Build a Green Gizmo™ Pickup Re-Voicer Inside Your Guitar

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

This is such a cool and powerful upgrade give it a crack! Fourthwall Memberships only (Free to Join) waylonmcpherson-shop.fourthwall.com/ Schematic waylonmcpherson-shop.fourthwall.com/en-nzd/products/green-gizmotm-8-way-guitar-version? Extra Video Content (Members Only) waylonmcpherson-shop.fourthwall.com/supporters/videos/51516

[@bambamtherapist]

A little late to the party, but can you add another knob to and run tone knobs on the pickups also or does that defeat the purpose?

[@kennethcohagen3539]

Waylon, I bought your schematic for these and I can’t find any of the values you specified. Are they available in Australia? If so do you sell them?

[@metalman75]

Its effectively a Varitone. A company called Snarling Dog use to do them as a pedal I foolishly sold mine. Luckily I remembered the design of it and have built a few pedals with and without a boost and clipping. Great vids by the way Waylon.

[@nikos4828]

It's not only a matter of capacitor, a varitone needs a shelf (capacitance)

[@senacht]

Varitones also incorporate a choke coil in addition to a capacitor selection switch.

[@ScrubDaddy265]

A fellow in England makes a passive Varitone box. I bought mine on Reverb. Go get one!

[@picksalot1]

I made the equivalent of the Green Gizmo many years ago to easily test the effects of Caps on my Pickups. In the age of powerful Modelers, I've gone to a single Humbucker in the Bridge position, and just dial in my Presets to the tones I want. The press of one button gets everything I want. YMMV

[@jkalinna5607]

I did this mod on my crapy J&D Strat copy back in the 90's and then I found those Stellatone pots, which were a pot with a pcb stuck on the back of the pot with 15 different caps

[@tommoose13]

Just built my own Green Gizmo box! Thanks for making the schematic available!

[@Woozy.0]

Great method! I did a push pull mod to have two different caps ready onboard, but this is next level!

[@baimun]

One way to control the enable of the rotary circuit would be to use a 5 way super switch and then set position one as the bridge with no rotary, 2 being bridge plus the rotary, then pick your 3 favorite combos, like 5 being neck, 4 being neck+middle, and then I like to set 3 to be neck + bridge.

[@thomaslthomas1506]

I wonder how much this is worth $$. I am going to put this on my road guitar. I have learned to build them for minimal cost, maximum function and maximum damage to United Scarelines when they get swiped flying thru Newark.... Great Video.

[@sylvaintrottier4510]

I recently bought a Jet JS450, I modified it with two Fender Tex-mex single coils and a GFS Dream 180 Humbucker! What do you recommend as a diagram with a 10 way Strat Free-way Blade Switch? 250k or 500k for pot volume? How can I Buy This secret weapon switch! thank you very much for sharing all your knowledge and your passion for music!

[@aarontkacheve4595]

Wow sounds like the Fat 50s pickups from fender on that neck pickup with your mod

[@randallclemons8638]

This should have way more than 15 thousand views. I see you going places. Your stuff is getting around. I've seen it all over, just never had to time watch anything. Glad I did. I like your ideas.

[@Ry_Valz]

I'm gonna try this on my Gretsch 5435T. *I already added a push-push knob on the master volume to switch a treble bleed option* . The guitar only has 1 tone knob so upgrading it to this would make it a beast!

[@MrSouthsilicon]

How different is from a Gibson varitone? thanks your demo sounds fantastic!

[@claudevieaul1465]

Cool idea! 😀👍 But I'm most likely gravitating to one particular capacitor per pickup, out of the whole bunch. So I'll try it with that preferred cap on each pickup, wire the other end of those caps together and then add a mini toggle (or a push-pull pot) to connect this to ground. That way I can simply switch between stock sound and a "best-of" mod, without having to look 😎👍

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Nice, I like it!

[@RoyceTeal]

This is such a simple and effective mod, I LOVE IT! Gotta do itI Thanks.

[@geoffkeeler5106]

Thanks for another great video, must try this! Keep up the good work!

[@the1khronohs40]

What a great idea! Defiantly wanna try this at some point!

[@tostrmofo6686]

Nice, did the same thing a while ago, but with a push/pull from Vol to revoicer, so I could bypass the whole thing.

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

nice!

[@shadowminister4090]

I reckon this mod would work well with a strat, having 2 tone knobs.

[@吉田駆-i9f]

Bought the schem, is there a way to use 1vol, 1 tone, green gizmo?

[@pjmtry7]

Glad I bought that Gizmo!

