Baffled: 2 Identical Teles with Very Different Output

ImmortalSix

ImmortalSix

John Mayer's Mankini
Hey everybody, long time no see. Quick background: I built a a sparkly Telecaster, and my son's music teacher loves it so much I'm secretly making an exact replica for him. I finished it 3 weeks ago, set it up, it plays great, BUT - I can't get the pickups sounding correct.

I am using DiMarzios (I know, I know!) because the theme of the guitar is "all gold hardware" and DiMarzio makes pickups with gold rails, and I've got the same pickups, same pots, same cap, same switch, same output jack, same pickup height, same strings, same spool of wire to make the connections, same spool of solder - and the replica I'm making for the teacher is VERY thin, and VERY low output. I recorded both - back to back in the span of about 60 seconds, with identical signal chain, and the waveforms speak for themselves.

Bass frequencies are totally missing from the bridge pickup (DP389T) on the Replica. the Original is full and loud and great. They look very different on the spectral analyzer in Logic; but the short version is "there's no bass on the replica" - it sounds like it's coming thru the telephone.

The output of the Replica is also very low, barely audible, noticeably, "wrongly" quiet.

Any old heads run into this kind of thing before? I am dying to give it to him, but I can't give it to him until I figure out what's going on here.

All the multimeter readings are copacetic; about 12.0Kohm bridge and 6.5Kohm neck - all the readings look good and normal.

Help! Thank you!
 

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ImmortalSix said:
Bass frequencies are totally missing from the bridge pickup (DP389T) on the Replica. the Original is full and loud and great. They look very different on the spectral analyzer in Logic; but the short version is "there's no bass on the replica" - it sounds like it's coming thru the telephone.
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Are you sure you didn't wire the bridge pickup out of phase with itself?

To wire DiMarzio humbuckers "normally" (IOW: in series with North coil RWRP relatively to the South one), it's red=hot, black and white twisted altogether, green and bare to ground. If for instance it has been wired like a Duncan (black = hot, red and white tapped together, green and bare to ground), the South and North coils are out of phase. It would explain the thin tone with a normal measured DCR (but the inductance should be noticeably lower than in series)...

Personally, I'd test each coil separately and I'd try to reverse the connections of one coil only, in order to see (or hear) what happens.

FWIW. Hope you'll find a solution.
 
I agree with freefrog. If you were to take a Duncan and incorrectly connect the Black and Red wires as the Series join, you would still get the proper DCR across the Green and White wires, but the two coils would be out-of-phase.

A spare jack with alligator clip leads is good for quickly testing issues like this bypassing all other components. On a Tele you can desolder the pickup leads and clip them straight to the test jack. With the pickup still mounted in the guitar you can try wire pairs until you're sure you have the series join correctly in phase. I've had pickups from several makers come mis-wired from the factory where the published color codes didn't work.
 
assuming normal controls - 3way, v, t - then id look at the bridge pup wiring as others have mentioned. if you are getting 12k+ at the output jack for the bridge pup, then id look at the wiring of the coils, cause it could be out of phase as was mentioned
 
Either way, start by testing the pickup without any of the other electronics. Some crocodile clips will do nicely.
 
Closing the circuit here - I did miles and miles of troubleshooting and testing and eventually was advised by Eric at DiMarzio that this pickup was almost certainly wired out-of-phase with itself (!)

Factory defect - both DiMarzio and the retailer were generous and I already have a replacement in hand.

I'm mailing the defective pickup back to DiMarzio, and they'll have a look at it for their quality processes, etc.

Thanks all for your suggestions. I thought I was losing my mind! Turns out factory defects do happen.

That'll teach me to leave Santa Barbara for Staten Island :lol:
 
I think that can happen with any pickup maker. They all have safeguards in place, but things happen.
 
Glad it worked out. With the volume of pickups they make, I'm sure they have pretty thorough QC already, but things can always be missed. Any repetitive testing or inspection job takes a lot of focus to not miss a defect because the previous 99 passed.​
 
I had very rare "scientifically pure" conditions for all my testing; 2 guitars with identical parts --- that delighted the DiMarzio guy - I just wired the new pickup in and it sounds terrific --- a happy ending! IMG_3369.jpg
 

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they look great! and glad dimarzio got ya a new pup, not surprised though. douchey double cream thing aside, they are a good company. did i mention they look great?
 
That double cream trademark is a PitA, but I understand how and why though. Dimarzio has great pickups. I find that I enjoy their product more and more as years go by. Few of my all-time favorites are Dimarzios: the Illuminator and EVO set, as well as the Air Norton humbucker. almost embarrassingly so. Glad to hear it sorted itself out!
 
Artie said:
Gorgeous Tele's. Is that a Hot Rod Deluxe?
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My beloved '96 Hot Rod DeVille 212.

I moved into the Helix world this year, and I know a lot of guys get an FRFR when they do that, but this rig (Helix to Power Amp In of HRDv) sounds so sweet I don't dare change a thing.

I also have a '96 Strat, kinda got this to pair with that and keep forever. I think I've had it 20 years now
 
jeremy said:
they look great! and glad dimarzio got ya a new pup, not surprised though. ******y double cream thing aside, they are a good company. did i mention they look great?
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Big thanks - they're really fun. Some of y'all remember my 9,000 lb 1-piece purple heart Tele - I dismantled that to harvest the neck for something else, and had this big pile of all gold Tele hardware sitting there. One night I saw these sparkly, double-bound XGP bodies, and it was just too perfect - I set out to make the world's tackiest guitar, but once it was all together it was actually kinda cool.

I also got lucky and they both ended up playing amazing. I'm getting better at filing nut slots and setting nut depth and such, and intonation and action is as simple as turning an Allen key - all my setups lately have resulted in just fantastic-playing guitars. So this has become my #1. It's amazing how much you can do with a single-coil neck and a humbucker bridge.

The Original actually has a Full Distortion T, and the Replica, the one I built for the music teacher, has a Tone Zone T. The Full Distortion is a little wild, I was trying to make his more versatile.

I agree BTW - I only went DiMarzio because they had gold blade rail pickups, and I was really trying to get everything I could to be gold on these, but I've been really happy with the sound, quality, and the customer service. Really nice all around. Don't worry, I still love SD and have em in my other customs!
 
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