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So I got a used Heritage 575 and have been learning how it works for a couple months now. I can get a lot of nice tones, for example a Jim Hall thing when I turn down the volume.
But I’m a bit enamored with the tone Barry Greene gets with his Benedetto Bravo. It’s fat, bell-like yet clear. Barry has a video showing his recording setup - no big deal, a Fender sim and some eq, thomastik flats. I can do something similar here. But either the 575 is fat and the bass sounds stuffy and overbearing, or I get the clarity but the treble dominates in a stringy way. Can’t quite get the bell like fatness combined with the clarity.
So I’m wondering if I swap the stock schaller pickups, would that bring me closer. The Bravo has benedetto A6, I could order a set. I also have a set of Seth Lovers.
Or is the Bravo fundamentally different and the 575 can never go there?
(he sounds different on his other guitar, so not just the fingers)
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12-03-2020 11:31 AM
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Barry's Bravo is equipped with the B-6 pickup, which is standard in the Bravo Deluxe model. Bravo is not as deep as a typical 16" archtop. One way to avoid the bass end getting boomy/muddy, while preserving a round, darkish tone, is to use a 10" speaker.
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A couple differences between the guitars besides the pickup. The Bravo is a laminate top with a slightly longer scale length. I believe your Heritage is solid maple top?
But it shouldn't be all that different overall to be able to achieve our desired tone.
Perhaps a different more clear sounding pickup would do it?
If you have the Schaller stock pickups, those tend to be darker and a bit muddy.
Try some lower PAF output pickups in 7k to 8k range. Mismatched coil winds.
Some examples are Manluis Landmark, Gibson Memphis PAF's, Sheptone, Lindy Fralin. Even try a Seymour Duncan Jazz neck or DiMarzio 36th Anniversary.
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Those Benedetto pickups are, IMO, about the best humbuckers available for a jazz tone. They're very hot, high resistance, and designed to be played with the volume rolled back. The Benedetto wiring is also different from the typical Gibson-style, and that also affects the tone, not rolling off the treble much as the volume is decreased. My favorite pickup is the DeArmond Rhythm Chief, but for a set humbucker, I don't think the Benedetto can be beat by anything I've ever heard.
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Probably useful to maintain a disciplined distinction between the A6 and B6 PU’s.
While they are very similar in the concept of Uber-fat windings, the B6 is arguably slightly fatter and, of course, not adjustable with fixed blades vs. the A6 1/2 adjustable poles.
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But yes, if one wants a smooth and full sound, then an A6 or B6, wired per the Benedetto instructions is the simple way to get that.
Why this is treated as an elusive mystery is hard to explain.
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Might be worth noting that using 250K pots with the very very fat windings of the A6 and B6 is both very advisable, very useful, and somewhat unusual.
But the result is a circuit that gives a serious “money tone” beginning setup, and also a very useful tone control sweep.
Absolutely no mystery to this RLC circuit.
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Ah ok, so it’s B6 with 250k tone pot then, thanks everyone for helping out. What’s the capacitor value? And the wiring instructions are included or is there a link?
This is a two pickup guitar, what’s a good match for the bridge?
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Found a wiring diagram in another forum thread, guess it’s two B6 then... one would probably want to replace the coil tap switches with pushpull volume pots.
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Interesting. Like many others, I always thought a very low output pickup would be best for jazz. I installed one of these in my El Rey 1, and discovered great tones, but the rolling back on the volume produced the finest tones. It's a pretty hot pickup by some standards.
Originally Posted by sgosnell
https://lacemusic.com/collections/7/...humbucker-5-0k
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Here is the Bravo wiring diagram. The Bravo only has one pickup.
Bravo wiring diagram.pdf
Here is the Bambino diagram, with two pickups and coil-split (Benedetto uses coil-tap) switch. The quality is not great, but that's what I got from Benedetto. There is only one each volume and tone, and the tone pot is a push-pull which does the tap.
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I gave up the "how to get similar sound" business, because it depends on soooo many factors, like guitar, pu, amp, pick (plectrum), string, and most importantly the "hand" or if you do not agree with the hand thing then replace it "technique". Originally Posted by frankhond
Still I have to add to this question: Barry uses a "ordinary" medium pick, but uses not the intended pick edge, instead one of the two the rounded edge, this surely has effect on the sound.
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Nice, thanks a lot! I ordered two b6. I’ll see if I implement the coiltap, never cared for sound of split humbuckers. Local parts dealer is out of push pull pots anyway. Got some 10% cts log pots. Gonna be a fun xmas project.
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Funny this came up..i always dug Barrys tone with his Benedettos..i recently acquired a Benedetto 16b and was playing it last night and thought of Barrys tone, i can get that to a degree with henriksen Forte and the 16b. This guitar has the B6 pickup and is fully carved back and sides though.
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The 16B is a very nice guitar. Jimmy Bruno used to play one before he switched to Comins. I would love to have one, but it's out of my price range. I have a poor man's 16B, which is a Wu with similar characteristics - carved top and back, but with a DeArmond 1100 pickup,
Frankhond, if you don't want the coil split, just use a normal pot. I did that with my Bambino for awhile, because the shaft of the tone pot started rattling when playing, giving a buzz. I eventually returned it to original, but I never used the coil split much.