[@thedailybass69]

ive made few with both bass and treble controls, really handy for the LP i have thats really muddy sounding

[@SousaphoneMusic]

I have a guitar with both a regular low pass filter (good ol' tone knob) and a high pass filter that cuts the lows. Being able to cut a bit of lows out of a dark humbucker really makes it more versatile.

[@robertdonosobuchner3129]

Great video as always. Your videos are inspiring.

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Thanks so much!

[@waynehughes8297]

I like that mod. It sounds very useful. Years ago, in the 80’s I had an idea to basically use the components from a simple overdrive pedal and fit them into the guitar so you could get overdrive at the flick of a switch. I figured I could fit other effects too. I think I was a bit ahead of the times cos it might be possible now with how small things are but back then I could of maybe got away with an overdrive circuit in there but nothing else for sure 😂

[@seredkin]

Is there a way to utilize a variable capacitor? Then the switch we don't need, right?

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

They do make variable capacitors but their range is not wide enough, it would be great for sure!

[@pewit8097]

I already did! Bought your schematic, a 12 position rotary and a bunch of caps and replaced one of the tone controls in my strat! Works brilliantly!

[@trevorarthurson6815]

Have you ever played with the EF86 channel of a Matchless DC30 amp? 😊

[@ricolasvilla]

How would you approach adding this mod to an electric bass? Would the capacitance be higher or lower? I really like this idea and am curious to play around with it!

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Thanks for checking this out, Caps within that range should still work well (100pf-10nf), I would get some alligator clips and start experimenting :)

[@RisingSunGuitarMods]

Hey Waylon, cool mod bro, love your video style and usefull ideas and mods on your channel. Looking forward to more, cheers!

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Awesome thanks man!

[@edwinstovall3334]

You're REALLY using a Peavey Raptor Plus EXP in this video?⁉ Faaan-TAStic, as an old comic book character used to say! I own one of those puppies; indeed, it was the first guitar I ever modified. Interestingly, I achieve some of the same revoicing with brass bridge parts (sustain block and saddles). The result was so good that I have yet to change out those pickups. I'll be watching the rest of the video intently, so as to decide better whether to undertake the project. Wish me luck!

[@НиколайБорщ-б5ц]

I made a Green Gismo and it is a great device. If I found with it the right cap and I want to install it into guitar in order to use it without GG, where to put it?

[@randallclemons8638]

I been seeing this video pop up recommended for a while. Finally watched it today. Been a rough week. My home burnt two days ago. But I have to say, I finally watched it today and brother, that is awesome. I watched several of your vids today. I actually saw you answer a question I see people ask on luthier Facebook pages, and not a single person answered correctly. It was those plates you can put on single coils. Mostly people troll the people who ask saying they are just Chinese made pickups. Not a single person of thousands of pro luthiers answered. But this thing you made, I've seen people saying others have done it, but like you said, it is simpler. And plus, none of the others are showing people how to do it. Thank you. I'm gonna do this to a peavey predator I have, that didn't burn. But I'm gonna put a toggle switch in so I can can shoot between my normal tone pot, or the gizmo. A kill switch if you will. But I'm gonna add just another hole in the pick guard, instead of replacing a pot. Might watch some of you doing acoustic stuff. I'm always down with making an acoustic more awesome. Have an idea for you. I had this idea one day, so I naturally I assumed others had it before me. And original idea is harder to come up with than people think. And I actually found a single person who has the same idea and ended up making a lot for the idea. My idea was adding reverb to an unplugged acoustic by installing a spring in the sound hole. The guy who made the kit used an an actual reverb spring. But I have several different gauges, or has I should say, I wanted to try. But he didn't make a video or good demos on it. What he has did sound good. Be cool if you tried that. I wondered after why this hasn't been a thing years ago. You attach a spring to the strap button on the inside of the guitar and attach the other end under the bridge somewhere. I'd like to do it, but it would be awesome if you tried and figured out the best way. I'm sure people would find that interesting. Anyway, thanx for the video.

[@JAMPROSOUND]

I've never really liked standard tone knobs and think this is going to be a fun mod to at least one of my Strats, one DC and one LP. My plan is to make the filters more obvious. I'd thought about this for the last year but have yet to actually start. Another mod I've thought about (for Strats) is to use a stepped master volume fed by a normal master volume and then a stepped master tone pot. The tone pot would do what is shown in this video. The normal master volume feeding the stepped volume would maintain the ability to do volume swells. The stepped master volume would allow an easily recallable master output level from the guitar to hit an amp or signal path at preset levels. I should add that I'm a lefty and play lefty. If you think guitar wiring is tricky, try doing it as a lefty. The amount of misinformation on the web becomes even more confusing when you have to think in reverse and account for taper etc.

