Help with Troubleshooting SH-6B Bridge Pickup in PRS Custom 24

M

mmiller73

New member
Hi All,

I'm new to soldering and changing guitar pickups and was hoping you all could help me troubleshoot my new installation.

I installed a Seymour Duncan SH-6B Distortion Pickup into my PRS Custom 24 at the bridge position. The guitar has a 5 way selector, one volume and one tone pot. I had a little trouble with soldering the ground wire to the tone pot but I wound up getting done and I believe the wiring to be correct as I based it off of the SB diagram and what was previously connected.

The pickup seems to work ok but the sound is really odd. Like it has this strange high pitched twangy overtone when I pluck a note. This seems to go away somewhat when I roll the tone nob back, but then it has a really muffled attack. My goal was sort of a tighter, punchier more aggressive sound for hard rock or metal.

I adjusted the pickup distance from the strings but it doesn't seem to make much difference even if I pull the pickups super low away from the strings.

Also, the output is low compared to when I tested it on the multimeter outside of the guitar. I was getting 15.8 reading before and after installation only getting only 7. The 85/15 that was in there before was giving a reading of 8 and as I understand this should be a hotter pickup.

So I probably did something wrong or am missing something.

Anyway if anyone might have experience with something similar that would be a great help.

Thank you,
Mike


Edit, in the pics, the black wire is the cable for the new SD bridge pickup, the grey is the neck pickup.
 

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Last edited:
The halved reading suggests that only one coil wired and the other is most probably shorted to ground. I'd double check the layout of the switch:

https://prsguitars.com/support/schematics

Also, SD has reversed color codes on the wires, so double check your SD documentation.

And since you mentioned that you're new to soldering, it might be somethingbas simple as bad soldering. Try to reflow all joints. Proper solder joints should look shiny.
 
AdrianSD said:
It's not clear from the photos where the white wire goes, is it soldered together with the red to the same lug?
Click to expand...

It's not, so that's probably the issue. I found a video on youtube showing that as well, looks like white needs to join with red and green needs to connect where white is.

Thank you very much for your help!
 
Last edited:
nexion218 said:
The halved reading suggests that only one coil wired and the other is most probably shorted to ground. I'd double check the layout of the switch:

https://prsguitars.com/support/schematics

Also, SD has reversed color codes on the wires, so double check your SD documentation.

And since you mentioned that you're new to soldering, it might be somethingbas simple as bad soldering. Try to reflow all joints. Proper solder joints should look shiny.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the link that is helpful, I think I have the wires connected in the wrong spots. And I guess that is what the sound is, kind of like a twangy single coil sound, so it makes sense :).

Is it common for the POT to get all discolored and have the solder not stick well? Seems like maybe there is some sort of clear glue/coating on the POT?

Thank you very much for your help!
 
Last edited:
Yeah it looks like you've attached the white wire on the ground side of the switch, effectively shunting a coil to the ground.

just rub the back of the pot clean with sandpaper and a little dab of alcohol to remove grease and it should be good to go.And remember: heat the part that you want the solder to flow onto and once hot, feed the solder there, not on the tip of the iron! So in this case, you heat the back of the pot and touch the solder to the heated area on the pot. Once its hot enough, the solder will flow onto it. Otherwise you'll just burn the solder on the iron's tip and it will never "stick" to the pot.
 
nexion218 said:
Yeah it looks like you've attached the white wire on the ground side of the switch, effectively shunting a coil to the ground.

just rub the back of the pot clean with sandpaper and a little dab of alcohol to remove grease and it should be good to go.And remember: heat the part that you want the solder to flow onto and once hot, feed the solder there, not on the tip of the iron! So in this case, you heat the back of the pot and touch the solder to the heated area on the pot. Once its hot enough, the solder will flow onto it. Otherwise you'll just burn the solder on the iron's tip and it will never "stick" to the pot.
Click to expand...

Ah ok that makes sense why it was mainly just smoking and disappearing. I probably carved several years off my life breathing the smoke :/
 
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