The Fezz Parka Mod or 50s wiring mod

[roger bayliss]

Anyone using the Fezz Parka mod. It was used in late 50s Gibson's originally but is available for Strats and Teles as well. It requires a few simple wiring changes as explained in the article below and no extra components. It is a treble bleed circuit but they say it improves the tone and output of the guitar. Can be done for bass guitars too !

As far as I have read it appears to be very popular with studio guitarists and many say it's a great change to make. It is partly thought to be one of the reasons late 50s Gibson's sounded so good.

Original credit for circuit is to a Bill Lawrence from Gibson who taught guitarist Fezz Parka how to do it.


https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Gibson_50s_wiring_on_a_Stratocaster

NB Do not use this with any existing or other treble bleed circuit as treble will be too much for most needs.

[Ian Miller]

Thanks for posting this Roger, very interesting.

Ian

[cockroach]

Bill Lawrence (aka Willi Lorenz/Billy Lorento) was a German guitar player who was also a genius with electric guitar pickup and circuit design- he was a consultant to Framus in the '50's and '60's- he had various signature endorsed models sold by Framus, and was also later a consultant with Gibson in the '70's- he designed a number of pickups and circuits for Gibson. He later put out his own design pickups and had a website etc...very clever bloke..

[Uncle Fiesta]

Basically the '50s mod' involves taking the feed for the tone control(s) from the output side of the volume control rather than the input. I've never done it as I've found over the years I've got so used to the reduction in treble as the volume goes down, that it sounds very odd if it doesn't do that!

I read somewhere that turning down the tone also reduces the volume, is this correct? I can't imagine being able to get used to that either.

My next Strat project is to have master tone and volume, so I may try it on that to see how I get on.

[cockroach]

Basically the '50s mod' involves taking the feed for the tone control(s) from the output side of the volume control rather than the input. I've never done it as I've found over the years I've got so used to the reduction in treble as the volume goes down, that it sounds very odd if it doesn't do that!

I read somewhere that turning down the tone also reduces the volume, is this correct? I can't imagine being able to get used to that either.

My next Strat project is to have master tone and volume, so I may try it on that to see how I get on.

Yes to both questions!

I use a guitar with two humbuckers on gigs, I removed the tone control completely- there's now just a master volume and a pickup selector switch..no real need for the tone pot, and it makes the HB pickups brighter and louder..as does removing most pots etc in the circuit..maximum volume and treble is easily obtained- just connect the pickups output wires directly to a guitar lead!

[Uncle Fiesta]

Yes, I had a twin humbucker guitar a few years back, just had a selector and two knobs, volume for each pickup and no tones. Also had a pull/push switch on each pot, one was for coil split and the other for phase.