[@JohnLloydDavis]

As someone that never uses their tone control I'm really impressed with this. I may combine this with my usual Strat mod which is the neck pickup on/off switch that I'm planning to do on my guitar.

[@sytharnia1717]

man this is awesome .. I have a few guitars this needs to go into, thanks for sharing the mate ..gothdave

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Sweet as Dave!

[@hobonickel840]

pickup question can you upgrade or spice up pickups to some degree if they sound shitty ...or throw them out?

[@1970Richiez]

This is awesome Thanks

[@utkarshsrivastava4451]

Tone knobs should have originally be doing this. Varying capacitance instead of resistance seems more intuitive( and useful)

[@jeffprice2008]

can you put this on a single pick-up (bridge) and witch pick-up would I use , P90,single or humbucker thank you for your time

[@worshipfulchords]

Super cool!

[@archivalrock]

So I have a 50s wiring setup currently, and love it for the ability to roll off the volume and get that cleanup. In theory you could just stick this gizmo between a standard volume and tone control and get that same effect of both? Also what about adding resistors in series with the capacitors just like a jaguar strangle switch, then you instead cut out low frequencies...

[@564df6g5h4d6f5g4h6d5]

Excellent video.

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Glad you liked it!

[@julirichmond3]

It's such a good tone chaser's mod.

[@numbersabcdefg]

Ever try getting one of these mods Into Andy Timmons hands? I feel like his edge of break up mesa would be at home in this mod ❤🎉

[@Craig52-zq1bt]

I repaired a Yamaha guitar back in 1984 that had this built in. As I recall it was 5 stops.

[@DavidRavenMoon]

This is what’s known as a “decade” control. I have a decade box that switches between cap values. The Les Paul Recording guitar had one of these built in.

[@gringogreen4719]

Soo... its like a Varitone on a Gibson?🤔

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Yeah, kinda, only more simple :)

[@gringogreen4719]

@@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar Very cool. I have guitars that have some tricks up their sleeves in terms of options. That said when I play (I am mainly a live player) I have noticed I only use one or a few. I attribute this mainly to being a Tele player at heart. I've also noticed that whether it's a guitar with some tricks or a nicely modded (Alchemy Audio for the win) that I don't hear a huge difference, that there really isn't a huge dynamic shift for most of these mods and tricks. I know that you brought that up in the Raptor. The biggest two mods that were "night and day" changes really fell to two guitars. On one guitar (Samick Malibu that is very tricked out) the biggest change was replacing the stock Strat Trem block with a brass one, like a double digit kind of change. The other was an Ibanez Artcore AK86 where I swapped out the stock trapeze tailpiece with an Ibanez Vintage Vibrato and the stock rosewood "Jazz" bridge with an Ibanez Roller Bridge. Again night and day with loads more sustain and some more frequencies moving to the forefront. What mods have done that for you? 🤔

[@kdakan]

Is this the same effect as using a shorter vs. longer guitar cable?

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Yes, that can also add parallel capacitance, you just can't dial it in the same + you would need around a 140ft cable to equal the most aggressive setting, cheers!

[@kdakan]

@@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar Thanks. I really like this thing. I tried the cable length sim parameter on the Boss-GP-10 (only up tp 40ft/12m) and it did help my Ibanez humbucker sound closer to the Les Paul. But it wasn't that effective on a Marshall amp sim, that already sounds very nasal, on cleaner amps the effect was more prominent. To me all Fender guitars need this green gizmo on the more extreme settings.

[@agostinodemarcus3617]

hi, do all the mods like this one and the previous apply also to active pickups? any cool mods for emgs?

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Hi, these will not work on EMG's the active circuitry blocks this from working directly on the pickup coil, cheers!

[@MichaelFerguson777]

Pls bro what are you playing after you say you like the neck pickup on seven I need that song in my life lol

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

Thanks! At the moment it's just an exercise is play when going through changes, I probably should turn it into something :)

[@MichaelFerguson777]

It's 🔥

[@MichaelFerguson777]

I keep replaying that piece of your song I really hope you finish it it's such a good lil riff

[@markhammer643]

