Workshop: Cleaning-Up '60s Tone

This guitar is an Italian-made Crucanelli. Like many electrics from the time, the builders over-thought the wiring on the inside and destroyed the tone before it could get to the jack.

Here's what the 3-way selector switch looks like from the rear. I see the pickup leads coming in and then also leads soldered to the same pins routing down to the volume/tone controls for each unit. 

I also see stuff that shouldn't be there: two capacitors and a resistor. These are the tone-suckers lodged in the circuit making (1) the neck pickup sound like its tone is always rolled-off fully to muddy nothingness and (2) both pickups sound mucky in the middle position.


Hilariously-enough, both capacitors are labeled Ducati. Yes, surprisingly, it's actually related to the motorcycles! Back in the day, Ducati was both an electronics/engineering supplier and an engine/motorcycle company. They split into separate entities but both continued to use the same name.

Here's my "corrected" wiring -- nothing to suck tone, here. I've removed the "big boy" capacitor to ground and  ran jumpers in place of the other cap and resistor that were stuck in there. Now it sounds real and the guitar actually feels like it's breathing rather than one millisecond from death.

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