Doing Things Wrong

Freakenbacker Back Together

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The new A500 pots came today USPS a day early - so never say bad things about them. I pulled up the diagram above, heated up the soldering iron, and Presto-Change-o !!! Then I tried to put the pickguard back, and it didn't fit, because, of course. The old mini pots barely cleared the body wall, and the new full-sized ones didn't. So I had to delve back into woodwork and make clearance for them. I had to razor and dremel away about a quarter of an inch, without messing up the 'finish'.

So it's all back together now and cleaned up, and believe it or not, I can wait until tomorrow to try it out. I did do some testing by tapping on the pickups with a piece of metal, and everything works as ordered, with a much better sweep on the volumes. No more B-pots for me !!!

That diagram is drawn from a classic Danelectro and shows Danelectro values for the pots and caps. I used more like Fender values. It's not that critical. I'm not sure if Danelectro used linear or audio taper pots, they're not usually marked. I would guess that they are linear, or "B", probably the same parts you'd find in a 1960s TV or radio.


He forgot to mention "remastering", where great old recordings are piped through a compressor to end up sounding just like today's shite. This is especially ironic for Beatles recordings. The Beatles and George Martin went to great lengths and used a lot of tricks to get the maximum dynamic range out of the primitive recording equipment of the day, and largely succeeded. Only to have the life squashed out of it by money-grubbing record companies who want to sell you the new "remastered" (ruined) version. The original Beatles recordings sound much better, especially the CDs; if you have them, hold on to them !!!

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