two pickups sound in the first place - and then how well they blend together in the end.

I doubt there was any significant effort put into making RoS sound good. There's nothing particularly unusual or unique about the overall wiring scheme. They probably thought it would be a cool thing to try and it ended up working out nicely.