Fender 72′ RI Deluxe – rewire
This summer I ended up picking up a Fender 72′ RI Deluxe in walnut finish. It is a beautiful finish. It is pretty far removed from a standard Telecaster, but very cool none the less. I really like the 70′s strat headstock on these things. It comes with two wide range humbucker pickups. Right out the box this thing sounds ok. Looks far better than it sounds.
I found the neck pickup to be to muddy sounding. Just very inarticulate and mushy. Even when played through brighter sounding amps. Bridge was almost good. Actually had a warmer sound compared to most standard bridge pickups.
The guitar definitely has mojo in looks. It just needs some help in the tone department. The first big problem is fender uses 250k pots in all their guitars. While that is a fine value for single coils, it just doesn’t cut it for most humbucking guitars. So I ordered all new electronics. CTS 500k pots, orange drop caps, switchcraft switch, and some volume mods.
This whole rewire took a bit longer than I had hoped. After getting everything all together I had a bad ground loop. Fender did not have the bridge grounded at the factory. I had grounded that, but still it buzzed like crazy when not touching it. After going through the guitar several times I eneded up tracing the problem to the wires coming off the switch. It had the vintage cloth wire. Changed that out and all was good. I guess the wire was picking up too much interference.
Buttoned everything back up and fired up my Vox. Wow what a difference! Much more dimensional sound and the neck pickup is actually usable now. The guitar just came alive. The Volume mods work great. They are basically 220K resistor in parallel with a 471pf capacitor. They are soldered in parallel on the volume pot. It preserves the High frequencies and improves the taper when rolling back the volume. I tried it with them in and out. I will be adding this mod to all my guitars now. I highly recommend them and this mod to all the tele deluxe owners. This guitar has lots off sparkle and that high end kerrang.
November 1st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
This is a great post.
I was wondering what the volume mods you made were.
I may have some other questions for you as well. Thanks alot!
cheers.
Brandon
November 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
oh i remember now. lol.
What 500k pots should I change it out with, i.e. whats the difference with solid or split shaft and so on. I have never made any modifications on my guitars for fear of unhinging a fuck up. But I really love this guitar and would like to try and take the dive. Any help you can offer me is very appreciated. Thanks again!
brandon
brandonsatterlee@mac.com
November 1st, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Brandon,
thanks for the comment. CTS are probably the most common high quality brand of pots. I hear good things about Alpha too. The difference between solid and split shaft are the diameter of the shaft. The split shafts have a split down the middle and are smaller and are made for the kind of knobs that press on. Solid shaft are a bit larger in diameter and are made for the kind of knobs that have screws on the side and are held in place by tightening the screw. Most telecasters use this type. Other than that they are identical in function as far as electronics go.
Volume or treble bleed mods are a resistor and compactor wired between the first and second post of the volume pot. This allows an amount of high end to be maintained in the signal that would normally be grounded out. You know how the lower you turn your volume the muddier it gets? This basically allows some of those highs to be kept in your signal. Their are different values of caps that be used. If you do a google search for “Treble bleed mod ” there is a lot of information on different values and setups. I had recently come across a wiring setup that I want to try out on a different guitar to see how it compares to the Treblebleed/volume mod. When I get around to it I will post about it.
If this is your first time doing this to a guitar I can understand the fear of not wanting to mess it up. I would check out mojotone.com they have a pre-wired kit or you can buy the parts kit specifically for this guitar.
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.asp?pid=577796&pg=92721&id=2115060 (pre-wired assembly)
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.asp?pid=101351&pg=12388&id=2113383 ( here is the parts kit. It does however come with 250k pots. If you email them about it they will add the 500k instead)
They also sell pre-made volume mods. These values are what I have in mine right now. I still am experimenting with different values, but right now I am liking these.
http://www.mojomusicalsupply.com/item.asp?pid=573981&pg=13963&id=2113347 ( volume mod)
Now if you don’t want to do a whole rewire I suggest just getting the 4 pots and the orange caps and the volume mods. That is fairly simple to do. If you have never soldered before go on youtube and watch some videos on how to do it. Just take your time when doing it. After you do it and it works it becomes addicting. Especially when you listen to it and how something that isn’t too difficult can make a big difference. Good Luck with it, and keep me posted how it works for you.
There are other stores out there where you can order all these parts. Mojotone is the only one I am aware of that made a kit specifically for this guitar. All other part stores carry most of the same parts that are in the kit. It is nice to at least use them as a reference.
Josh
May 29th, 2011 at 6:49 am
Hi,
I stumbled upon your info regarding the 72 Deluxe mod and it is
just fantastic,thanks for making this available.I have been interested in picking up one of these guitars and realize that a mod will be in order to improve the sound,I am leaning towards the Mojo assembly and was wondering if this has the treble bleed mod already on the wiring set or will I need to alter the assembly they sell particularly for this guitar,another question regarding keeping this guitar as quite as possible,what ground wire worked best for you.
Thanks a million in advance for your assistance.
Respectfully,
Jesse
Miami,Fl
June 1st, 2011 at 3:22 pm
@Jesse
I believe the mojo assemblies come with the volume mods, if not I am sure they will include them. I can’t remember what I used for grounding wire. It was either wire I had laying around or it was the wire that came stock. The cable that was causing the most noise was the cable from the pickup selector. I wired it up first with the vintage cloth wire I believe first. Changed that out for some nicely shielded wire and all was good. Hope that helps.
Josh