I like to use a bidirectional tone control; a little thing I got from Craig Anderton. Not as MUCH variation, perhaps, as the GReen Gizmo, but much less complex as well. The principal is simple. A 1meg linear pot is used for the tone control, with the wiper tied to the volume pot input, and two *different* tone cap values, going to ground from their respective outside lugs. I like to use the more standard 22nf (.022uf) value at one end, and something around 1/4 to 1/5 that value (4700-5600pf) at the other end. It would be great if someone made 1M linear pots with a centre detente, but I've never encountered any. Fortunately, negligible treble cut occurs between 3 and 7 on the pot, which just requires that one move a bit away from either extreme, without *having* to move the control to the exact midpoint. Moving the pot wiper to the smaller-cap end yields a modest resonant bump in the range of 800hz or so, without the "woof" of the larger cap value. Takes the brittle/strident quality away from single coils but still retains enough "bark" that it is quite suitable for biting solos. Sounds great pushing an overdrive. The perk is that, with the rotation required to go from maximum dull to maximum bright cut down to less than half, it makes "pinky wah" much easier to achieve...assuming that tone pot is situated where it can be reached while playing.

[@edwinstovall3334]

An idea: Why not try this same mod with a more traditional S-type guitar, meaning something with 3 knobs? My layout would have one master volume, one master tone, and one master Green Gizmo knob. I wonder what order the tone and Gizmo knobs should be wired in? Should the traditional tone control come first and be revoice, or should it control revoiced pickups? I've no clue, but it might be interesting to find out -- and there is no dearth of cheap S-type guitars out there, both new and used! I would like to see this idea explored, please. ... And how might it work with FOUR knobs?

[@_allegra]

Yeah, this is gonna replace my - let's face it: unused - tone knob ❤

[@barlowetube]

Using the nik pickup? Where's the nik?

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

A Nik pickup is what we call a Neck Pickup in New Zealand 🤣

[@danielbarbieri8199]

Isn't it a simple varitone ?

[@ianhamilton350]

No, the varitone has an inductor making it a bunch of notch filters

[@danielktdoranie]

It’s also called a Gibson “var-i-tone” switch

[@nikos4828]

No gibson add a shelf, capacitance it's not only capacitors

[@GCKelloch]

increasing capacitance can be deceptive. If you start off with a low (~200pF) Capacitance cable (b4 your first ~1M Ohm buffer/preamp stage), the resonant peak of a typical ~2.5H Strat pickup will then be well above the harshest 3-3.5kHz range and relatively low in amplitude. Adding capacitance can not only put the resonance in that harshest range, but the amplitude increases so it's that much harsher. I do a simpler mod of using a 1.5~2nF cap on the tone knob with my 10' ~160 Sommer Spirit LLX cable with noiseless HiCON jacks. It has the usual reduction of the peak from 10-7 on the knob, but then a peak ranging from 1.6~2.2kHz starts to come up from 7-1. It's very musically useful. The most bite is the 2.2kHz peak at 1, but it's not harsh. The most mellow sounds are in the 4~6 range where the peak level is lowest and the high-end rolled off. You can use separate 1.5~2nF caps coming from the selector switch lugs for each pickup to either tone knob pot so the combined pickup positions keep the same peak freqs. It only makes sense to use it with pickups that aren't any higher inductance than ~4.5H with ~1nF caps and 500k pots, but the effect is less obvious with Steel/Fe core (inside the coils) pickups that already have much less high end than AlNiCo core pickups.

[@whyis45stillalive]

Hendrix did something similar, when connecting his effects. Using long cables, between effects, which only need a few inches of cable, can make a big difference, in resistance.

[@9999plato]

They made a $100 tone pot just like this years ago sold in an online bass store.

[@markhammer643]

I have never understood why companies persist in using the exact same tone cap value for neck and bridge pickups. All I can surmise is that it is the sheer dead weight of precedent. Does *anyone* ever switch to their bridge pickup for a dull tone? So why do we see 22nf-47nf used for neck AND bridge tone controls, and not 22-47nf for neck and 6800pf-10nf (for example) for bridge? Makes no sense to me.

[@MichaelFerguson777]

So i guess ill just keep bugging you till you post that song #nevergonnastopbugginyou

[@deltavistastudio124]

GIRATS!

[@rackpit]

The whole „getting it right at the source“ argument is a bit dubious. Your Guitar cable has capacitance and switching between different cables has exactly the same effect as adding different capacitors. There is no „source“, the whole chain of pickups, wires, resistors (potis), and amplifier-input is one reactive lcr circuit, forming a second order low pass filter with resonance peak in most cases.

[@christianurgese]

Grounded everything... it seems to me.

[@Cardinalglade]

So you made a varitone switch. Not really a new invention.

[@WaylonMcPhersonGuitar]

This is actually way more simple than a Varitone, thanks for checking out the vid :)