Question Wiring and fret recommendations for Luke II

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Looking for some advice on taking out the EMGs and going with passives for my Luke II. I have a Fred and 2 Cruisers from Dimarzio picked out, but need advice on pots and switches. Would 250K or 500K be better? I'm going to do a treble bleed, too. What's your favorite 5 way switch? I'm also going to refret it, and want to go slightly bigger and stainless, if anyone has any advice on that. Thanks in advance!

 

[NickNihil]

Don’t know about frets but you’re most likely going to be best off using 500k pots with humbuckers (with a couple exceptions). As far as pickups, have you looked into the Dimarzio Transitions? Those are Lukather’s passive sig pickups that come on L3’s. Haven’t played them myself but they sound killer in video demos.

 

[DrKev]

Looking for some advice on taking out the EMGs and going with passives for my Luke II. I have a Fred and 2 Cruisers from Dimarzio picked out, but need advice on pots and switches. Would 250K or 500K be better? I'm going to do a treble bleed, too. What's your favorite 5 way switch? I'm also going to refret it, and want to go slightly bigger and stainless, if anyone has any advice on that. Thanks in advance!

I would go with 500K and add a parallel resistor to the switch so the humbucker sees the two 500K it prefers and the single coils will see the resistance as if they have 250K pots.

As far as pickups, have you looked into the Dimarzio Transitions? Those are Lukather’s passive sig pickups that come on L3’s. Haven’t played them myself but they sound killer in video demos.

Luke used the Transitions (and a version of the Injector noiseless singles) from 2012 until 2020 when he switched to Music Man designed Humbuckers and the single coils from the Cutlass. And the L4 humbuckers are not the same as on the LIII.

 

[beej]

Hard to comment on pickups as it's so subjective ... but I will. Personally I prefer lower output singles and a medium output bridge, so I would probably consider a set of Areas for the singles if I was going noiseless. (I don't love the Cruisers ... they work for Andy Timmons but I find they don't have a lot of character.) And yeah- if your bridge needs 500k pots (not all of them do), then go with 500k pots and the resistor trick.

Fret size is also personal preference. MM tends uses 0.047" x 0.104" ("Medium Jumbo") for stainless on many of their instruments. I went with that when I refretted my Lukes and am quite happy.

 

[Sweat]

Every one is different would never change the EMG pups, but frets well stainless medium for me