I'm new here and need help.

[RonnieRedTele]

Hello, Glad to be here.
I was hoping that someone could me straighten out an issue I'm having with my Telecaster.
What I thought was going to be a simple task, has turned out troublesome.
I installed a Seth Lover 2 conductor humbucker recently in the neck of my 2010 Am Std using standard Tele wiring scheme with a 3 way selector switch.
In this way, neck sounds great and bridge sounds good separately.
Middle position it sounds rough kind of like playing through a real small amp.
Researching on the internets it sounds like the two pickups are out of phase. The bridge pick up is a stock single coil that came with my 2010.
Reading on other forums it was suggested by some to leave the Seth as is and to reverse wires on my stock bridge pickup as in yellow to ground on top of volume pot and black to the selector blade.
By doing this, the result is neck pickup sounds good still but bridge and middle position hums badly more so when I touch strings and metal pieces but I think under the humming would sound good too.
So I read about this issue and learned that I need to do something with the ground going to the bridge plate but I'm not really clear exactly what I'm to do with it and with the wires going to the switch and vol. pot.
Can anybody who has successfully accomplished this pickup swap help me straighten this out?
Note: Volume and tone pots are stock 250K.
Thanks for reading this.

 

[gregory]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Maybe you can swap the wiring on the bridge pickup, though I don't know if, like the Seth, the ground is connected to the pickup and baseplate internally. It's not the easiest task, but the Seth's internal wiring can be reversed.

 

[Riley]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

It sounds like the Fender pickup and the Seth Lover were out of phase. By flipping the leads on your bridge pickup you corrected the phase issue, but because the black wire on your Tele pickup is hardwired to the bottom plate it's now acting as an antenna for noise. You can remedy this by decoupling the black lead from the metal on the pickup and attaching a separate lead from the bottom plate to the ground in your control cavity. Here's a diagram with instructions for how to do it: http://www.seymourduncan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/WD_Tele_Lead_phase.jpg

Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any more questions!

 

[VinceT]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Put the bridge pickup back the way it was and reverse the connections from the Seth. That'll cure the new issue with bridge and put the two pickups in phase in the middle position.


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[Riley]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Put the bridge pickup back the way it was and reverse the connections from the Seth. That'll cure the new issue with bridge and put the two pickups in phase in the middle position.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Unless specifically ordered with a 4-conductor lead, the Seth Lover comes with a single conductor lead with a braided shield – reversing the leads (braid and black) would result in the same noise issues he's currently having, just in the neck rather than the bridge.

If the Seth does have a 4-conductor lead then he could fix the issue by wiring the bridge pickup as normal (yellow to hot) and reverse the green and black leads on the Seth, but it sounds like he has the standard single conductor version.

 

[VinceT]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Unless specifically ordered with a 4-conductor lead, the Seth Lover comes with a single conductor lead with a braided shield – reversing the leads (braid and black) would result in the same noise issues he's currently having, just in the neck rather than the bridge.

If the Seth does have a 4-conductor lead then he could fix the issue by wiring the bridge pickup as normal (yellow to hot) and reverse the green and black leads on the Seth, but it sounds like he has the standard single conductor version.

Yeah, my mistake - I'm used to 4 conductor.


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[Riley]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Yeah, my mistake - I'm used to 4 conductor.


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No worries! In most other cases you would have been correct, and I could have totally elaborated on the single-conductor thing in my first post.

 

[RonnieRedTele]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Hi there, welcome to the forum!

It sounds like the Fender pickup and the Seth Lover were out of phase. By flipping the leads on your bridge pickup you corrected the phase issue, but because the black wire on your Tele pickup is hardwired to the bottom plate it's now acting as an antenna for noise. You can remedy this by decoupling the black lead from the metal on the pickup and attaching a separate lead from the bottom plate to the ground in your control cavity. Here's a diagram with instructions for how to do it: http://www.seymourduncan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/WD_Tele_Lead_phase.jpg

Hope that helps, and let me know if you have any more questions!

Hey Thanks Riley, I had not seen this particular picture and instructions.
So I actually have to sever the small jumper underneath the bridge pickup. Didn't know this. Do I have to cap them off someway isolate the cut ends?
It says to connect the black wire out of the bridge pickup to the selector switch and the white to ground on the back of the volume pot.
My bridge wire is yellow same thing right?
I will try this.
Thank you thank you!

 

[jeremy]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

yes, same thing just different colors. depending on your level of skill with a soldering iron you can either run a separate ground wire from the baseplate of the bridge pup or you can switch the little jumper to the other lead. better to be safe than sorry since the pup wire is very thin (thickness of a hair) so if you arent comfortable, snip the jumper and run a separate ground. as long as the snipped ends of the jumper dont touch anything you dont need to cover them but it cant hurt

 

[RonnieRedTele]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Well after taking the bridge off, my pickup does not have this small jumper loop.
There is already a bare splayed ground wire that was under the plate it goes to a junction screwed under the pickup in the cavity.
The pickups black wire also runs to this junction.
Then one black wire runs out of cavity and I have it currently attached to the selector switch.
So based on this what should I do now?
Recap:
Yellow goes to back of volume pot
Black from pickup that goes to junction goes to:
Separate wire from under bridge plate to:
Existing bare ended wire that goes to bridge plate now gets removed?
I love tinkering but wiring can overwhelm me at times

 

[jeremy]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

you want the bare wire grounded. the yellow wire grounded and the black pup wire to the switch. however its easiest to make that happen is what you want to do.

in your case the back of the volume pot is a grounded, which is good. the junction in the pup cavity should be grounded but currently is hot which is where your issue is.

id remove the black pup wire from the junction in the cavity and run it to the switch, then ground the junction that has only the bare wire connected to it.

 

[RonnieRedTele]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

you want the bare wire grounded. the yellow wire grounded and the black pup wire to the switch. however its easiest to make that happen is what you want to do.

in your case the back of the volume pot is a grounded, which is good. the junction in the pup cavity should be grounded but currently is hot which is where your issue is.

id remove the black pup wire from the junction in the cavity and run it to the switch, then ground the junction that has only the bare wire connected to it.

Hey Jeremy
So if I remove or blank off the bridge plate wire and run a separate ground wire from plate to the back of the volume pot along with the yellow wire from the pickup that would do it then correct?
Do I need to concern myself with the other two grounds at the terminals screwed in the control cavity and the pickup route channel? If I tried it your way, I would have to splice the black from the pickup because it's too short to reach the switch.

 

[gregory]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Yes, it sounds like you need to lengthen the black wire in order to get it to the switch. The yellow wire needs to attach to ground and the wire that grounds the baseplate still needs to go to a spot that is ground.


While Jeremy has this well under control, some pictures might still be useful.

 

[RonnieRedTele]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

I think I now know what I need to do.
The only thing holding me back is I don't have any spare wire suitable to make the separate ground.
Darn it's frustrating when you don't have a small piece of wire available -and try to find 22-24 Ga.awg on a Saturday.
None available anywhere around me!
��

 

[RonnieRedTele]

Re: I'm new here and need help.

Success!
Everything is super fine now.
Loving the sounds now even if it is through my cheap little bench amp.
Now to test it with my Custom Deluxe Reverb.
I'd like to thank all of you helping me sort this modification.
It was challenging and a little tricky.
Rock On people.