SD Pickups Too Loud?

D

Doomofman

New member
Hi all, hoping someone might recognize what I'm talking about and be able to clue me on what's going on/what I'm doing wrong.

I have two guitars now that I've wired up with SD pickups (one has the Hotrodded HB set and the other is N-59, B-Vintage Stage, B-Invader)
But with both guitars, after following the SD Wiring Diagrams I find that all the humbuckers are too 'hot' as in at full volume on a clean channel they distort, it's way more noticeable on the neck pups, but seems to affect all of the HB pickups.

I have to have the volume around 70% to get a passable tone. Is this just the way SD pickups are? Or am I doing something wrong when installing/setting them up?
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Try lowering them away from the strings a bit more than you would the stock pickups.

Sent from my Alcatel_5044C using Tapatalk
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Re-EQ your amp and or pedals.

Sent from my REVVLPLUS C3701A using Tapatalk
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

I'm DIing into an interface (Scarlett 6i6), even with no processing the signal distorts at full volume. Around 70% on the volume knob seems to be what works. I'll try to record a sample so you can hear what I'm hearing
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

I'm not entirely sure it's an issue with the gain on the interface. I recorded the below, direct with no processing in Cubase. First half is around 65/70% on the guitar's volume knob, second half is at 100%. I've tried to match the overall volume level but the second half is a touch louder but neither come close to clipping

https://soundcloud.com/doomofman/cleantest-01/s-HtM46

I've never had a guitar that came with SD pickups pre-installed so maybe this is normal behavior and I'm just being an idiot
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Sounds normal to me. Pickups are made to drive an amp input, not a DI. A DI will be unforgiving of any clipping, while a tube amp circuit has a natural compression that isn’t harsh or with undesirable dirt on the clean signal. (Unless you dial it in to sound that way). I don’t know that I/O but are you running it into an instrument input or line input? If whatever the input is isn’t providing the right impedance, the tone can suffer in various ways.
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

beaubrummels said:
Sounds normal to me. Pickups are made to drive an amp input, not a DI. A DI will be unforgiving of any clipping, while a tube amp circuit has a natural compression that isn’t harsh or with undesirable dirt on the clean signal. (Unless you dial it in to sound that way). I don’t know that I/O but are you running it into an instrument input or line input? If whatever the input is isn’t providing the right impedance, the tone can suffer in various ways.
Click to expand...

The input can be configured as either Line or Instrument, same thing happens with either setting. It only happens with my two guitars that have SD pickups, every other guitar I have (with EMGs, Dimarzios or Fender pickups) if you plug it in, with the guitars volume at max and set the input gain a bit below where it clips, the clean signal is clean, with the two SD guitars I have, the clean signal is distorted when the guitars volume is at max, the problem is amplified once it's running through a virtual amp and cab

The behaviour of the SD pickups is so different to any other pickup type I have I figured it must be an issue with how I'm wiring them or something but for the life of me I can't figure out what that is (for instance, on my HSH guitar with SD pickups, all three pickups suffer the same issue at max volume on the guitar)

I'm just at a loss as to how to sort it, running the guitar at 70% volume doesn't really work because the input signal is too low then
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Your passive SDs are hotter than your EMGs? How do all the guitars sound straight into a real amp?
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Both a JB and Invader are certainly powerful enough to clip an interface. How do the neck pickups sound?
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

The neck pickups are much worse than the bridge pickups. The passive SDs sound hotter than my Active EMGs but as far as my interface reads it, neither actually clip. It's like the sound from the SDs is distorting before it even hits the interface.

I don't have a real amp to test (yeah I know, don't hate me)

Basically, if you were just looking at the input signal without listening to it, you wouldn't see a difference between my SD guitars and say my EMG ones as neither would clip if the input gain is set correctly, but the SDs badly distort, where any other pickups don't

The only difference between my SD guitars and the others are that the SD ones are the only ones I wired the pickups myself (well my active EMGs too but they're solderless).

EDIT: Just to add (not sure why I didn't think of this before now) to rule out it being the interface, I have a POD HD 500x and it exhibits the same thing. SD pickups distort badly anywhere above 65/70% other guitars/pickups are fine
 
Last edited:
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Maybe a stupid question.
I know you said that your signal is not clipping.
Is there a possibility that you’re clipping on the input stage but not the output stage? Maybe your signal is hitting the interface too hard?
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Gtrjunior said:
Maybe a stupid question.
I know you said that your signal is not clipping.
Is there a possibility that you’re clipping on the input stage but not the output stage? Maybe your signal is hitting the interface too hard?
Click to expand...

Not stupid at all. The interface has a clipping light on the input that works outside of any app/daw. Green when you're good and red when it clips, I keep it in the green so I know it's not clipping on the input side of things.

Also, I made an edit to my last post as you were posting, tested the guitars on my POD HD 500X and get the exact same issue.

It's kinda killed my drive to play guitar at the moment, was hyped to try my new pickups today only to find the same issue as the last set of SDs I tried... I'm sure it must be something I did wrong with the wiring, I've ruled out the interface, cables, headphones/speakers, don't get the issue on other guitars/pickups... I guess I'll just have to rewire the two guitars entirely... sigh
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Maybe if you posted some pics of the wiring some of the guys here can help.
Some of these guys are downright amazing with that stuff.
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

Gtrjunior said:
Maybe if you posted some pics of the wiring some of the guys here can help.
Some of these guys are downright amazing with that stuff.
Click to expand...

That's not a bad idea, I'll do that in the morning (it's night time this side of the pond). It'll probably just be some simple mistake I mad in the wiring
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

The neck pickups clipping too (or worse) sounds like there's something up that is not pickup related....especially given the pickups are very low as you have mentioned.

As suggested earlier, if you can try the guitars into a regular amp that might help sort things out. Something like a pot/switch/jack might be making for a static like noise which gets triggered as distortion.
 
Re: SD Pickups Too Loud?

OK, so I've snapped some pics of the wiring for my HSH guitar.

I didn't make any changes to the wiring between the volume and tone pots and the jack(guitar is a cheap Yamaha and those are the pots that came with it, other guitar with the same issue is an Ibanez again with it's original pots) just attached the pickups to the switch and the grounds to the volume pot. (The bits with blue tape are soldered or twisted together and then taped off)

Could it just be my shoddy soldering job on the back of the volume pot causing the issue? I wired it according to this diagram https://www.seymourduncan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/HSH_5W_1V_1T.jpg

20190707_095709.jpg
20190707_095726.jpg
20190707_095704.jpg
 
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