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Coil tap requires a pretty hot PU to be meaningful. I once had a Yamaha SA2200 and replaced the original PUs with Seymour Duncans (Jazz for neck, JB for bridge), and the coil tap became useless. My early Savannah Bravo (# S0054) has it, but at some point they left it out. On the Bravo, it works well as a solo/comp switch, with less volume and a brighter tone from the single-coil mode.
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modern pup designers have come up with a design that enables coil spliting a humbucker w/o the traditional volume drop...they add a booster/sidekick coil that kicks in with the split switch...dean zelinksy and prs have been using them for a few years now
dz sidekick info-
SideKick Pickup | Dean Zelinsky Guitars
cheersLast edited by neatomic; 12-04-2020 at 05:22 PM. Reason: typo-
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It’s a good point. I can get ”similar” sound in the Jim Hall category, but I don’t sound like him, obviously... I can also get a classic 175’ish electric jazz tone. But that bell tone Barry gets is something else. And we are sitting home so why not play around a bit. Originally Posted by Gabor
I too play with all edges of the pick. The round edge gives a smoother attack, but not that bell tone. I guess there is only one way to find out if it’s the pickups or not.
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Benedetto dropped the coil tap option several years ago. I never found it very useful. Their guitars do have hot pickups, and I could get it loud enough, but I just didn't like the tone all that much. Newer production abandoned it.
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Another consideration is Series/Parallel switch option instead of coil split.
That way you retain Humbucking option in both positions
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Finally the pickups arrived. Got a bit confused about the wiring. There is an enclosed diagram exactly like the one in post #9. But I decided I won’t do a coil tap, just regular 2pu/2vol/2tone with a 3-way switch. So it’s that diagram but no coil split switches. What to do with the white wire then?
A normal splittable humbucker has 4 wires but this has 3... so shorting white to ground splits the pu? How does this work?
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A 4-wire configuration allows you to do series/parallel wiring as well since you have independent and separate access to both ends of both coils.
A center-tapped, 3 wire setup gives you access to each end of the series-wired dual-coil of the humbucker, plus the center point between the two coils. “Shorting” this center point to ground removes the signal from the now-shorted coil.
Being mindful of which of the two coils you are shorting to ground is sometimes helpful, since the remaining live coil is often preferred in the position closest to the FB. But that is no reason to do it that way - just something worth considering.
If you are not using the center tap, AND the center tap sits inside a shielded lead, then cut it off close to the end of the shielding and just make sure it can not make contact with anything.
EDIT: The silliness of “wiring diagrams” vs. simple schematics is that all of this would be very clear in a schematic. The so-called “bare drain wire” is attached to the lead shielding. Make sure your trimmed white wire can not make contact with the bare wire, or for that matter, anything else. A short bit (1/2 inch or so) of white wire that may be exposed outside the shielding, so that you can ensure it touches nothing, will not be a practical source of noise.
BZ
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@Bezoeker Aha then basically I just don’t connect it to anything and tape it off. Yeah I wish this was more clearly drafted. Thanks!
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Ok FINALLY I got the parts and the time to do the swap. Ended up replacing everything except the jack - for some reason there is no long jack in this country right now, maybe they use it as a covid measure...
Here is the complete harness:
The original wiring was messy with lots of extra cable, attached to the top with metal loops stuck to these glue pads. I removed all of them except for one I couldn't reach. The new wiring fits exactly. I wasn't expecting it, but the acoustic sound of the guitar improved noticeably. Now the family complains that the guitar "suddenly became loud".
A couple notes:
1. Don't try tying threads to the pots like the youtubers recommend, it created a huge mess and I ended up having to resolder a wire that came loose. In the end I just plugged a cable into the jack and pulled that into place. The rest I placed with my fingers, which was made easy by the wiring layout.
2. I installed A250K 10% CTS pots and the tone controls work perfectly. The volume however now responds differently. Probably the original volume pots were linear or some custom taper. No idea since they are unmarked.
First impressions of the new tone with the B6 pickups:
1. YES the guitar now sounds in the ballpark of Barry's Benedetto Bravo. It has that bell tone and completely new dynamics.
2. The guitar now doesn't sound 175ish at all.
3. I can get close to Barry's sound but no longer to Jim Hall's.
So B6 are not PAFs and now that is settled :-). I'm going to explore this for some time and maybe post a more detailed review of the B6.
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Several months have passed, the pickups are still in the guitar and I play it daily. Pickups sound great but the way volume and tone interact a problem.
I have the following issues:
1. As I roll off the tone, the volume decreases too, until approaching the resonant peak at 0 when volume increases again.
2. The volume drops very fast, most of it is gone at 7-8 on the dial. This effect is more noticeable in combination with (1).
I can work with (1) but (2) is a problem.
Would appreciate any ideas what can be done to get a usable range for the volume. Do I need linear or other kinds of pots for volume? Should I do 50's wiring instead and would the pickups work as intended in such a case? Other suggestions?
The pots I installed are not Bourns as the schematic says (but it says nothing about what kind of taper) but CTS 10% A250, so quality audio taper pots.
@sgosnell you are using these pickups, right? Do you have similar experience?
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