H/H/H wiring

[Hank-]

Re: H/H/H wiring

Your continuity test is fine, not all poles will give a positive reading, there's usually one that will give the beep. Yours is fine, I should have just told you to do a continuity test between the strings & the pickup height adjustment screws, my mistake.

Anyways, I'm free now so gonna go through all the vids you posted before replying. I'll get back to you soon.

[Zaakkk]

Re: H/H/H wiring

I just got email from DiMarzio support.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pcn7mtfs3g5jzmi/Screenshot_20200723-195608_Gmail.jpg?dl=0

Reply:
"The pickup continuity check you did

https://youtu.be/AfSPMEiPLJ8

shows nothing wrong, which is not unexpected. It is not unusual for the noise floor to come up when the volume control is rolled down. It is present to some degree in many guitars. One possible way to lessen the problem is to trim the pickup wires short, if you have not already done so. Excess wire length in the control compartment can act as an antenna for noise.

The pickup wiring is incorrect, unless you prefer the middle pickup to be out of phase with the neck and bridge pickups. This affects the coil splits as well. It would be better to connect the black wires from the neck and bridge pickups to the 5-way switch, with the white and bare wires grounded. The red+green wires from the neck and bridge pickups go to the toggle switch for tapping. The wiring of the middle pickup is not changed. There will be hum cancellation in positions 2 and 4 when the tap switch is engaged.

DiMarzio Inc."

Would somebody draw this wiring for me please?
I'm afraid they don't really say where exactly to connect the wires?

[Hank-]

Re: H/H/H wiring

Wait for sometime, I noticed something I need to check again in your vids. The tone pots lugs, the middle is or was making contact to the shield until you soldered a thin wire there to the body of the pot underneath. Is the lug to left where the wires are connected also somehow touching the shield like the middle one? I need to check again your vids of your continuity tests, to verify that, but if you have it lying around, just do a quick check & report back if you are getting continuity on that lug & the grounds.

[Zaakkk]

Re: H/H/H wiring

I can confirm, the two side Tone lugs are not in contact with the shielding and are not grounded.

[Hank-]

Re: H/H/H wiring

I can confirm, the two side Tone lugs are not in contact with the shielding and are not grounded.

Ok that was a lot of vids, I still may have missed on some.

Compared to the wiring diagram you linked on dropbox , you have wired the volume & tone pots different. Did you change anything else?
The way you have it wired now looks like 50's wiring because the tone is connecting to the middle of the volume. Also, did the tone knob not working issue get resolved? I got lost in your vids & can't seem to find the sequence properly lol

https://d2emr0qhzqfj88.cloudfront.ne...UV7splitPP.pdf Thats the diagram I found on dimarzios site, it's black & white mostly, but looks like the same thing.
Second thing. the areas are out of phase with dimarzio's humbuckers, so you need the reverse the green & red on the area pickup for it to be in phase with the gravity storms. So for the area58 the green wire will be hot & connect to the switch & red will be ground.

Next, the HiZ input is actually meant for electric guitar pickups, you should not get added noise from using it compared to the other one on the interface.

So, one thing you can try is go back to modern wiring. See what that does. Before that I forgot if you mentioned earlier but do you have a good reliable extra instrument cable around with you? Try it, also tell me which brand it is. Also easier to check for continuity if you plug a cable in the socket & alligator clip the other end plug of the cable, that way you won't need long probes for the DMM.

[Zaakkk]

Re: H/H/H wiring

Hank,
The first time I tried this wiring diagram, I done it exactly how it is shown. Because of the "Volume Down = Noise Up" issue (making the Volume completely unusable in any other value but only on Max) I dismantle it completely and used two new pots and all new wires, even though none of the old one was found to be faulty.

The second time now I used the pull push as a tone and that's all. Nothing is changed because the pull push is completely independent device from the pot itself.
In short, nothing is changed but the pots and wires.

The tone knob not working issue was resolved by Jack. He asked me to double check my soldering and he was right, the wire underneath wasn't soldered good enough. I did it better and the Tone issue was solved.

Yes, according to DiMarzio's customer support the DiMarzio Area middle stacked humbucker is out of phase with the Gravity Storm humbuckers, so they advise me to change the 2 Gravity wires and to leave the middle the way it is.

Are you suggesting different wiring from what DiMarzio support proposed?
I will try yours or theirs regardless, I just need the wiring drawn because I can't make it out just by words.

The Hi Z (impedance) input is in no doubt definitely meant for electric guitars and obviously my DigiTech RP360 guitar processor have such circuit always engaged by deault.

Right now, my guitar's impedance is either (most likely) too low or (unlikely) too high.

The noise disappears when I use the USB audio interface without engaging the High Z circuit.

So I am more than ready to try the so called modern wiring and see what that does, I just need wiring schematics graphic that I can follow.

I have extra four UK "No Bull" (lifetime guaranteed) cables + one Ibanez that came from the factory with the guitar. So all together I have and tried 6 cables as they were the first to be accused of making the noise

If you have the time, please draw a wiring graphic for me, regardless if it is the proposed by DiMarzio or your own.

Thanks.

[Hank-]

Ok, modern wiring involves connecting the tone control to the volume pot on the left lug(non-grounded one), the same place where the selector switch hot gets connected, the output jack hot is connected to the middle alone. In your new wiring that you have done, you have connected the tone to the middle lug of the volume pot, the same place where the output jack wire is connected. This is 50s wiring and is used mostly when you want to avoid having to using a treble bleed cap on the volume pot. So all you need to do to reverse the above is move that wires from the tone pot going to volume pot to a left lug.

