pickups in wrong positions

koshikas

koshikas

New member
guys I'm convinced that Ibanez has put pickups in wrong positions in my 'musician'. as it is, bridge reads 7.1k and neck reads 7.5k. neck sounds awful muddy as it is and I was only able to get decent highs only after removing all screw poles. bridge is nice open and bright but feels wimpy when going from neck to bridge. this is after I've lowered the neck as much and raising the bridge pickup so close to the strings.

now the problem is these are 'super 58' which I intend to keep. no problems swapping, except in order to keep trem-bucker style 3 screw adjustment I'll have to put the now bridge pickup in neck slot with the screw coil towards the bridge instead of conventional way. same will happen to the other pickup.

are there any repercussions of having the screw/stud coil orientations the other way in their respective positions

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Re: pickups in wrong positions

They're pretty close.....I'd guess the .4 wouldn't do a whole heap to change things about even if they were in the other way.

Screw/stud orientation for any symmetric wound coil will make a VERY small difference, mostly hardly audible. However the screws being in the opposite posi's might help actually - you can add grunt to the bridge by screwing the poles out of the coil closer to the neck, and clarity to the neck with the screws now closer to the bridge.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

AlexR said:
They're pretty close.....I'd guess the .4 wouldn't do a whole heap to change things about even if they were in the other way.
Click to expand...

yeah, but they have different EQ, with more mids in the pickup that is in neck position now, which is ruining things. I can live with the bridge pickup though. anyway i'll be ripping out the pickups in an hours time, i guess there is no better way to assess than to do the thing and see how it goes.

Thanks man
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

How old is your Ibanez Musician and which model number?

The old Super 58 was a straightforward PAF clone with no differentiation between the neck/Rhythm and bridge/Treble units.

As has already been pointed out, 0.4k is within manufacturing tolerances. Changing the positions of the two pickups is unlikely to reap any great sonic rewards.

What might help, however, is to change the bar magnets inside the pickups. De-mud the neck position pickup with an Alnico 4 magnet. Boost the output of the bridge position pickup with either an Alnico 8 or a ceramic magnet.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

it's done and I'll have to agree with Funkfingers. while the now neck pickup sounds bit brighter (albeit retaining all the screws, and after being lowered enough) it still is bit middy for my taste, specially playing clean. with gain dialed in it is not as muddy but very sweet with just enough highs (could be the A3) doing it's thing. I'll live with it for a while and see how it goes. the bridge just got a tad little midy and it's really close to strings. like u guys said it is only a marginal improvement.

the musician is a '82 MC150FR. cool guitar but pickups were a let down so far, so I'll stay with it for few more weeks and after I'll be doing the mag swaps. do you guys reckon that the A4 would be brighter than the A3. I might even like the bridge pickup as it is now.

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Re: pickups in wrong positions

apart from that the aesthetics are a bit different now.
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Re: pickups in wrong positions

The other thing is, that if the super 58 is indeed the same pickup neck and bridge (as in wound to the same specs), then the eq problem won't be a function of the pickup, but a function of the pickup position.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

AlexR said:
The other thing is, that if the super 58 is indeed the same pickup neck and bridge (as in wound to the same specs), then the eq problem won't be a function of the pickup, but a function of the pickup position.
Click to expand...
I thought not before the change thinking they were wound differently to the same resistance. after the change I can confirm that u guys are right, it must have been wound the same way, the EQ difference I was hearing was indeed the position.

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Re: pickups in wrong positions

You can always manipulate the pot values and cap values if you feel like some 'sidegrades'.

The neck pickup circuit can be done with 2 550k CTS pots and a .01uf cap. This will do everything to retain highs, which will perhaps reduce the peak of the mids a bit (or balance it out a bit).

I have a similar thing going on with 2 PAF clones I had wound - the neck is about 7.9 and the bridge 7.5 (and this is often what happened in vintage guitars too). The trick is getting the electronics to help as much as possible, as well as pickup heights.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

Are the pickups two conductor or four? If four, wire the neck pickup in parallel.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

dominus said:
Are the pickups two conductor or four? If four, wire the neck pickup in parallel.
Click to expand...

that is the sad part, the super 58's are 3-conductor, the odd one is there to split only. split, it is so weak. still dont have the balls rip the pickup open and convert it to a four conductor.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

AlexR said:
The neck pickup circuit can be done with 2 550k CTS pots and a .01uf cap. This will do everything to retain highs, which will perhaps reduce the peak of the mids a bit (or balance it out a bit).
Click to expand...

2 x 550k pots? is that for both volume and tone?

AlexR said:
I have a similar thing going on with 2 PAF clones I had wound - the neck is about 7.9 and the bridge 7.5 (and this is often what happened in vintage guitars too). The trick is getting the electronics to help as much as possible, as well as pickup heights.
Click to expand...

did you intentionally use the the higher wound pickup for the neck, any reasons for doing that?
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

The 550k pots would be for both vol and tone for the neck pickup.

The pickups are a PAF clone, wound by ReWind. A few of his pickup models are 'random'......ie he picks two from a certain general spec and labels them randomly neck and bridge (as how PAF pickups ended up in guitars). These were similar....but with the stronger pickup intended for the neck originally. I decided to put them in that way initially and see how it sounded - pretty good really.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

my experience on this guitar with the over-wound neck pickup was not entirely bad either. what i found was that i could really lower neck pickup to lessen the lows and the mids (to retain highs), with the over-wound coils being good compensation for the weaker A3 magnet.

to sum up the thread, do you think that if I swap the stock A3 magnet for an A4 magnet in the neck pickup, would the A4 be brighter than the A3?
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

If your Ibanez Super 58 humbuckers are totally original, there are aficionados who collect them. Use the proceeds to purchase what you would like to have in that guitar.
 
Re: pickups in wrong positions

I'll see how it goes, really want a guitar with PAF-like pickups which they are. just that I couldn't find a proper bias between the two to make both of them useable

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