Gibson Lucille Varitone True Bypass Modification

The owner of this Gibson Lucille wanted to get a better sound from his guitar. Although position “1″ on the Gibson Varitone switch is supposed to be bypass, it does leave the choke in the circuit which loses volume and precious tone.

As the guitar’s owner didn’t find the stereo feature of the guitar useful, there was an opportunity to convert the guitar to mono, and use the now redundant other half of the Varitone switch to switch the choke in and out of the circuit.

I found a post on the Les Paul Forum where someone had done a similar job on his Gibson ES-345 and kindly provided a wiring diagram.

The modified guitar now has a lot more volume in the bypass position and suffers no loss of tone.