I can give you a new wiring with a more different scheme than just coil splits because you have an area58 in the middle & a simple 4pdt & normal 5way switch would have been sufficient to split the pickups. So the new scheme will have lot of options but it will involve a lot of wiring connections for the 5way super switch alone, rest is easy.

I need to know what kind of 4PDT switch you have with you, I'm adding a image to explain that.



Here's the way the 5way super switch & a DPDT(push pull) can be used to get different combinations.


Now as far as the 4PDT switch, if it were a simple ON/ON switch, you could use it to toggle series/parallel mode for the neck & bridge humbuckers easily, since yours is a ON/ON/ON toggle I'll have to check if I can get it to do the same.

Basically, if you had two push/pull pots, & one 4PDT ON/ON toggle then you could have made use of some of the S1 switching diagrams for strats to get various pickup combos & the push/pulls for dual sounds.

Also here's a dimarzio basic dual sound wiring using push/pulls for HSH setup. This is for when using an area series or virtual vintage series middle pickup, so you can see that the green & red are reversed while connecting it. This one utilizes modern wiring as well.

[Zaakkk]

Hank,
On your question.
"I need to know what kind of 4PDT switch you have with you, I'm adding a image to explain that."

I have:
Mini toggle switch (3PDT) with 9 terminals - 2 Positions (On/On)
and
DiMarzio EP1111 (4PDT) Pickup Selector Switch with 12 terminals - 3 Position (On/On/On)

I did the wiring using the 3PDT switch.

I am afraid I am unable to understand the logic behind the diagrams, I can just follow them.
My brain works much better with visual information so if you can draw a diagram I would be able to do it.
Now I can just stare and feel stupid.

For now I just tried to follow DiMarzio's advise...

...and I have no idea if the following is what they advised me for:



PSD:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4anbqw48q9...0copy.psd?dl=0

Thanks.

[Zaakkk]

Umm, anybody?
Is this a good wiring to give it a try?

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Umm, anybody?
Is this a good wiring to give it a try?

My recommendation would be to first try and find the cause of the noise you notice when using High Z on your USB interface and when you plug your guitar into the Digitech RP360. You said that that noise was present in all pickup positions, so the middle pickup being out of phase with the 2 humbuckers cannot be the cause of that noise. I don't believe trying a different wiring scheme is going to be the answer to that noise problem.

[Zaakkk]

We all here did try to find the cause of the noise when using High Z on my Steinberg USB interface and Digitech RP360 without any success so it's time for me to give up.
Yes the noise is present in all pickup positions, so the middle pickup being out of phase with the 2 humbuckers cannot be the cause of that noise.
Trying a different wiring scheme is going to be the answer only to the out of phase flat sound and not the noise problem, but I am ready to accept it.
The only thing I haven't tried yet is NOT to use a toggle switch or to use a different one.
Would you please someone draw me a wiring using DiMarzio EP1111 (4PDT) Pickup Selector Switch with 12 terminals - 3 Position (On/On/On) please?

[Hank-]

There are three types of 4PDT ON/ON/ON switches available in the market, the terminals of which connect differently. I attached an image in my previous post showing it. Dimarzio doesn't have it mentioned on their site. You need to tell which type it is otherwise no one can draw a diagram for it.

The HiZ is not the problem, it's what a guitar amp uses. You should not get buzz because of it. For the time being your base wiring didn't match in the vids compared to the diagram you initially were following. So first thing is to correct it, look at it again, if you spot the difference then good. Otherwise to learn that, make things error proof. Remove all complex things that you have in there. Wire it up like a basic three pickup guitar, 1 vol, 1 tone & a standard 5way switch. That is the only way to troubleshoot the problem because it won't go away. Or take it back to a luthier.

Also looks like the factory jack wire is a leftover pickup wire, it's very unlikely Ibanez follows that practice, so get a proper one online, it appears like there is no bare/shield on it.

[Zaakkk]

This should be how DiMarzio EP1111 works.

I found another topic about it here:
https://forum.seymourduncan.com/foru...o-EP1111-help=

This is the DiMarzio address:
https://www.dimarzio.com/hardware/sw...osition-ononon

"The easiest way to explain a three-position, four pole double throw switch is to say that it is essentially two double throw double pole switches in one housing. With just this one powerful switch, any number of switching options can be achieved — from simple pickup selection to phase reversal, coil splitting, and pickup selection or blower switch options (routing around a volume or tone pot and direct to the output jack) "

I'm sorry, I don't understand how and where my base wiring doesn't match in my videos compared to the diagram I follow.

If you draw me what needs to be corrected I will be able to do it. Explaining doesn't work well with me.

The factory jack wire was a shielded humbucker pickup wire with bare shielding on it. I replaced it along with all other wires trying to eliminate the noise problem, but it's still here.

Would anyone please at least tell me if the "IDIOT PROOF WIRING" I posted up here is correct?

If you want me to wire it like a basic three pickup guitar, I can do that if I know what diagram to follow.
I found those 3 wiring diagrams who have my 5 way switch.
Should I do any of them and which one?
Thanks.

[Jack_TriPpEr]

Trying a different wiring scheme is going to be the answer only to the out of phase flat sound and not the noise problem

You don't need to change wiring schemes to fix the Middle Pickup Out Of Phase problem. The email from Dimarzio gave instructions on which wires to swap around to resolve that. Of course, you can change wiring schemes if you want different tones.

With that noise problem your guitar has, I think you need someone with more experience in troubleshooting wiring jobs than I have. Like I said earlier, i am still developing my troubleshooting skills, whereas wiring diagram design is a stronger skill for me at the moment. I am glad to see Hank is helping you out. He seems to have a lot more experience than me with troubleshooting wiring jobs. I think you will be in good hands with Hank.

[Zaakkk]

So the "IDIOT PROOF WIRING" I posted up here is correct?