Gibson L6-S advice needed

1bassleft · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:54 am Post subject:

Took me a while before I found out what the rotary does (well done, vintageguitar.com):

Quote:

The positions available on the rotary are: 1=both p.u. in series in phase; 2=neck p.u. only; 3=both parallel in phase; 4=both parallel out-of-phase; 5=bridge only; 6=both in series out-of-phase.

Two facts to consider here. (1) You've had the guitar since new, so that rules out the rotary being yanked out and replaced with a three-way, then a botched return to the original 3-way. (2) Your neck-pup-only and bridge-pup-only settings work fine, so we can rule out pup damage. There are some strange things that I don't quite figure out, but it looks like either the connections to the rotary's tabs or the rotary internals themselves are at fault.

Having narrowed it down like this, it's worth spending just a little money having a decent tech look it over. It beats trying to describe things by email. If that 6-way needs replacing that might be a difficult part to find, but resist any lazy tech's "solution" of replacing it with a toggle switch.

ghostinthisguitar · Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 5

Thank you for your responce Blues,
I'm not the best tuned string on the axe, what is the input connector?

ghostinthisguitar · Joined: 09 Feb 2006 Posts: 5

Sorry Bass, didnt see your reply. I do believe you are right about having a tec look it over, and that you are also right about not having a 3 way put in to replace it (I would never ever do such a thing). I have been searching the web for this rotary but with no luck. The closest I have come to it is the 6 way push pull that is found on Lucille. It might have to come to that. Although as luck would have it there is a great guitar show coming to my town on Feb 19th. I have a feeling I might get lucky mingling amoung the folks. But I was in hopes of having this sweetie just right to show it off, as many people will be doing with there prized stringed instruments.

1bassleft · Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:42 am Post subject:

This one's had me really head-scratching; particularly at 3am. Part of the problem is I'm not Bill Lawrence and the other part is I've never touched an L6-S. (Atchly, I'm not even much of a solder monkey, never mind a Bill Lawrence). Ironically, according to Bill's own website he wanted the guitar to have two 3-way toggle switches but the bean-counters at Gibson forced the rotary on him.

So far as I can make out, the rotary does not change the internals of the humbuckers - it alters the combination of those two. Given that the aforementioned bean counters wanted stock Gibbo components used, it's safe to say that the each HB is wired internally in series and there's a hot wire and a ground wire.

If that's the case, then I am definitely head-scratching. Position 1 (series, in phase) should be such that both bypass circuits are disconnected but your descn sounds like the opposite is happening. Hmmm, before I go any further Ghost, it might help if you can describe how the sound is affected when the control is turned. Then I can do some more thunk.

1) Should be the beefiest, fattest of the lot but we know it's dead.
2) Should be warmer and bassier than (5). Tapping the pups with fingernail should get a click out of the amp for the neck but not the bridge.
3) fingernail should get taps out of both. Can't compare the sound to (1) unfortunately but slightly more Fenderish than a Gibson "both on" setting.
4) Ditto to (3), except the output should be reduced quite a bit and be "quackier" for want of a better term.
5) Brighter than (2) and the fingertap should only get a pop from the amp on the bridge pup.
6) Fingertap should get amp pop from both pups. Should get thicker, louder "quack" than (4). Can't for a minute think why it should sound like (5).

Let us know what you do get, especially from the "finger tap on pup case" test. If inconclusive, use a metal coin but keep your amp vol down as I don't want your speaker blowing.

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