PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

[BYN]

Re: PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

You have to detach the red/white wires from the switch, keep them connected to each other and tape them off. You're getting a bad sound because you're shorting out half the humbucker, also known as "splitting" the humbucker. Only the green and black wire should be connected to anything else. The black needs to go where the old white wire used to be, and the green needs to go to where the old red wire used to be.

Have you checked the capacitor on the tone pot to make sure it's not been pressed down, that the metal leads are not rubbing up against other metal?

Yeah I checked the capacitor.....its bent resting alongside of the cavity. one lead is soldered to the lug....and the other is soldered to the ground.

black needs to go where the old white wire used to be, and the green needs to go to where the old red wire used to be.

So green and black get connected to the switch......opposite of how I currently have them. And then the bare wire just goes to ground by itself?red and white taped off.

Do you think the way I have them wired up could cause the humbucker to sound really "shrill" and lack body? I had to raise both pickups really high in order to get a decent sound out of them. Which I found a bit odd in comparison to my other guitars and the height I have the pickups at. This guitar just sounds really different.

And when I'm in that 2 and 4 position the distortion just drops out almost completely. Goes from distortion to a light overdrive and sounds clean. Like a nasal bright funk bass sound. Like the seinfeld tv show interludes lol. I tried to convey that with my youtube video. But it may not be apparent. I'm going to try your suggestions and see what happens. Thanks for taking the time to help me out!

[DreX]

Re: PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

Right, bare wire to ground, black to the "hot" side of the switch, green to the ground side of the switch (just reverse the green and black if you can't tell which is which and get it wrong).

They way it's wired now, with the red/white pair attached to the switch, it will be "splitting", which sounds shrill to some people. This has nothing to do with pickup height.

I don't actually know why your switch has a ground side, it fully disconnect the neck and bridge pickups when they're not in used for reasons which I'm unaware of. A Strat uses the same selector, but uses the other half for tone controls purposes, not to disconnect the ground of the pickups.

The 2 / 4 nasal sound is because the middle pickup is reverse polarity of the Duncans. Just switch the middle pickup's red and white wires and then 2 and 4 will sound correct.

[Farkus]

Re: PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

BYN I watched your clip and very likely the 2&4 is a phase issue.

If you are concerned that the current wiring is messing with the tone of the pickups you could always hot wire the JB to the output jack and try that...it will be a bit brighter than what it would running it through the circuit but it will give you a ballpark idea of what the pickup should sound like so you can compare.

[BYN]

Re: PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

BYN I watched your clip and very likely the 2&4 is a phase issue.

If you are concerned that the current wiring is messing with the tone of the pickups you could always hot wire the JB to the output jack and try that...it will be a bit brighter than what it would running it through the circuit but it will give you a ballpark idea of what the pickup should sound like so you can compare.

Preciate the advice!

[BYN]

Re: PROBLEM WITH NEWLY INSTALLED PICKUPS

Just an update. I finally got the pickups installed. After unhooking everything and attempting to rewire it twice lol. I replaced the 5 way switch after probably destroying it and removed the tone pot. So I like how they sound so far. Thanks to everyone that offered some help I appreciate it. So I recorded a video and tried to capture the tone of these pickups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODrT9vsiQD4