Strange Volume Drops...

[zozoe]

Greetings,,, on this guitar, the 1, 3 & 5 positions are fab, solid, in phase, one North, one South p/u, & even very cool 2 & 4 sounds, but there's a noticeable volume drop in those 2 positions.... While tapping then playing, both the 2 & 4 sound a lot like the middle position than they do the 1 or the 5, respectively.... Each p/u has 3 wires, so there's no splitting going on,,, just the darn drop,, 6 or 7db, perhaps...? I'm thinking I'd go with a 4-way= B, Par., N, then Series...

Dunno,,,, thnx to all in advance ॐ

[beaubrummels]

Sure you have the correct one of the 3 wires on the switch? and sure the switch doesn't try to do some auto-split or phase flip stuff? (Can't tell what switch that is. Some Schallers do tricky stuff like mix pickups or coils you weren't expecting.)

[zozoe]

Well, it's definitely a cheep import switch, & my specialty is on domestic CRL's & Oak Grigsby's, so I'm not sure how to translate things... Here's another angle..

[beaubrummels]

6-7db drop would be two pickups at half power, so my bet is something is splitting. These are noise-cancelling single coils? Or any humbuckers in the guitar? What is the guitar?

[zozoe]

Something's wacky,,,It's hum-free only when in the middle pos.... I hear traces of the neck p/u when in all EXCEPT pos. #1..... #2 knocks out the outer bridge coil, then as I said, there's varying degrees of neck coils injected...

It's a Schecter Tele (style) Diamond Series,,,, With 3 wires on each p/u, how can they be split? Whatever H'buckers I have on tap, I use Triple-Shots all around,,, & never these import switches....There's another angle above....

Thnx BeauB

[beaubrummels]

With 3-wire pickups, one lead is hot, one is ground, the other is the split.

I can't see the entire switch wiring in either photo. I can only find 1 Schecter wiring diagram with 3 pickups and a blade switch. (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&p...NhMzU4OGI3NWFl)

It almost sounds like someone tried to reverse phase of one of the pickups and flipped the split wire with the hot or else they replaced a pickup or two with pickups where the wire colors are not compatible with Schecter. I imagine the pickups are noise cancelling and there's an auto-split to combine half the coils in 2 and 4. If someone monkeyed with the phase or replaced any of the pickups, that would have screwed all that up.

[Mincer]

Could be a phase issue here? What happens if you flip the middle's hot and ground?

[ThreeChordWonder]

Could be a phase issue here? What happens if you flip the middle's hot and ground?

My first thought. The middle is the opposite polarity to the other two.

But if you've only got two pickups, could it simply be P1 is full bridge, P2 is coil tapped bridge, P3 is bridge plus neck (full or coil tapped), P4 is neck coil tapped, P5 is full neck?

See if you can trace the wiring and post up more pictures or a sketch.