Helps captures the sound of the 50's P Bass!
Hand Made by Luxe Radio & Musical Instruments Co. in the USA!
This auction is for one REPRODUCTION Cornell-Dubilier .1mfd/150vdc cap and one each of NOS 15k, 22k and 220k 1/2 Watt Carbon Comp resistors as used in Precision Bass models released from 1952 to 1956. The kit will include detailed diagrams of all four 1950s Precision Bass wiring schemes. As pictured, this kit also includes a short jumper wire insulated with varnished cloth spaghetti tubing, as used on the originals.
This is another great "Lost" wiring scheme that comes to me courtesy of luthier Clive Russell and Precision Bass collector Detlef Schmidt.
The original Precision bass guitars that came out of Fender in late 1951 were wired with an Astron cap and a 15k 1/2 watt resistor (These were an early low-tolerance type with no resistance band which I make by repainting the color bands on a NOS 15k 1/2 Watt resistor). Leo didn't seem to like using the Astron brand caps as tone caps in his professional model instruments, but he did have plenty of the .1mfd Astron caps on hand for his amplifiers, so he used them in the Precision until he got his first shipment of the .1mfd/150vdc chiclets from Cornell-Dubilier. The wiring was modified slightly sometime after the chiclets came in and by 1955 the 15k resistor was changed to a 22k. Some models even have a 220k (Big volume drop with these! But Leo did must have liked the effect because he revived it for the first Jazz Basses). The basic wiring stayed the same until 1956, when the resistor was dropped from the scheme. The resistor was most likely intended to protect the cones in amplifiers un-prepared for that nice deep P-Bass BOOM, but with the release of the narrow panel Bassman, the right equipment was available and the resistor was no longer needed.
Wax Capacitor Replicating: Luxe reproduction wax capacitors are made with the same materials and methods as the original. The only difference is that instead of a foil and paper “slug” at the core, they use a NOS Vitamin Q type paper and oil capacitor. These were manufactured from the 1950s through the 1980s by various companies, like Sprague, for military and aerospace use. Unlike other types of capacitors, the dielectric and foil in these are sealed in a metal and glass tube, making them impervious to heat and moisture. They do not degrade with time and they do not drift in value. They have the added bonus of having an oil-soaked paper as the dielectric, which arguably has a more “musical” quality than any other dielectric. Luxe ensures that every cap made uses some raw materials from the appropriate era. Their recipes follow the same ones used by the original manufacturers, with a few changes. For example: Dykanol is not used in their capacitors. Most capacitors made before 1956 were coated with a blend of pitch and petroleum jelly, this is the nasty sticky stuff that radio guys hate, Luxe uses pitch and beeswax. It looks the same, but it doesn’t get all over the place.
Why should you use these caps? Most will agree that a vintage paper in oil cap has the best sound for a vintage instrument. But the problem with many old caps (film and wax-paper) is that they dry out and begin to leak. Vintage Vitamin Q type caps, on the other hand, are sealed in glass and encased in metal, so they can handle flying through space and guiding missiles. They don't leak unless you smash them with a hammer. When you install a 50-year-old Vitamin Q cap in your guitar, you get the exact sound that your guitar was meant to have. When you install a Luxe cap in your guitar, you get a 30 to 50 year old, unused, Paper in Oil cap that looks exactly like the cap that should be there, and will last forever.
