Guitar Upgrade Wiring Guide - Pots, Capacitors, 50s Wiring

Guitar Wiring Upgrade Guide

Upgrading your guitar wiring is one of the most effective ways to improve tone, control response and reliability.  This guide explains the key components used  in guitar wiring wiring upgrades including potentiometers, tone capacitors, wiring types and vintage classic 50s wiring. Understanding these differences will help you choose the right wiring harness for your guitar and playing style. 

Differences In Our Kits Classic & Premium

  • Classic Series: Modern style tone using Orange Drop caps. Full dynamic range giving a bright distinct sound. Nice improvement over stock components found in today's guitars.
  • Premium Series, 59, Blues, Jazz & others: Step up to our best kits using higher end PIO caps. The best for clean warm & jazz tones plus when driven gives that bluesy grit sound when needed. Improved sustain. Excellent for all genres of guitar sound.

What a Wiring Harness Does

A guitar wiring harness connects your pickups, volume controls, tone controls, and output jack.  Factory wiring often uses lower grade components that can effect tone and reliability.  Upgrading to a prewired harness with quality components can improve clarity, consistency and over all performance. Will help you sound and play better.

Short Shaft vs Long Shaft Pots

Choosing the correct potentiometer shaft length is important for proper fit.  Most Gibson Les Pauls use either short or long shaft pots. Depending on the body thickness and control cavity design. Plus what year it was manufactured. It is best to pull one pot out and measure the threaded pat of shaft only. Short = 3/8" Long = 3/4".

  • Short shaft pots - typically used in thinner top guitars. 
  • Long shaft pots used in carved top Les Pauls.
  • All Epiphones and hollow body guitars use short shaft. Plus most off shore or copy made units.

Guitar Tone Capacitors

Tone capacitors affect how your guitar responds when adjusting the tone control and volume. Different capacitor values and materials can influence the tonal range and feel of your controls. 

  • .022 capacitors - common for humbuckers
  • .033 capacitors - common for humbucker and P90s'. Becoming very popular for true vintage tone. Our favorite
  • .015 capacitors - commonly used as the neck tone cap
  • .047 capacitors - often used for single coil
  • Paper-in-Oil capacitors (our suggestion) -  known for smooth vintage response
  • Orange Drop capacitors - known to have a brighter modern tone

50s Wiring vs Modern Wiring

50s wiring is a popular vintage configuration that helps retain clarity when lowering the volume control. Many players prefer this set up for its smoother interaction between volume and tone controls compared to modern wiring. We recommend 50s wiring.

Choosing the Right Wiring Harness

Choosing the right wiring harness depends on your guitar type and desired tone. Prewired kits are a great option for players who want an easier installation already assembled.   

For DIY projects we offer many DIY kits with the needed parts designed for you to assemble and solder. 

Installation Overview

Most prewired wiring harness kits are design to simplify installation.  Basic soldering is typically required, and each kit includes a wiring diagram and installation instructions to guid you thru the process.

Addtional Detials On Our Premium Components We Use

  • Bourns ProAudio Pots: We have found them to be the very best pots for longevity, taper and over all tone performance.
  • Tone caps: We use Orange Drop or Paper-In-Oil caps. For best tone and performance.
  • Wire: Gavitt cloth vintage push back wire just like Leo used in the early years. No plastic wiring.
  • Switches: Centralab or Switchcraft 3 way toggle switches. Brand depends on availability. Both are excellent. Oak Grigsby for blade style 3 or 5 way style.
  • Jacks: Switchcraft for solid connections and long lasting.

Potentiometer bushing pot hole size & knob fitting:

  • We use full size Bourns pots that require a 3/8 inch pot hole size. If your guitar came with metric style pots you will need to ream out pot holes to 3/8 inch. Easy to do.
  • Bourns pots require coarse spllne 18 teeth style knobs. We sell knobs that fit our kits.

Switches and Jack hole requirement:  

  • Jack require 3/8 inch hole
  • Toggle switch requires 1/2 hole
  • Blade switch has 1-5/8 inch distance between mounting screw holes.

Left Handed Guitar Wiring: 

We do not offer left handed wiring kits. Wiring regular pots backwards will result in a very unusable taper and degrades the tone of your guitar. Although other companies will do this anyway I strongly advise against it. My recommendation is to find a company that truly builds left handed pre-wired kits using Left Handed Tapered Pots.