SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

[Steve Y]

Hi all. I am trying to troubleshoot an issue that I hope you all can shed some light on. I have a Fender Ed O’Brien sustainer Strat which comes with a JB Jr humbucker in the bridge position, Texas Special in the middle, and Fernandes Sustainer Driver in the neck position. I really did not like the sound of the Texas Special so I swapped in a Seymour Duncan SSL-6 RWRP pickup and man, what an improvement in tone in the 2,3,4 switch positions!

The problem is that now the guitar has an annoying buzz thst is present whenever the pickup selector switch is in the 2, 3 or 4 position, except for when I touch the strings, bridge or output jack the buzz goes away. Additionally the buzz intensifies when I touch one of the two mounting screws for the pickup (and when I touch the other screw nothing happens.) Plus while I’m playing whenever my fingers touch that one pickup mounting screw it makes an audible ‘pop’ sound almost like a static electric shock.

This issue was not present when the Texas Special pickup was installed. What could be causing the issue now? Should I not have gone with the RWRP version because the other two pickups aren’t single coil?

I checked my newly soldered connections and everything looks good, but buzzing does intensify when I touch the sheath of the “hot” wire from the pickup. I’m stumped on this!

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

to combat the hum the first thing I'd try is to flip the color code of the middle pickup. Before putting the strings on the guitar though plug the guitar into an amp with your usual amount of gain and distortion and go through the pickup selections with hum to see if this fixes the issue.

When it's 4 wire single coils that cancel out hum and a middle pickup having 2 wires treat it like an Ibanez such as the steve vai Jems and do what is called the autosplit mod if it's not present in a guitar is what I tell people. If you're unfamiliar with this mode it's very simple. It may not be your exact wiring but for reference.
View attachment 102083

 

[Blille]

SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

except for when I touch the strings, bridge or output jack the buzz goes away.

This is a symptom of the strings/bridge not being grounded. Check that the wire from the bridge claw or wherever it’s grounded is ok.

Also, did you rewire the output switch? It could be wired backwards.

And welcome to the forum!

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

to combat the hum the first thing I'd try is to flip the color code of the middle pickup. Before putting the strings on the guitar though plug the guitar into an amp with your usual amount of gain and distortion and go through the pickup selections with hum to see if this fixes the issue.

When it's 4 wire single coils that cancel out hum and a middle pickup having 2 wires treat it like an Ibanez such as the steve vai Jems and do what is called the autosplit mod if it's not present in a guitar is what I tell people. If you're unfamiliar with this mode it's very simple. It may not be your exact wiring but for reference.
View attachment 102083

Thanks for your reply! The wiring on this guitar is quite a bit different due to the inclusion of the Sustainer. Here is the wiring diagram provided by Fender:

The Texas Special middle pickup that came with the guitar had a yellow and a black wire. Yellow went to the yellow wire inharness#5 shown in the diagram, and black wire went to the black wire that goes to the sustainer circuit board. Meanwhile the SSL-6 has a white and a black wire. When I first installed it I connected SSL-6 white to wire harness#5 yellow, and SSL-6 black to sustainer circuit board black - basically the same orientation as the Texas Special. This resulted in no buzzing noise from the pickup, but the pickup was out of phase as the 2 and 4 positions were quiet / thin and without any low end. So I swapped the wires - now SSL-6 white goes to sustainer circuit board black and SSL-6 white goes to wire harness#5 yellow - and the tone is correct but I am getting this buzzing issue.

I should mention that after swapping the wires to correct the 'orientation' of the new middle pickup, when I first plugged the guitar in I had no signal whatsoever. I opened the guitar up again and found that the black wire from the battery negative terminal had come disconnected from the output jack, so I resoldered that wire to the same spot on the output jack and I was getting output again.

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

This is a symptom of the strings/bridge not being grounded. Check that the wire from the bridge claw or wherever it’s grounded is ok.

Also, did you rewire the output switch? It could be wired backwards.

And welcome to the forum!

Thanks for your kind welcome!
My first thought was also that it seems the bridge needs to be grounded. I checked where the ground wire meets the claw on the trem and the connection looks good. Maybe I need to pull the pickguard again and check where that ground wire connects to the back of the volume pot (see wiring diagram included in my last post, above).

I did not rewire the output jack, other than to resolder the 'negative' wire from the 9V battery which had come disconnected at some point in the process (See also my last post).

I should reiterate - when I touch the strings, the bridge or the output jack, the buzzing sounds completely goes away. Meanwhile when I touch the 'lower' mounting screw (closest to the volume knob) of the pickup, or touch the sheathing of the black wire from the pickup or yellow wire in harness#5 to which it is connected, the buzzing sound intensifies. Possibly I'm chasing two issues here?

 

[hamerfan]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Since the buzzing is absent in one phase constallation while sounding thin, the pup should have a reversed pole. Reversing the reversed pole means it should be in normal magnet direction.
Why did you order a rwrp pickup as a substitute for a standard pickups, which worked fine in your guitar?

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Since the buzzing is absent in one phase constallation while sounding thin, the pup should have a reversed pole. Reversing the reversed pole means it should be in normal magnet direction.
Why did you order a rwrp pickup as a substitute for a standard pickups, which worked fine in your guitar?

I'm asking myself that same question now! So far the answers I'm coming up with are:
1) This is my first time modifying an electric guitar so I didn't really know what I was doing
2) The research I did prior to my purchase led me to believe that in order to get noiseless 2 and 4 position performance on a Strat, I should get a RWRP middle pickup
3) I could not find anywhere in the Fender documentation for this model Strat what type of middle pickup the Texas Special is - i.e. regular or RWRP. So I defaulted to 2) and made the assumption it was RWRP and should be replaced with the same type.

