A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

[RDL]

Hi everyone.

I recently got an Ibanez S670 that has a Duncan Distortion pickup installed in the bridge position. I have no idea what is (was?) going on with the wiring, but at first, when combining the bridge and middle (single) pickups, it sounded really tinny and with a huge amount of noise.

I took it to a tech, changed the wiring and then it sounded tinny in every position. So I tried to fix it and now it still sounds tinny, but the noise is gone. Is this normal?

Also, on a related note, I'm thinking of replacing the other pickups in this guitar. Any suggestions? It's an HSH configuration.

 

[Mincer]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Welcome to the forum!

To help sort this out, it would be awesome to have a lot of clear, close pics so we can see what is going on. What you are experiencing isn't normal, so your tech may have made things worse. We can try to sort it out, though.

 

[hamerfan]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Take some good pics and we sort it out for you. There are several issues, i'm sure.

 

[RDL]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Is this one enough? Or do you need me to take more pics?

 

[Mr. B]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

If the red wire on the rightmost (in pic) switch lug is going to the neck pickup, then it looks like it is wired correctly. Your Duncan pickup might be out of phase with the middle pickup, but that would not create a tinny sound when you are only running the neck pickup. First lug is your hot from bridge pickup, second is hot for middle pickup, third is hot for neck pickup. 4th goes to volume pot. 6th is split bridge, 7th to ground, 8th is split neck. If all those are going where they should, there may be something wrong in the switch or a pot. Can't see the pots to see if they are wired correctly.

 

[RDL]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Photos of the pots.

 

[Artie]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest that maybe your tech used a generic Ibanez wiring diagram, that doesn't take into account Duncan colors or polarity. It also doesn't help that Ibanez's wiring diagram archive is a PITA. First, you have to know what year the guitar is, and even then, they only go back to 2008. You really need someone who can verify the pickup polarity relative to the others. If you want, I can explain how to do it, if you own a DMM. (Digital multimeter.)

 

[RDL]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

I do not, but they're not that expensive, so I could get one in the next days.

About the wiring diagram, yes, the guitar tech got it wrong so I had to redo it. But I found these resources: https://www.jbwid.com/guitar/ibz_switches.htm - https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Onli...Wiring/Seymour_Duncan_Humbucking_Pickups.html and figured out (mostly?) how the wiring was supposed to be done.

 

[Artie]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Cool. I'll do the write-up on determining polarity tomorrow. Just tired now.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Don't bother going out to buy a multimeter and all that just yet. Swap the black and green wire on the bridge pickup and see if that fixes the tinny-sound problem. If it doesn't, then the pickups being out of phase isn't the problem.

 

[RDL]

Re: A few issues with a Distortion and an Ibanez S670

Don't bother going out to buy a multimeter and all that just yet. Swap the black and green wire on the bridge pickup and see if that fixes the tinny-sound problem. If it doesn't, then the pickups being out of phase isn't the problem.

Well, actually that fixed it. Thanks.