T4 Pickup Switch Upgrade for Les Paul Style Guitars

Awesome Musical Instruments released a new upgrade system for Les Paul style guitars, featuring a switching circuit that allows for 68 tones.

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This new upgrade features the same T4 Pickup Switch Technology, only this time it is designed to fit the smaller available space on LP style guitars.

As an example, Awesome Musical Instruments upgraded an Epiphone Les Paul Standard guitar, one of the more affordable and popular LP guitars in the market. They first replaced the stock two 2-wire humbucker pickups with two 4-wire humbucker pickups and then proceeded to install their switching circuitry.

A major hurdle for modifying Les Paul electronics is the lack of body cavity for electronics. Modifying the body by carving out cavities will be a turn-off for many players so they thought of a simple way to fit the circuit into the guitar discretely – by permanently removing the lower volume and tone knobs. The freed up space is then used to house the T4 Pickup Switch Upgrade.

The manufacturer had this to say about the workaround “One Volume and Tone control is a simpler way manage all the pickup coils. The 3-way switch no longer functions, but it was not removed so the guitar appeared more stock.”

Once equipped with the upgrade, your Les Paul style guitar will go from having 3 different pickup sounds to a total of 68. It is said to cover various types of music including jazz, blues, country, surf, metal and many more.

Note that because of space limitation, installation is rated to be of intermediate difficulty, requiring the use of hand tools, an electric drill, soldering iron, and an ohmmeter. The upgrade will come with easy to follow schematics and diagrams. The Pickup Switch Upgrade is not compatible with Piezoelectric and active (i.e., battery powered) pickups.

You can head over to AweSome Musical Instruments for more information.

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