Quite possibly I should have gone with the regular SSL-6 pickup! But now I'm trying to do some real learning before throwing more $$ at it, in case it's really a grounding issue or something else.

 

[Mincer]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

I am wondering if the JB Jr in that guitar is specially made to have the same phase as regular Fender pickups- usually, the phase has to be swapped.

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Curiosity got the better of me tonight and I swapped the original Texas Special middle pickup back in. I am now having the same buzzing problem with the Texas Special as I was with the SSL-6. The buzzing intensifies when I touch the 'hot' wire from the pickup (accessing it through the back panel of the guitar). So, the Texas Special and the SSL-6 both exhibit the same issue. I'm thinking my next step is to contact Fender tech support and see if they have any suggestions.

 

[Blille]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Curiosity got the better of me tonight and I swapped the original Texas Special middle pickup back in. I am now having the same buzzing problem with the Texas Special as I was with the SSL-6. The buzzing intensifies when I touch the 'hot' wire from the pickup (accessing it through the back panel of the guitar). So, the Texas Special and the SSL-6 both exhibit the same issue. I'm thinking my next step is to contact Fender tech support and see if they have any suggestions.

You can try to post some pics here first. People can help spot potential cold solder joints to reflow or other things that are hard to see after you stare at the same thing for hours

Do you have a multimeter to test for continuity?

 

[Mincer]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

That could be a cold solder joint. Check your grounds.

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

You can try to post some pics here first. People can help spot potential cold solder joints to reflow or other things that are hard to see after you stare at the same thing for hours

Do you have a multimeter to test for continuity?

I do not have any photos to share, but yesterday I did some continuity testing using my digital multimeter and came out with the following results. Note - at the time of this testing I had reinstalled the Texas Special pickup that came with the guitar in the middle position:

Output jack ground to bridge: 0.8 ohm
Output jack ground to back of volume pot: 0.7 ohm
Output jack ground to back of tone pot: 0.7 ohm
Output jack ground to Texas Special black wire: 0.7 ohm
Output jack ground to to bare selector switch in all 5 positions: 0.7-0.8 ohm
Output jack ground to back of sustainer level pot: 1.0 ohm
Output jack ground to any of the terminals on the bottom of the 5-way switch: no reading
Output jack ground to all strings: 1.1-1.2 ohm
Output jack ground to trem claw: 0.7 ohm
Output jack ground to back of trem plate: 0.7 ohm
Output jack ground to to all pickup mounting screws: no reading (no continuity as expected)


Subsequently I also purchased an SSL-6 standard pickup (non RWRP) and gave it a try. The result was the same as the RWRP version that I originally tried.
Another observation after having now tried the original Texas Special, SSL-6 RWRP and regular SSL-6: all of these pickups provide the buzzing sound I originally described in the 2,3,4 positions, BUT the Texas Special does not make any static 'pop' sounds when I touch the mounting screws; meanwhile, both the SSL-6 RWRP and SSL-6 make the static 'pop' sound when I touch the pickup mounting screws. A distinction between the Texas Special and the SSL-6 pups is that the two wires from the Texas Special have a cloth sheath and the wires come from near the middle of the pickup, while the SSL-6 pups have standard type wire sheathing (plastic I guess?) and the wires come off each end of the pickup. I don't know why this would cause the SSL-6 pickups to have conductivity in the mounting screws while the Texas Special does not.

I am open to any more ideas!

 

[Mincer]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Well, the SSL-6 will hum when combined with a humbucker (and on its own). Have you connected the pickup itself to the jack directly to see if it is still causing the buzzing?

 

[Steve Y]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

Well, the SSL-6 will hum when combined with a humbucker (and on its own). Have you connected the pickup itself to the jack directly to see if it is still causing the buzzing?

I have not tried that, but I did make some progress yesterday. I put the original Texas Special pickup back in, with the wires just twisted and heat shrinked together, and the buzzing sound just about went away completely. This time the (heat shrinked) wire connections were also pushed back into the cavity of the guitar away from the sustainer circuit board which seemed to help. But I was still getting the static 'pop' when touching the one pickup mounting screw. This told me that I was chasing two issues in parallel.

So back apart it came and I swapped the RWRP SSL-6 back in, wrapped the wire ends together tightly, wrapped them in electrical tape and pushed them back into the cavity away from the sustainer board. I plugged it in and the buzzing was relatively diminished. I was still getting the static 'pop' when touching the pickup mounting screw, so I took a length of spare wire and jumpered from the mounting screw to the bridge and it made the popping issue go away, as well as further diminished the buzzing sound. I don't know what to make of that, but anyway I then wrapped one end of the wire around the mounting screw and ran it through the body into the tremolo cavity and soldered it to the grounding point on the trem claw. Now there is no popping when touching the mounting screw, and overall less buzzing that I had when I first posted here.

My next step is to remove the electrical tape and replace with heat shrink to see if the additional thickness of dielectric material further diminishes the buzzing. If so, I'll remove the heat shrink, finally solder the wire connections and then heat shrink them. I think I'm making progress here and I appreciate the community's support! The SSL-6 sounds so much better than the Texas Special to my ears.

 

[Mincer]

Re: SSL-6 RWRP issue in EOB Strat

I am happy to hear that you are making progress with this. I've never worked with a Sustainer board (although it sounds fun). Keep us updated on how this is progressing.