Curious about a 39 year old pickup's behavior

Iron1

Iron1

New member
I got a cool 1983 Aria Pro ZZCT from a buddy recently who had just got it from an estate sale. When he sent it to me, he mentioned the bridge pickup seemed to have a wavering output issue.

When I got it, I ran the volume and tone knobs to max and went to town. It sounded about as I would expect with a hot bridge pickup - sort of like a thin Distortion with a little too much gain. I played with the volume a bit and it responded as expected. Then, that's where it got interesting.

When I ran the tone down i.e. from treble to bass, the gain smoothly decreased... it was like going from a Boss SD-1 to a Boss Blues Driver... not only have I never seen/heard anything like that, no one I've talked to so far has either. This thing is about ten years older than my guitar playing life, so maybe I'm discovering something I never knew about? Or is it just a failing pickup?

Anyone ever experienced that? Or, able to explain the science behind it? Is it a faulty pickup or was it designed that way? Seems like if the latter, then why isn't everyone offering this?

For those wanting to know, the catalogue calls them High Output Protomatic V humbuckers. They have "MMK" stamped into the brass backing plates and "45" right below in black ink.
 
Have you opened up the electronics cavity to see how it's wired? Your description reminds me of the first time I used 50s wiring, aside from any mention of the volume pot interacting with the tone pot.
 
Cdwillis said:
Have you opened up the electronics cavity to see how it's wired? Your description reminds me of the first time I used 50s wiring, aside from any mention of the volume pot interacting with the tone pot.
Click to expand...

It was wired just like every other guitar I'm familiar with that has a two lead pickup. Ground to ground, hot to selector switch.

I swapped in a set of Duncan Solars, wired the same way (but with the red/white wired together and taped off) and it functions like any of my other guitars - that's what led me to believe it's the pickup itself.
 
Iron1 said:
I got a cool 1983 Aria Pro ZZCT from a buddy recently who had just got it from an estate sale. When he sent it to me, he mentioned the bridge pickup seemed to have a wavering output issue.

When I got it, I ran the volume and tone knobs to max and went to town. It sounded about as I would expect with a hot bridge pickup - sort of like a thin Distortion with a little too much gain. I played with the volume a bit and it responded as expected. Then, that's where it got interesting.

When I ran the tone down i.e. from treble to bass, the gain smoothly decreased... it was like going from a Boss SD-1 to a Boss Blues Driver... not only have I never seen/heard anything like that, no one I've talked to so far has either. This thing is about ten years older than my guitar playing life, so maybe I'm discovering something I never knew about? Or is it just a failing pickup?

Anyone ever experienced that? Or, able to explain the science behind it? Is it a faulty pickup or was it designed that way? Seems like if the latter, then why isn't everyone offering this?

For those wanting to know, the catalogue calls them High Output Protomatic V humbuckers. They have "MMK" stamped into the brass backing plates and "45" right below in black ink.
Click to expand...

Hello,

Can you measure the DCR of the mentioned PU? If the answer is "no" or if the DCR reading is extremely high, a possible explanation of your problem is there:

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/for...-modern-player-tele-hss?p=6038763#post6038763
 
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