Greetings. I'm a newbie here so I apologize if this a commonly covered topic.
Some background: I recently acquired a Fender Double Fat Strat. The American one with the S-1 switching. This thing is already a complicated rig to begin with. However, in an effort to make this guitar almost unmanageable onstage I decided to turn it into a swiss army knife of sorts.
First, I installed a GraphTech piezo acoustic bridge with an onboard pre-amp. The pre-amp has its own volume control so I removed one of the tone pots and gave the guitar master volume and tone controls for the magnetic pups. To my surprise, this installation went off without a hitch. Sounds great.
Next, I wanted to add a single coil in the middle to get an HSH set up. The HBs are stock Fender and for the single coil I chose an HB Five-Two for Strat, middle position. Since this guitar's wiring is already a bit of a horror show I decided to add a 3-way mini toggle (on-on-on) after the output of the five way switch. This way I could have the humbuckers alone (with their existing 10 combinations: 5-way and S-1 switches don'tcha know), the single coil alone or both combined in the middle position.
I got the Five-Two in the mail and put it in. Nothing, no sound at all. I lost some sleep over that ('what the heck did I do wrong?') but figured out that the pup was defective. I ordered it's replacement and installed that yesterday. Now... the single coil works fine by itself, the HBs work fine by themselves but (and you know what I'm about to say) when combined the guitar's output is cut by about half and is really wimpy. Obvious phase cancellation, right?
So, the question is: what can I do? I always knew that I would replace the humbuckers someday (SD, of course) but I'm in no hurry to spend any more money on this project right now. Can I swap the leads on the single coil? How about the leads on the humbuckers? Is it a problem with magnet polarity mismatch (a new concept to me)? Do I have to flip the magnets on the humbuckers (also a new concept) or would that even work? Other options?
Sorry for being so long winded. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your indulgence,
Joel
Some background: I recently acquired a Fender Double Fat Strat. The American one with the S-1 switching. This thing is already a complicated rig to begin with. However, in an effort to make this guitar almost unmanageable onstage I decided to turn it into a swiss army knife of sorts.
First, I installed a GraphTech piezo acoustic bridge with an onboard pre-amp. The pre-amp has its own volume control so I removed one of the tone pots and gave the guitar master volume and tone controls for the magnetic pups. To my surprise, this installation went off without a hitch. Sounds great.
Next, I wanted to add a single coil in the middle to get an HSH set up. The HBs are stock Fender and for the single coil I chose an HB Five-Two for Strat, middle position. Since this guitar's wiring is already a bit of a horror show I decided to add a 3-way mini toggle (on-on-on) after the output of the five way switch. This way I could have the humbuckers alone (with their existing 10 combinations: 5-way and S-1 switches don'tcha know), the single coil alone or both combined in the middle position.
I got the Five-Two in the mail and put it in. Nothing, no sound at all. I lost some sleep over that ('what the heck did I do wrong?') but figured out that the pup was defective. I ordered it's replacement and installed that yesterday. Now... the single coil works fine by itself, the HBs work fine by themselves but (and you know what I'm about to say) when combined the guitar's output is cut by about half and is really wimpy. Obvious phase cancellation, right?
So, the question is: what can I do? I always knew that I would replace the humbuckers someday (SD, of course) but I'm in no hurry to spend any more money on this project right now. Can I swap the leads on the single coil? How about the leads on the humbuckers? Is it a problem with magnet polarity mismatch (a new concept to me)? Do I have to flip the magnets on the humbuckers (also a new concept) or would that even work? Other options?
Sorry for being so long winded. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your indulgence,
Joel
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