Today I just tried installing some new pickups for the first time and after finishing up the soldering and etc I was pretty sure the guitar would not work at all but surprisingly I was able to get output from both of the pickups -- I was excited that the pickups worked...but there were some major problems. And before I list those problems here are my list of specs for anybody who wants to help me:
Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus
Bridge pickup: 4-conductor '59 nickel covered
Neck pickup: 4-conductor APH-1 nickel covered
I followed the standard wiring diagram/instructions provided with the pickups
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Ok now the problems:
1) there is a noticable humming sound whenever I put the guitar switch in the "treble" or "rthymn" position. this humming gets much worse with distortion -- before I could actually play with the overdrive2 mode of my marshall AVT100 (overdrive2 is a heavier distortion than overdrive1) but once I switch to this mode the humming becomes a drone that seems to increase in volume and I have to immediately switch to overdrive1 or clean at the fear of creating some ear piercing noise...
oddly enough in the position between treble and rthymn the humming isn't as noticable
2) the "treble" position sounds very much like "rthymn" in that the sound is fuller while the "rthymn" position sounds very trebly, much more sharp and almost nasal.
I think I followed the instructions correctly when soldering the pickups to their respective pots -- I matched the longer wire to the neck volume pot and the shorter wire to the bridge volume pot... so maybe I did it backwards?
3) the sound quality isn't exactly that much better than what I expected it to be - it just seems like a higher output version of my stock epiphone pickups and in a way they kind of sound worse...but maybe I need to adjust my amp settings...or maybe it's because of the above problems?
And of course I didn't have problems 1 or 2 with my original stock pickups
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Ok so if anybody is still following me: there were quite a few things that I was not able to do during the pickup installation for fear that I might damage something and before I make my next move I wanted to see if anybody had any advice on what might be causing the above problems:
A) when I desoldered the old epiphone pickups I still left a bit of solder behind (I wasn't able to clean up *all* the solder and wick left behind) since I was afraid of overheating the pots and with all my efforts I just could not suck up the previous solder + wick with my desoldering pump (it's a 45 watt iron with a pump attached). I got as much as I could though...
B) I'm not sure if I soldered the white and red wires together properly (the wires that are supposed to be soldered together and insulated) -- I put my iron under the wire and tried to heat it but the solder wouldn't melt when it touched the wires ... so I let it touch the iron and when it melted I moved the iron around the wires and let the solder wrap around the wires that way...
C) I didn't cut my neck ('59') pickup's incoming wire as close as I could -- there's got to be around 3-4 inches of extra slack in there now. I chose to do this because I was afraid that if I cut it too close I could potentially ruin the pickup...but later on I read that this extra slack could be the cause of the noise.
Well thanks ahead of time for anybody who wants to help me... I spent most of today installing these pickups and I'm just happy that they're at least working (although not to the quality that I like) but I didn't want to do anything drastic that could ruin the pickups so hopefully somebody can chime in with some advice
Epiphone Les Paul Standard Plus
Bridge pickup: 4-conductor '59 nickel covered
Neck pickup: 4-conductor APH-1 nickel covered
I followed the standard wiring diagram/instructions provided with the pickups
------------------------------------------------------
Ok now the problems:
1) there is a noticable humming sound whenever I put the guitar switch in the "treble" or "rthymn" position. this humming gets much worse with distortion -- before I could actually play with the overdrive2 mode of my marshall AVT100 (overdrive2 is a heavier distortion than overdrive1) but once I switch to this mode the humming becomes a drone that seems to increase in volume and I have to immediately switch to overdrive1 or clean at the fear of creating some ear piercing noise...
oddly enough in the position between treble and rthymn the humming isn't as noticable
2) the "treble" position sounds very much like "rthymn" in that the sound is fuller while the "rthymn" position sounds very trebly, much more sharp and almost nasal.
I think I followed the instructions correctly when soldering the pickups to their respective pots -- I matched the longer wire to the neck volume pot and the shorter wire to the bridge volume pot... so maybe I did it backwards?
3) the sound quality isn't exactly that much better than what I expected it to be - it just seems like a higher output version of my stock epiphone pickups and in a way they kind of sound worse...but maybe I need to adjust my amp settings...or maybe it's because of the above problems?
And of course I didn't have problems 1 or 2 with my original stock pickups
------------------------------------------------------
Ok so if anybody is still following me: there were quite a few things that I was not able to do during the pickup installation for fear that I might damage something and before I make my next move I wanted to see if anybody had any advice on what might be causing the above problems:
A) when I desoldered the old epiphone pickups I still left a bit of solder behind (I wasn't able to clean up *all* the solder and wick left behind) since I was afraid of overheating the pots and with all my efforts I just could not suck up the previous solder + wick with my desoldering pump (it's a 45 watt iron with a pump attached). I got as much as I could though...
B) I'm not sure if I soldered the white and red wires together properly (the wires that are supposed to be soldered together and insulated) -- I put my iron under the wire and tried to heat it but the solder wouldn't melt when it touched the wires ... so I let it touch the iron and when it melted I moved the iron around the wires and let the solder wrap around the wires that way...
C) I didn't cut my neck ('59') pickup's incoming wire as close as I could -- there's got to be around 3-4 inches of extra slack in there now. I chose to do this because I was afraid that if I cut it too close I could potentially ruin the pickup...but later on I read that this extra slack could be the cause of the noise.
Well thanks ahead of time for anybody who wants to help me... I spent most of today installing these pickups and I'm just happy that they're at least working (although not to the quality that I like) but I didn't want to do anything drastic that could ruin the pickups so hopefully somebody can chime in with some advice
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