Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

[xfabianromerox]

Tittle says it all.

SSL-1 in the neck position, Fender Texas Special neck in middle. I figured since they're wound in opposite ways, id solder them both normally. I did and the sound from 2 & 4 is super thin.

No problem, I've dealt with this before. I switched the wires, thinking that I was probably wrong.

Nope, when the wires are switched, I get no sound from the neck and 2 position. The middle is super thin and in 4, you only hear the bridge.

Anyone have experience with this?

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Flipping the wires usually does the trick. If you have no sound at all then you may have a bad solder joint or bad switch

 

[xfabianromerox]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

When I switched them back, everything was back to normal minus 2 & 4 which sound thin. Maybe it's because of polarity? I'm going try switching again.

 

[Guitaraxz]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

You can test the phase of each pup with a multimeter. I find it easier by setting the multimeter in Volts rather than Ohms yet I couldn't find a video using V, just Ohms. I'm sure you can find one if you try harder than I did.

Just make sure that you use the same colour of your multimeter on the "ground" wire of your pickups, otherwise the measurements will not be correct. Here's how https://youtu.be/2lFQzmRvePc

 

[AlexR]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Your problems seem more significant than simple swapping.....like you have it wired wrongly for a simple swap of the hot/ground on 1 pickup to cause all those issues. Maybe you swapped the hot and ground from 2 different pickups.

Anyhow its the middle pickup you need to flip the wires of.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Flipping the wires usually does the trick. If you have no sound at all then you may have a bad solder joint or bad switch

this is the truth. if you have no sound then something is wrong.

 

[xfabianromerox]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

I fixed my problem. The winding situation was right, so was the wiring. It was the Texas Special's polarity. After doing some research, and with fish tank cleaner magnet, I reversed the magnets polarity and it sounds good on 2 & 4. The reverse magnetism trick is very simple. Don't know why so little people know about it or do it. It saves like $20 each pickup, plus you can do it whenever.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Reversing the 2 pickup wires does exactly the same thing.....so I think you must have swapped the wrong wires when you did it.

Glad its ok now.

 

[freefrog]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

I reversed the magnets polarity and it sounds good on 2 & 4. The reverse magnetism trick is very simple. Don't know why so little people know about it or do it. It saves like $20 each pickup, plus you can do it whenever.

I edit this answer a second time : I had not understood that you have reversed the polarity with a "fish tank cleaner magnet". :-/

Simply glad if it worked for you. Now, altering the magnetism of AlNiCo with some more powerful mag appears to me as risky too: there's no way to be sure about the Gauss level achieved AFAIK.

I let my initial off topic answer below: maybe it could help someone else, after all.

People don"t reverse magnets because vintage style Strat single coils have their wire wound directly around the rods.

http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb9/copperheadroads/100_2273.jpg

In this case, the coil will be destroyed if the outer mags (those of the E strings) are pulled off. Extracting the other rods will most likely damage the wire too.

Reversing magnets requires the coil to be wound on a plastic bobbin, like those used by Fender in some models since the late 70's. These bobbins are recognizeable:

http://forums.fender.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=66937


EDIT for a sum up - http://planetbotch.blogspot.fr/2011/11/know-your-strat-pickups.html

FWIW (= maybe more than my two cents, unless some vintage style Strat pickups cost two cents).

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Reversing the 2 pickup wires does exactly the same thing.

thats not really true. there are two things going on here, magnetic phase and electrical phase. you can be out of phase either way and they sound almost identical. in order to sound in phase and cancel hum you need to be out of phase both ways (putting the signal back in phase) hence rw/rp to get humcancelling. if your pup is the same magnetic polarity youll never get humcancelling.

 

[dotsdad]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

I fwith fish tank cleaner magnet, I reversed the magnets polarity.

how do you use a fish tank cleaner to reverse the polarity? I may have to try that sometime. Please spell it out for me

 

[Teleplayer]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

If you end up with a neck pickup that is opposite magnetic polarity to the middle pickup, you will hum-cancelling in position 4 - Great!

BTW, I also want to learn about using a fish tank cleaner for magnetising pickups.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

the fish tank cleaners that ive used are a pair of magnets in little plastic enclosures with felt or something similar on one. the felt lined magnet goes on the outside of the glass and the other one scrubs the mung from the inside of the glass. they are magnets so its no different than using any other pair of strong magnets

 

[xfabianromerox]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Sorry for taking long so long! Thanks once again for responding to one of my posts Jeremy! And to those interested in learning this trick, it's quite simple. If you guys would like, I can make a video Thursday night, since I'm away at school, but I'll explain in words the best I can.

I originally bought strong hanger magnets, but they were both north or south, I can't tell to be honest. Because they had a non magnetic metal shell, I could not take them out and the opposite polarity was weakened by the shell, so I had two magnets that repelled.

For the re polarization to work, THEY MUST ATTRACT AS THE MAGNETIC CURRENT HAS TO FLOW THE SAME WAY.

(+)<----------->(-) works.

(+)-------><--------(+) doesn't work.

Once I figured that out, I looked around my house knowing that these "super" magnets were not that uncommon. I looked at my big old reef tank and realized the scraper cleaner had pretty strong magnets. It has two sets of magnets that are opposite, so I just ended using one of the hanger magnets and the tank magnet that was on the outside as the other one was in salt water.

I then match the hanger magnet with the tank magnet and found which sides attracted. I ran the pickup I wanted changed through it on only one side, as the tank magnet has two sides and BAM. The polarity was fixed. The thin sound is now a quack.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Yeah, I'd love to see the video, since I honestly have never done this.

 

[jeremy]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

its no different than the stewmac neo magnets. im sure they have instructions or a video.

 

[xfabianromerox]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

There is a video already, I'll post it. Let me know if you guys still want one from me. Or still have any questions.

https://youtu.be/1pdGPHk9Xgg

 

[HiFiRebel]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

I had no idea that would work. Thank you.

 

[Nickolai]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Hey man how was the sound of the texas special neck in the middle position combined with ssl-1 in neck? That's exactly what i want to try in one of my guitars as i already have the tx special neck version and i really want an ssl-1 in the neck. I don't care a lot about the middle by itself, how's the position 4 neck+middle? Thanks

 

[Mincer]

Re: Fender neck in middle + SSL-1 in neck = no quack?

Will I am not sure you will get an answer to an older thread like this, I've tried a Texas Special and SSL-1 before, and it works well. Although, in my case, I had the TS a little lower, as it got in the way of my pick, so the volume balance was probably closer.