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Pickup Troubleshooting

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  • Pickup Troubleshooting

    Hi all,

    First time poster, longtime fan.

    I need a little help with troubleshooting an issue I've been having for a while with my flying V.

    I was gifted a no name flying V in 2014, it has 2 humbuckers with 2 volume pots and one tone pot. The headstock has no brand markings, the only insight into a possible brand was that it came with two gold epiphone humbuckers. I swapped out both pickups with Seymour Duncans: a screamin demon in the neck position and a dimebucker in bridge position (sh12 and sh13, respectively). I soldered it myself, I'm a competent solderer.

    The issue is that the neck pickup doesn't shine through the same way that the bridge pickup does at the same volume setting. It kind of sounds half hearted competitively. The weird part is that if I beat my fist on the body near the jack, the problem will go away, and both pickups shine through brilliantly.

    Other things to note:

    1. I used the wiring style that the guitar came with, which isn't the same as the wiring Seymour Duncan recommends. I can explain further if you think it would help, but the bottom line is Seymour Duncan said to wire it one way, but the guitar itself came wired differently, so I just swapped the pickups.
    2. I replaced all other hardware in the guitar. The pots, three way switch, and the jack are all from guitar freak.
    3. I had an electrical engineer resolder everything. He was a coworker and did outstanding work.

    Questions:
    1. Do you think the issue is that I didn't follow Seymour Duncan's suggested wiring? This seems like the obvious answer to me.

    2. Is there a way to be sure that the pickup isn't the issue? I am mostly trying to confirm whether I should buy a new pickup or take it in to be resoldered following the Seymour Duncan schematic.

    3. Why do you think me beating on the guitar fixes the issue? I have to do it everytime I pick it up.
    Last edited by Bfranks4life; 06-04-2020, 02:37 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Pickup Troubleshooting

    Well, obviously it has some bad contacts, so sorry to inform you that the wiring might not be that stellar afterall... Then SD uses different color codes: black is hot and green ground. But if both are soldered in the same way, that shouldn't be much of an issue. Also, following manufacturer's instruction when installing a new product is the safest bet to get the most out of the product and avoid unwanted issues. And I'm not saying this as some silly PR. I'm not a genius when it comes to electronics, but competent enough to follow instructions. Evrytime I got me a new SD pup and followed the instructions the results were as expected. As for testing the pickups, take a multimeter, set it to 20kOhm and hook it up with the pups. Compare your readings with the factory specified DCR. If the red and white are not connected properly or a ground connection is iffy, the guitar can sound funny. But if you cn post some pix, it would give a better chance to the real gurus over here to identify the problem.

    Oh, and welcome on board!

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    • #3
      Re: Pickup Troubleshooting

      Welcome to the forum!

      Even great solderers make some mistakes. It sounds like there is something sort of making contact, which goes into place if you bang on the guitar. What diagram did you use? You can always post pics here to see if we see something obvious.
      Administrator of the SDUGF

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      • #4
        Re: Pickup Troubleshooting

        Thanks for the feedback friends. Shortly after posting this I reached out to a local luthier who agrees that the SD schematic should be followed. I am dropping it off tomorrow afternoon. I look forward to not having to bang my hand on it every time I play.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Pickup Troubleshooting

          You say you're a "competent solderer" but there was a problem. You had an electrical engineer resolder everything and he "did outstanding work", but there is a problem. So I would guess that the soldering is fine. The wiring is probably fine as well, even if it is different than on the SD diagrams (there are many ways to wire pups that work just fine). Besides, pounding on your guitar will NOT change the wiring. And the fact that you have all new parts and when you do pound on your guitar it sounds good tells me that there is probably a short somewhere...maybe some wires or contacts are being forced to touch a ground or other contact in the jack hole or when the control cavity cover is put on.

          Some very clear close-up pics showing all of the wires and connections could help.
          Originally Posted by IanBallard
          Rule of thumb... the more pot you have, the better your tone.

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