Buckethead's white Les Paul is a very special and original guitar. It's got some awesome, uncommon for LP's electronics, like „arcade” style kill-switches (red push-buttons) and a bridge humbucker coil splitter. The guitar got also beautiful finish and custom neck profile - go to Gibson's website for more info.
In this post, I would like to show you a wiring project, made especially to reach all functions of the Buckethead's signature Gibson guitar. You can use it to modify some traditional Les Paul, or even SG.
Diagram:
How it works?
Kill-switches
A guitar kill-switch is a special kind of connector. If you will push the button, you will connect the hot path with the ground. It will „kill” the guitar signal.
Some folks like to use toggle switches for this purpose. I recommend buttons. A big, „arcade” style button is a very fast tool, so making the „machine gun” effect will be easy. BTW, bigger buttons usually needs bigger mounting holes in a guitar body,
'Volume + tone' and 'coil splitter'
The volume pot got 300K (not 500K), so the guitar wiring can be a little bit „warmer” than you may expect. Of course, you can make it in your own way, with different values. It can sounds nice also with the 500K.
The tone control is made from the 500K push-pull pot. Its switch is used as a coil splitter for the bridge humbucker.
I don't know what's the Buckethead's tone cap value. The typical 0,022uF or 0,033uF will be fine.
Pickup selector
The pickup switch is typical for Gibson guitars. It's just mounted in uncommon place. I think, it still can be very handy here.
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This guitar wiring can be a good way to go for many „machine gun” effect enthusiast. It will also change the guitar look, especially if you pick some crazy knobs and push-buttons.
