Need Some Help With My '59n

[ExplorersRock]

So I just rewired my Blacktop HH Strat. I think I did everything right but my neck pickup is giving me problems. Long story short, it is so muddy/bass-heavy it always sounds downright muffled! I mean like blanket-over-the-speaker-type-sound muffled! I wired it up with a C/'59 hybrid in the bridge, 1 volume, 2 tones, 5-way super switch. All pots are 500k CTS audio tapers and 0.22mfd Orange Drop caps. Position 2 is both inside coils, position 4 is the outside (screw) coil of the '59 only and it sounds flippin' awesome. But when I use the '59 in full humbucker mode, it's muffled-tone-time! I've adjusted the screw poles and the pickup height with no luck. Any ideas?

Final thought... I'm still learning my wiring and it's possible I fried a pot, cap, part of the switch, etc. Did I maybe screw up the wiring? The tone pot works fine as far as I can tell. Please help me guys, I'm stuck!

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention: alder body, maple neck, maple board.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

If you freshly installed pots, make sure the proper terminals are bent in and grounded, the caps wired right, and just generally tracing every move you made against a wiring diagram.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Double check all the wiring.


Sent from my armored space station using Tapatalk on iPad

 

[MrTondo]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Do both tone pots work fine? I would almost say that one is wired in reverse... on the other hand you said the four position works ok.

Wire checking time it is...

 

[AlexR]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

In addition - Check to see if the tone cap is grounding out. You may have inadvertantly ended up with the tone on 0

 

[KnifeR]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Check if tones work properly (like collegues says).
Give us information about Your wiring diagram You are using.
Give us pictures of Your wiring.

If this three do not work just give us the info what of the wiring 5 way superswitch system you whant???
I will do this wiring especially for you
(sorry for my bad eng - not my native)

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Lots of good ideas here, and I think checking my wiring is a good place to start. I've kept messing with the pickup and the EQ on my amp and it has gotten better. But it might be a case of this guitar sounds this way with this pickup. In which case, thank the Lord for SD's 21-day swap policy! Jazz, here I come!

KnifeR - I'll see about posting up a wiring diagram later, but I'm 95% sure I'm good there. I do really appreciate the offer to check it! I'll report back later with more info.

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Ok. Had my tech listen to it. He said everything sounds like it's wired right. He's also a massive '59n fan. Here's verbatim what he said about my neck pickup: "Well, that sounds like it's wired right, and it sounds like a '59 to me. But I will say, it's very bassy! I can't tell you whether it's the pickup or if it's the guitar itself. If it had a rosewood fretboard, I wouldn't think much of it, but with maple? It could be that pickup or it could be this particular guitar." I also asked him if I had screwed up the wiring somehow if that would create the bassy response and he said he was pretty sure it wouldn't.

I'm still gonna take it apart and check the wiring here soon; I'll report back with my findings. But given his opinion, either I got a '59 with a strong bass response, or this guitar just does that. Like I said, if it really bugs me, I'll swap it.

 

[Grindspine]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

position 4 is the outside (screw) coil of the '59 only and it sounds flippin' awesome. But when I use the '59 in full humbucker mode, it's muffled-tone-time!

I always find the '59 to be kinda dark and muffled in the neck position when wired in series. If you dig the outside coil only sound, can you rewire the full humbucker mode to parallel wiring?

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Ignore your C/59 hybrid for a few days. Adjust your amp setting to where the 59 sounds more balanced (more treble, less bass). Adjust the pickup height until it sounds good to you. Play it for a day or two. Then switch back to the C/59 bridge and I bet you will find that you now have the opposite problem. The neck sounds fine, but the C/59 sounds bright and harsh in the bridge position. I would have paired the Jazz with the C/59 hybrid, not the 59. I wouldn't think they would balance well together.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

'59N's are notorious for being bassy/boomy in some guitars. Some guys put in A4's or A3's to fix that.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Something is wrong with the wiring...boomy in the lows, sure...muffled like a blanket over the speakers, not normal at all...

Get the wiring straight then report back.

 

[darthphineas]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

'59N's are notorious for being bassy/boomy in some guitars. Some guys put in A4's or A3's to fix that.

+1

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

I had this exact problem a while back (with a Pearly Gates neck) and I too assumed it was the pickup. But no, it was that the tone control for that pickup was accidentally being bypassed. All that has to happen is one leg of the capacitor is touching hot or ground when it shouldn't be. Check that first! The 59 in a strat should not sound like that at all. And if it does, a Jazz won't sound much different.

