Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

G

GOB

New member
Hey!

I've got an American Performer Strat (SSS) and I was trying to swap the stock bridge p'up with a Lil '59.

When I first got it in, I thought it was out of phase. It sounded a little quiet, and it was really thin and SUPER bright and clanky.

I figured I must need to swap black and green, so I went back in and did that.

After swapping black and green, there is almost zero output from the pickup. If I crank up my amp, I can barely hear a tiny thin little sound coming out of it. Like an AM radio type sound, and super quiet.


What's going on here?
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Fender's pickups will be out of phase with the Little 59, so for it to work, green would have to be hot & black would be ground.

Is that thin sound happening when alone or with another pickup? Make sure that red & white are soldered together and taped off. If the thin sound is coming from the Little 59 alone, we have to make sure it is working properly. A meter will make this easy.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Mincer said:
Fender's pickups will be out of phase with the Little 59, so for it to work, green would have to be hot & black would be ground.

Is that thin sound happening when alone or with another pickup? Make sure that red & white are soldered together and taped off. If the thin sound is coming from the Little 59 alone, we have to make sure it is working properly. A meter will make this easy.
Click to expand...

The first time I put it in, I had wired it with green to ground and black hot. Then I switched it to green hot and black ground. Green hot and black ground was worse for some reason.

Red and white are soldered together and taped off, though maybe I need to check them. They were that way when I opened the box so I assumed, but didn't actually check.


The thin sound is coming from the Lil 59 alone. When paired with another pickup, the other pickup sounds normal, not out of phase. So on the 5-way switch: middle + bridge sounds exactly the same as just middle. My guess was this was because the volume of the lil 59 was so low it just couldn't be heard?

I think I have a meter I can go dig out. How do I check it?
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

The first thing to do is check if both coils of the Little 59 are working, by tapping on them individually with a screwdriver, while the amp is on, but low volume. To test with a meter, set it to the 20k ohm setting, and (making sure red and white are connected and not touching anything else). and you can, say use the red probe on the black wire and the black probe to the green wire. It should give you around 11.7k.

You can also wire it directly to the jack and see what it supposed to sound like.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

The problem is clearly with your wiring/soldering because you got a worse result when green was hot. If your wiring/soldering was good, the results would have sounded exactly the same when the Lil 59 was played by itself.

As Mincer suggested, measure the DC resistance of the pup when removed from your guitar. But also disconnect the red and white wires and measure each coil separately...black to white and red to green. You should get about (slightly less than) 6k each.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Mincer said:
The first thing to do is check if both coils of the Little 59 are working, by tapping on them individually with a screwdriver, while the amp is on, but low volume. To test with a meter, set it to the 20k ohm setting, and (making sure red and white are connected and not touching anything else). and you can, say use the red probe on the black wire and the black probe to the green wire. It should give you around 11.7k.

You can also wire it directly to the jack and see what it supposed to sound like.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give that a try today and see what I get.

GuitarDoc said:
The problem is clearly with your wiring/soldering because you got a worse result when green was hot. If your wiring/soldering was good, the results would have sounded exactly the same when the Lil 59 was played by itself.

As Mincer suggested, measure the DC resistance of the pup when removed from your guitar. But also disconnect the red and white wires and measure each coil separately...black to white and red to green. You should get about (slightly less than) 6k each.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't doubt it being something wrong with my soldering, but I don't see what soldering mistake I could have made that would have caused it since I just replaced what was there before. I know I might have a cold solder joint on the ground on the back of the volume pot. Could that be enough to cause the problem?

Any thoughts on what I might look for when I open it up?
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Tested it today and I couldn't get any reading between green and black.

Still too early to call it though. I think there might be something wrong with my multimeter because I was getting some inconsistent readings on another pickup I used to test the meter.

I've got a new meter ordered and it should be here Sunday. I'll wait and check it with the new meter.


For now, the stock pickup is back in, and I'm unfortunately remembering why I never bother swapping pickups :gurmpy:
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Like GuitarDoc said, Next step is to open the connection between white and red to measure both coils seperately.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

If you disconnected the red from the white wires, then you won't get any reading between green and black.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Just to confirm... you need the bare still soldered to ground, even though you swapped black/green. Also confirm you have Red/White still connected.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

PFDarkside said:
Just to confirm... you need the bare still soldered to ground, even though you swapped black/green. Also confirm you have Red/White still connected.
Click to expand...

When I first put it in, I had bare and green wired to the back of the volume pot, and black wired to the 5-way switch. When I went back in, I wired black and bare to the back of the volume pot and green to the 5-way switch.

I just finally got my new multimeter today and measured 11.84k between black and green, so it does seem like the pickup itself is ok.


GuitarDoc said:
If you disconnected the red from the white wires, then you won't get any reading between green and black.
Click to expand...

I took the tape off red and white just to check, and they are still soldered together.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

Just FYI, the Yosemite single coil set I bought aftermarket are not out of phase with Duncan pickups as most Fenders usually are. I have the neck and middle in use with a Duncan 78 and I originally wired it up like I do most Fenders with the green as the hot and black as ground and it was out of phase, flipped it back to regular Duncan wiring and all was well in pos. 2. Another nice bonus, it was also the correct polarity to be hum cancelling in pos. 2 when I auto split it with the 78. Typically on fender or Duncan you have to put the neck pickup in the middle and vice versa, or flip the magnet on the bridge humbucker to get the auto-Split 2 position to be the opposite polarity with the slug coil.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

That's interesting to know.

So, the bridge pickup I'm replacing has Fender's "Greasebucket" tone control wired to it, and there is a push/pull to engage the neck pickup.

Is it possible one of these two things is causing something weird to happen with the Lil '59? Could that be the cause of the weird sound I was getting out of it?
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

First things first: double check the white/red connection, and resolder it to make sure it's good. It could be spotty and intermittent due to a poor solder joint.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

ItsaBass said:
First things first: double check the white/red connection, and resolder it to make sure it's good. It could be spotty and intermittent due to a poor solder joint.
Click to expand...

I can check that again. It didn't seem like an intermittent problem though. It was a consistent sound, but very harsh and clangy. Very thin and super bright.
 
Re: Hmm... Am Performer Strat pickup swap. What's going wrong here??

BUMP...

Does anyone know if the Greasebucket circuit could be causing some sort of weird interaction with the Lil '59?

Everything on the pickup itself checks out.
 
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