Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

[Baltar]

I just pimped an older american deluxe strat; Middle is unchanged, Neck is coolrails from my local dealer and bridge is a pg-1b black matte i bought from thestratosphere on bay.
The standard wiring is changed the following way ..
- overall Tone
- swapped mid and neck pu on the 5w switch
- autosplit on coolrails, the pg is always full

the result is
1 - middle
2 - neck(split)+middle
3 - neck(full)
4 - neck(full)+bridge
5 - bridge

I verified the wiring results by touching the polepices/rails with a string. sound is good, switching as assumed.

Issue1: The Coolrails(full) is quite dull. Will this change a lot when going to a 500k tonepot? Will the singlecoil sound get even brighter then?

Issue2: The pg isn't cancelling hum. It seems to be connected correctly, measures about 8,4k and no coil from another other pu is accidentally connected on pos5 verified. I tried to find out if the internal ground may be improper, by additonaly grounding the pg's screw-lug - no effect.

For hum testing, i put the strat close to a transformer. positions 3 and 2(nearly) are dead quiet, while 5 is nearly as loud humming as 1. Cavity is shielded and connected to gnd. Any idea?

cheers

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

Re: the noisy Pearly Gates, I am thinking that the electronic polarity might be flipped on one of the coils. Maybe the wrong two wires are soldered together.

Re: the dull Cool Rails, it sounds like you might simply not like that model's tone.

Can you post a schematic of the wiring that you used?

 

[constant mesh]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

Single-coil sized humbuckers from SD work much better with 250k than 500k, at least to my ear. You can brighten up the Coolrails by putting in a 500k vol pot, but that would also brighten your singles as you mentioned. Even a full-size HB @250k sounds better to me than SC @500k. But it might just be that you would eventually like that combo. One pot costs almost nothing it's definitely worth a try.

 

[Baltar]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

thanks for dropping by

Re: the noisy Pearly Gates, I am thinking that the electronic polarity might be flipped on one of the coils. Maybe the wrong two wires are soldered together.

red-white are soldered together. black = hot, green+shld = gnd. or do you mean, the're internally solderedtogether wrong?

Re: the dull Cool Rails, it sounds like you might simply not like that model's tone.

well i like it for fat bluesy leads, but for clean rhythm i have to choose position 2, which is ok. perhaps i'm just used to much on singlecoils in neck position.

Can you post a schematic of the wiring that you used?

It's like that one, but has two changes....
- lugs on 2nd ares: the bridges red+white wires are not soldered to the switch. the necks red+white as well as the ground are moved, so it splits the rails in pos 1+2
- 'middle white' and 'neck black' are swapped

Single-coil sized humbuckers from SD work much better with 250k than 500k, at least to my ear. You can brighten up the Coolrails by putting in a 500k vol pot, but that would also brighten your singles as you mentioned. Even a full-size HB @250k sounds better to me than SC @500k. But it might just be that you would eventually like that combo. One pot costs almost nothing it's definitely worth a try.

i'd rather not want the singlecoil sound even more brittle. perhaps i should try that and add a second tone again

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

I was just talking about the color coding. I thought you might have switched the black and white wires, or switched the green and red wires. Sounds like you got it right, though.

FWIW, I've never used any passive humbucker that was completely silent.

As for the Cool Rails, I find that even weakly wound neck single coils don't hold together that well for anything but the cleanest tones. Hit a hard bar chord, breaking up the amp, and they get real loose. back off on the pick attack, and they clean up. Or play just a few strings at a time for a part or a melody/solo, and they sound real good, as you mentioned. But I've never found any neck pickup on which you can bang away on full chords and still have a crisp and clear tone. And I certainly would not expect anything close to clarity in full chords from a 9.4 K neck humbucker with a ceramic magnet. You might try wiring your pickup permanently in parallel.

 

[Baltar]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

I was just talking about the color coding. I thought you might have switched the black and white wires, or switched the green and red wires. Sounds like you got it right, though.

FWIW, I've never used any passive humbucker that was completely silent.

Would it sound if i did that?

 

[hermetico]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

thanks for dropping by


red-white are soldered together. black = hot, green+shld = gnd. or do you mean, the're internally solderedtogether wrong?

This seems to be in order

well i like it for fat bluesy leads, but for clean rhythm i have to choose position 2, which is ok. perhaps i'm just used to much on singlecoils in neck position.

Yup. If you are used to neck single coils (as myself), it's hard to accept a neck humbucker but, Cool Rails are a really good Neck single-sized humbucker. I love how it sounds.
Maybe, you can try coils in parallel with cool rail and see if you like it more (this will open the voice).
But, if this is a Deluxe... don't you have the S-1 switch to achieve different combos?

It's like that one, but has two changes....
- lugs on 2nd ares: the bridges red+white wires are not soldered to the switch. the necks red+white as well as the ground are moved, so it splits the rails in pos 1+2
- 'middle white' and 'neck black' are swapped


i'd rather not want the singlecoil sound even more brittle. perhaps i should try that and add a second tone again

middle white and black swapped could mean that the middle pickup is a Fender one (or at least with same magnetic polarity).

That way of arranging the 5-way switch isn't very common but, I guess the idea was to go from the weaker output combo to the hotter one.

I bet you still have a hole for a third pot that could be filled in with a toggle switch. I would go for a "natural mode" and an "alternative mode" to get the sounds you like more.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

Would it sound if i did that?

If you did that, it would still work, but it would be noisy. But you didn't do that, so I don't think it's the problem.

 

[Baltar]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

Maybe, you can try coils in parallel with cool rail and see if you like it more (this will open the voice).

thanks, that sounds worth a try

But, if this is a Deluxe... don't you have the S-1 switch to achieve different combos?

broke. i'm used to maximum 4 positions. thats enough for me

That way of arranging the 5-way switch isn't very common but, I guess the idea was to go from the weaker output combo to the hotter one.

I wanted to have the usual strat position 2 for neck+middle, as well as middle alone and neck+bridge

 

[Baltar]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

If you did that, it would still work, but it would be noisy. But you didn't do that, so I don't think it's the problem.

due to it's a custom pickup, it maybe internally wrong? i'll try around with that

 

[Baltar]

Re: Strange (wiring?) issue on HSH Strat

oops. i just recognized, that i never finished that thread.

@ItsaBass you were right. one coil was wired the other way around. hum fixed (or let's say improved a lot).

this axe is meanwhile my main axe. the setup fits me well. btw i left the switch2pu wiring as
described, but changed the pots. volume is now 500k log. tone for bridge and bridge+neck is 500k,
but tone on the middle as well as middle + neck(split) is 250k. neck has no tone pot and imo the mini
bucker doesn't need it


meanwhile i'm thinking of a hss-conversion of my other strat too; would a Pearly Gates (nickel cover)
work as good on a alder strat with rosewood fretboard? the one which i like so much has a maple neck and the pg sound really does it for me.

cheers,
martin