I discovered the best sound ever, by accident!
I need help understanding what's going on here electrically.
My guitar has two humbuckers wired to a 3-way toggle out to a single master volume/tone. My bridge pickup ground wire came unsoldered, so only the hot is getting to the switch. Of course, it makes no sound when only the bridge pickup is selected (and buzzes if I touch the pickup), and neck pickup works fine when only the neck pickup is selected. However, when I have the toggle in the middle, so the neck pickup is combined with the unground bridge pickup I get a great sound. This is a cheaper hollow body guitar, that is prone to harsh treble and muddy/boomy mids and lows. But with this new strange configuration, suddenly it sounds much, much better than ever! There mud is gone and there's a sparkle that was never there before! I want to fix it, since I miss having the option to use the bridge pickup, but I really want to understand what is happening now, so maybe I can get this sound again.
I suspect somehow the resistance (?) of the neck pickup is getting lowered, so it has less volume but more range (like a single coil). But I don't understand how having another ungrounded pickup in parallel is doing this.
Can anyone explain what's going on electrically?!
I need help understanding what's going on here electrically.
My guitar has two humbuckers wired to a 3-way toggle out to a single master volume/tone. My bridge pickup ground wire came unsoldered, so only the hot is getting to the switch. Of course, it makes no sound when only the bridge pickup is selected (and buzzes if I touch the pickup), and neck pickup works fine when only the neck pickup is selected. However, when I have the toggle in the middle, so the neck pickup is combined with the unground bridge pickup I get a great sound. This is a cheaper hollow body guitar, that is prone to harsh treble and muddy/boomy mids and lows. But with this new strange configuration, suddenly it sounds much, much better than ever! There mud is gone and there's a sparkle that was never there before! I want to fix it, since I miss having the option to use the bridge pickup, but I really want to understand what is happening now, so maybe I can get this sound again.
I suspect somehow the resistance (?) of the neck pickup is getting lowered, so it has less volume but more range (like a single coil). But I don't understand how having another ungrounded pickup in parallel is doing this.
Can anyone explain what's going on electrically?!