A quick way to check, as mentioned above, is to roll the relevant tone control down and up. If it has no effect then you know that tone control isn't working properly.

I'm fairly sure that this is your problem, not just that the 59 is muddy.

 

[jumble jumble]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

OK, I happen to have a Strat with a 59 in the neck at the moment. So here's a recording.

The first bit is what the 59 should sound like. For the second bit I rolled the tone down, so this is more-or-less what it will sound like if your tone control is bypassed (depending on the capacitor value).



Which of those two does it sound more like?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

+1 for checking how the Neck PU tone pot is wired.

Is it supposed to roll treble off for both positions 5 and 4? Is it actually doing that? On HH Stratocaster circuits that employ a 24-contact Superswitch, the lower tone pot should only act on selections, 1, 2 and 3. (Bridge, Inside coils, both HBs.)

The other thing that I would check is which terminals have been used on each tone pot? Do they share a single capacitor a la vintage circuit? Is that capacitor connected properly?

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

I had this exact problem a while back (with a Pearly Gates neck) and I too assumed it was the pickup. But no, it was that the tone control for that pickup was accidentally being bypassed. All that has to happen is one leg of the capacitor is touching hot or ground when it shouldn't be. Check that first! The 59 in a strat should not sound like that at all. And if it does, a Jazz won't sound much different.

A quick way to check, as mentioned above, is to roll the relevant tone control down and up. If it has no effect then you know that tone control isn't working properly.

I'm fairly sure that this is your problem, not just that the 59 is muddy.

I really appreciate the sound clip bro, thanks! I think this might be the issue. In your clip, both sound close to mine except mine has about 5 times as much bass! I never get that kinda jangly clarity even with the tone rolled all the way up. I'm gonna yank all the wiring with the neck pickup and start there. I'm also gonna pull the tone pot and try a different one. Can't hurt. It's gotta be something in that circuit, the bridge has plenty of clarity

BTW... Here's a pic of how I wired the super switch. I had to make the diagram on excel, so I pologize for the crappy view:


And I Wired the tones like you see in the diagram below, except that the pickups run directly to the switch and the tones do too. Perhaps I should wire the pickups to the tones, then one wire to the selector?


FINAL THOUGHT: Could this be a result of overheating and frying a tone pot or the switch?

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

I just did a side-by-side with a guitar I have with a similar pickup. It's a custom shop Hot '59 (Basically a '59 wound to 9.5k DC). The two sound similar in tone, but my CS job has more jangle and LOTS less bass. That's not a perfect apples to apples, but the CS pickup is CLOSER to the strings, and in a guitar with a rosewood board! About to heat up the soldering iron!

 

[ExplorersRock]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

OK, after rewiring several times and playing around with heights and pole pieces here's what I can say. The first rewire, I swapped the volume and neck tone pots, and changed the volume to a linear taper for better control. Still running all 500's and .022 caps. I also noticed that the ground wire from the neck pickup (bare wire) was a little frayed and the black output wire was partially exposed. Re-cut, rewired. I also have the pickups running to the tone pots, then the tone pots to the switch. It sounded like a little more treble was now getting through.

After that, I got clued in by Scott Miller at SD that you can test if it's your components by simple connecting the neck pickup to the jack. This will remove everything else from the connection. It answered the question. The wiring is ok. Either this guitar is gonna have a bass-heavy tone in the neck position or this particular '59 has more bass than normal. I did play around with the EQs and tried it through different amps. Some work got a good solid tone! Still more bass than I anticipated and more than I'd like. But at least we now have good tone. I also found out that rolling the volume down from 10 to even 8 or 7 balanced out the EQ quite a bit.

Scott also suggested connecting the hot output of my pickup to a 0.047mfd cap, then connect that cap to the tone pot where I was connecting the hot wire before. This should remove some bass. I must've done that wrong because I honestly didn't hear a difference. But I honestly think I did that wrong.

After all this, here's what I think. I think I have a more-bass-than-usual '59. The tone now is pretty good actually, but lacks some clarity. Although, that may be normal for a '59? That's what gets me, my other '59 experiences have never been quite like this. It definitely sounds like a '59 but not as much jangle, and definitely more bass. I'm gonna play it for another day or so. If I'm not happy, well, I'm still within my 21 days. I'll swap. I may swap the custom/59 hybrid too. It sounds good, but wasn't quite what I was after.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. I really appreciate it.

 

[MrTondo]

Re: Need Some Help With My '59n

Sounds to me like with all the time invested you do not really wanna swap, but it would be the right thing to do to get the best sound.