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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Chasing That Vintage Tone on a Working Musicians Budget...

Local Music Gear Feature Story 
Written By: Jac Harrison
Since the beginning of time, mankind has been trying to replicate "stuff" that we have observed to enhance our lives making it more enjoyable. "Stuff" like harnessing the power of fire to cook our food to insure that it is safe to eat, using river-rock and gravity to purify our drinking water to prevent bacterial infection, and in this case -- the most important of all, making your guitar have that vintage mojo to achieve the tone of the gods (I got choked up just saying that).

About ten months ago I had this crazy idea that I could put together a guitar that had the same characteristics of a traditional 1954 Les Paul, but with a few modern amenities that I have become accustomed to. My goal was to make this guitar a usable instrument and not a watered down novelty like the "reissues" that flood the market place today. Originally; I commissioned a NY based luthier to build a guitar to my specifications, but he turned out to be difficult to work with, so I used a guitar that I already had in my personal collection that was 95% of what I was going for with the commissioned  build.  The only real difference between the donor guitar and the commissioned build was that the commissioned build was a five piece neck through body (a modern amenity that I would have enjoyed) and the donor is a set neck, like the original had in 1954. With that said, this is my step-by-step "manifesto" on how I turned my 2012 Jarrett Zaffiro in to a 1954 Les Paul tone clone ....

1954 Les Paul Gibson VOS (Vintage Original Spec)
To start; lets take a look at what a 1954 Les Paul really is. According to the Gibson USA's website, it says.... "the 1954 Les Paul Model “Goldtop” with two soapbar-style P-90 pickups and wraparound tailpiece embodies raw blues rock and roll more than any other guitar on the planet. From Carl Perkins’ recordings of “Honey Don’t” and “Blue Suede Shoes” to Freddie King’s “Hideaway”, a Goldtop was there—rippin’ it up and making musical history in the process." And like always I left their website very unsatisfied and without any of the information I was looking for. After a quick Google search, I was able to get all the original specs that I needed, and they are: 24 3/4 scale, semi-hollow mahogany body, an arched maple cap with a set 50's D shaped mahogany neck. At her heart she had (2) alinico 5 p-90's with braided wiring on a 3-way with 500k pots, a bone nut and wraparound bridge (no tail piece).


2012 Jarrett Zaffiro
Now that I had all the original specs, I wanted to think of a way that I could improve on the original design to make this guitar more user friendly to the modern player without sacrificing any of it's original tonal properties that I fell in love with. My biggest pet peeve with the Les Paul guitar has always been the selector switch location. I find it to be clumsy, so this guitar would need to have the selector switch by the lower controls opposed to the player's side shoulder. This would also reduce the amount of wire and tone wood removal from the body for the additional cavity and control panel. After doing some more research I realized that I had the guitar I wanted to use for this build in my personal collection -- my 2012 Jarrett Zaffiro. The Jarrett Zaffiro is a LP ish Jazz style guitar with all of the same specs as the 1954 Les Paul, except it is a 25 1/2 scale (which I prefer anyway) with the selector switch by the lower controls, but the one I have was cut for humbuckers, not p-90's. With this in mind, my 1st phone call was to my friends at MoJotone. If you are not familiar with MoJotone, they are the leading source for all vintage reproduction guitar and amplifier parts -- they are also very nice people and easy to deal with. After a few e-mails with Logan (my contact at MoJotone) explaining to him what I was looking to do, he got me into a set of hand-wound alinico 5 humbucker sized p-90's that were as close to the real vintage pickups as possible, but just in a humbucker sized application. I could have also picked up all of the hardware from MoJotone, but I didn't want the vintage style hardware. Lets be honest -- the stock hardware sucked then, but there was nothing else offered at the time. I truly believe that Les would have used only the best and most advanced parts that were available to him at the time of the build, and for me that meant one thing... a full Graphtech Guitar Labs upgrade, giving this guitar the best tonal properties possible.




2012 Jarrett Zaffiro
Graphtech Guitar Labs is one of those companies that really takes technology and finds new ways to use it. For example, up until a few years ago I would use animal bone for the nut and brass for the saddles and bridge, much like Les would have in 1954. Besides the brass sucking the tone out of my strings, the animals harvested for the nut always bothered me, so I was glad when I was turned on to Graphtech Guitar Labs for their Tusq products. Tusq and Tusq XL is a synthetic that responds better than animal bone, giving the guitar more sustain and tone without killing an animal for it's bones. For the other end of the strings I used the Graphtech Guitar Labs lightweight ResoMax alloy wraparound bridge with Tusq saddle savers. I have found that the resomax bridge brings out the guitars natural voice while increasing the tonal depth and sustain. 

Besides my normal order when I called Gray (my contact at Graphtech Guitar Labs), he told me about their brand new Ratio tuned machine heads. These are really cool, each machine head has a different gear ratio for fine tuning giving you more control over your instrument. So over all this guitar wound up getting all new parts everywhere the stings touch the body, insuring the best tonal outcome.


2012 Jarrett Zaffiro
Once I received all of the new parts it only took a few hours and a six pack to install everything. At the end of the day I had a guitar that was about as close tonally to a real 1954 Les Paul that you can get on this side of $4,500 USD. There is no way in hell that I would ever under any circumstances use a vintage guitar at a local venue in fear of theft or damage, nor would I spend $4,500 USD for the Gibson copy (sorry reissue). So this was my answer to achieving the tone that I consider to be one of the best you can get, and making it come out of a guitar that I would not be fearful of bringing out to a gig on a working musicians budget. Besides saving cash, I got to put my own twist on things. This guitar is wired with (2) cts500K pots for volume only with 150K/.001CFU treble bleed circuit on each and a momentary kill switch with the 3-way toggle by the lower controls. 

So now that you have read my "manifesto" I encourage you to go out and find your vintage dream tone guitar and make your own tone clone, but do it in a way that makes you happy with a few twists at a budget that you can afford. The more you love your guitar, the better you will play. 

Thank you for everything you gave us. 
In memory of Lester William Polsfuss / Les Paul (June 9, 1915 – August 12, 2009)

Toltal investment 
Jarrett Zaffiro --  already had it.  

Electronic Components 
(2) cts500K pot $10 
(1) Switchcraft 3-way toggle $14 
(1) Momentary kill switch $7 
(1) Switchcraft 1/4 mono jack $13 
(2) 150K/.001CFU Treble bleed circuit $4

Total doing the work yourself : $487.05

Instalalition fee by local luither 
Bench fee + 5 hours on adverage $400

Total using a tech/luthier : $887.05



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Posted 04/2014 
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