New pickups sound bad &*(^(

[charvelman]

I have a Charvel Model 6 guitar(late 80's). I had a Duncan SH-6 put in the bridge position and 2 Duncan Cool Rails put in both the mid and neck positions yesterday. I replaced the original Jackson active pickups that were in there.

My guitar has 3 on-off pots, each controlling 1 of the pickups. The guitar also has 1 volume and 2 tone controls. 1 of the tone controls was connected mainly as a mid-range boost tone control.

The problem I have is that the guitar sounds horrible. The output I get from all of the pickups seems low. The sound seems very muffled and mid-rangy. I would compare the sound to what I might expect if I put my amp in the middle of a cardboard box filled with cotton balls. As it is right now, it's pretty much useless.

I talked to the technician who installed the Duncans and he is not sure what the best configuration for this guitar would be. He also thinks the sound is wrong.

I play all kinds of music from hard rock to classical, but not country(yuck ).

I’m looking for a good punch from the SH-6 and a strong, good clean tone from the Cool Rails.

Anyone know what the best wiring configuration may be for this guitar or have a wiring schematic?

Any help would be great.

Thanks

 

[JeffR12345]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

I had the same trouble when I installed my dimebucker. Turns out I overheated the volume pot when I was soldering the grounds. Sounds like this might be your problem, although I'm sure there are other people here that are more knowledgeable(sp?).

 

[Travis]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

I've got a Distortion/Cool Rails/Hot Rails in my 650xl which is just the updated Model 6. It sounds amazing to me. First of all, I left the mid-boost intact. Supposedly it was designed to work best with the Jackson pickups, but I think it works just fine with the Duncans as well. If you're not getting the tone that you just described from that set-up, then it had to have been wired wrong. Check it over again and make sure that everything is as it should be. I would check the pots as well.

If you took out the boost, then you need to replace the pots as well. I think that the volume and boost knobs were 50k with a 250k tone or something like that. It's been a while since I checked, but that's close at least.

 

[TheArchitect]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

If it had active pups it could have very low value pots (100meg or lower) that would filter off a lot of high end. I would start with checking the value of the pots. 500meg is what I would go with.

Next I would make sure that you aren't still running through any ofthe active circuitry. Really not needed and very likely bad tonewise for what you put in.

 

[DeadSkinSlayer3]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

Check the pot values, check to make sure you didn't fry any pots. Those pickups should sound amazing.

 

[charvelman]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

Thank you all.
I know these Duncans should crank out some good sound. I'll definitely check the pots and the wiring. I'm also passing along a couple wiring schematics to the tech that installed them. Maybe we'll try it again.

 

[Luke Duke]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

My guess is that there is a cold solder joint, or a pot/s got melted. In either case if your tech thinks he did a good enough job take it somewhere else, or do it yourself, then you KNOW it's right. You say you have 3 on off switches?

Luke

 

[charvelman]

Re: New pickups sound bad &*(^(

Yep, 3 on off switches. Each is an on-off toggle switch. I'm wondering if these might be the issue. Should I think of replacing these also?