theAeronought
New member
Alright, I soon as I start talking, you're going to start thinking, well of course you've got a low signal and a lot of hum - those pickups are ancient! But let me tell you, this is no ordinary hum, and I know these pickups can be louder.
I borrowed the body and neck of my brother's Epiphone Les Paul so that I could try out these old Teisco pickups I found on craigslist. I took out the pickups and the wiring and the pickups, wired up my own harness (incidentally from a lefty LP that I scrapped for parts last year), and made adapters for the pickups so they'd fit over the humbucker routes. I also had to solder new wires to the old leads coming off of the pickups because they were too short to reach the other components. Then I plugged it in - at first, nothing at all. No hum, no noise, no beautiful miraculous clean jangliness, nothing.
So the next day, I took the access panel off again and tried a few more things - resoldered connections some connections, compared what I had done to several wiring diagrams, including the one I took out of the LP to begin with (which was identical, only with single-coils in place of humbuckers), re-attached the wires to the pickup leads, everything I could think of. There were a couple weak connections to begin with, so I thought this would do the trick. Put the access panel back on, plugged it in - still nothing. There goes my weekend
Today I tried something new - I took the access panel off and tried to play it like that, and SWEET LORD, THERE WAS SOUND. IT WAS A SOUND LIKE NO OTHER, THAT SANG TO MY SOUL, even if it was a little quiet. This was, I now think, as good as it will get. I had to turn the amp up to double what it had been (that's not much, it's just a little 10-watter) to hear it as loud as my other guitars, but that's alright. The problem is, that sound is now GONE. Of course I had to fix whatever problem there was - everytime I put the access panel back on, the signal sputtered and died, and I can't go around with wires hanging out the rear of my guitar. I spotted what I figured was the problem - one connection was still a little loose, and whenever I squashed the wires into the control cavity, the connection would break. So I fixed that up, and now the signal is very weak, and the hum, not so much.
What am I doing wrong?! Can anybody think of a potential diagnosis for what's up with my wiring, that isn't just old cheap pickups?
I borrowed the body and neck of my brother's Epiphone Les Paul so that I could try out these old Teisco pickups I found on craigslist. I took out the pickups and the wiring and the pickups, wired up my own harness (incidentally from a lefty LP that I scrapped for parts last year), and made adapters for the pickups so they'd fit over the humbucker routes. I also had to solder new wires to the old leads coming off of the pickups because they were too short to reach the other components. Then I plugged it in - at first, nothing at all. No hum, no noise, no beautiful miraculous clean jangliness, nothing.
So the next day, I took the access panel off again and tried a few more things - resoldered connections some connections, compared what I had done to several wiring diagrams, including the one I took out of the LP to begin with (which was identical, only with single-coils in place of humbuckers), re-attached the wires to the pickup leads, everything I could think of. There were a couple weak connections to begin with, so I thought this would do the trick. Put the access panel back on, plugged it in - still nothing. There goes my weekend
Today I tried something new - I took the access panel off and tried to play it like that, and SWEET LORD, THERE WAS SOUND. IT WAS A SOUND LIKE NO OTHER, THAT SANG TO MY SOUL, even if it was a little quiet. This was, I now think, as good as it will get. I had to turn the amp up to double what it had been (that's not much, it's just a little 10-watter) to hear it as loud as my other guitars, but that's alright. The problem is, that sound is now GONE. Of course I had to fix whatever problem there was - everytime I put the access panel back on, the signal sputtered and died, and I can't go around with wires hanging out the rear of my guitar. I spotted what I figured was the problem - one connection was still a little loose, and whenever I squashed the wires into the control cavity, the connection would break. So I fixed that up, and now the signal is very weak, and the hum, not so much.
What am I doing wrong?! Can anybody think of a potential diagnosis for what's up with my wiring, that isn't just old cheap pickups?
