Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

[Rocksmitson]

Helou
I installed SD Sentiel&Peagus combo for my Ibanez RG 721 (five way switch). Its working decently but i want to check and confirm that everything is wired correctly. This is what makes me wonder: Stock pups my presets gain is on 0. This is still more then enough for good distortion with Mesa sneaky amp modeller in Katana 100. With new SD pup i have to adjust the gain higher even when they are marked as "high output" Thats why im suspecting there is something wrong with the wiring.
Link for guitar:
https://ibanez.fandom.com/wiki/RG721RW

Link for the new pups:
https://www.seymourduncan.com/pickup/pegasus-sentient-set

 

[BeKindRewind]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

I think there's a good chance the SD set you put in are lower output than the Ibanez pickups. They're not exactly high gain screamers, but the default Ibanez ones could be something like 15-17k

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

The sustain is also low. How much distance is recommended between pickup and the strings ?

 

[BeKindRewind]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

The sustain is also low. How much distance is recommended between pickup and the strings ?

Ok that is definitely odd. They should have plenty of sustain , usually if the sustain is abnormally low you might have your pickups too close to the strings (the magnets pull too hard to let the strings vibrate freely) but it shouldn't be noticeably low. Maybe it is a wiring issue after all. There are some wiring gurus around here who may be able to help you if you post some pictures of your wiring

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

This may be a long shot, but you do realize that the color codes of the Ibby pups and Duncans is different. You can't just wire them up color for color.

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Some photos of wiring. On the left is stock and on the right is SD. Volume and tone nobs are working fine and the blade.

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

There are several problems here. The first, is that Ibanez now makes it difficult, or impossible, to get their wiring diagrams. I can't just download the RG721 diagram to inspect it. Second, in your first pic, that doesn't look like Ibby factory soldering, so it may have been messed with. In the 2nd pic, there's a bunch of weird things going on. Terminals 4 & 5 are the commons. It looks like the white wire on #4, wraps around and is twisted with the black wire that goes to the volume control. That means that your red/white wires would be acting as your hot wires. The black wire on #5 appears to be going to either the pickup wire (green arrow), or the ground connection (yellow arrow). Neither connection makes sense. Your red/white wires are connected to #4 in positions 1,2,4,5, and then connected to #2 in positions 2 & 4. I can't tell where the white wire on #2 goes to. It appears to connect to either #7 or #8. Again, it makes no sense.

I would do this. Put the 5-way in position #1, then tap gently on each coil, (and I mean of ALL pickups), to see what's active. Write it down, and do the same for all 5 positions. Let us know what's active in each position.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Hw does the 5 way work in this guitar? What are all of the positions?

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Using my pic, with the handle moving from far right to far left, you have the following terminals shorted together:

1-4, 5-6
1-2-4, 5-6-7
2-4, 5-7
2-3-4, 5-7-8
3-4, 5-8

4 and 5 are the commons.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

That makes more sense to me. Man, switches like that confuse me more.

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Hw does the 5 way work in this guitar? What are all of the positions?

From the link you can see all the postions of the switch

http://archive.is/2017.11.13-193511...&series_id=1&data_id=168&color=CL01&area_id=2

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Does this wiring diagram help ? I know its wrong model but if the wiring idea is similar to my Iba.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&sou...aw1O6YNZHJFq1nKREmmPB1FM&ust=1569164525037908

 

[Artie]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

That definitely helps. Let me study that and see if I can translate it to Duncan colors. I've actually been down this road before, but I'm getting old. And/or senile.

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Thank you very much sir

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Update: I did the wiring as in the picture and i think the bridge pickup is now working as intented. Good distortion, clear sound and it splits also in lever positon 4 (counted from neck to bridge). I couldnt get sound from neck pickup so i changed the wiring. I put the neck pu red wire to same place as the white in terminal 8. Now i get sounds from both pickups. In lever positon 2 i think neck pickup is not working as parallel or it is just a minor change in sound. Its not so important to me. In lever postion 1 and 2 the sound is sometimes vanishing but its loose connection with the lever itself. If i tap gently on it the sound is coming back. So overall this was my first pickup change and im happy with the result. I just need new lever

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Most likely you've got a loose connection or a bare wire is causing the switch to be problematic. Double check all the connections I had something similar happen on a super 5 way switch project last week thinking the same.

That diagram looks like what I call the Fender Showmaster wiring as it's the easiest to find on google and my own personal experience with guitars i came across a Fender Showmaster first. Anyways.. so we're on the right page standard 1, 3 and 5. But both pickups inner coilsplit at 2 and parallel for the neck pickup being sounds you'll get. I'm only quickly glancing at it. Ibanez has also used this wiring on quite a lot of other guitars such as the RG7321. That jumper from 2 to 2 (#6 of 8) on each pole is a dead giveaway for me.

The switch pins to check each position is really confusing on this so start with checking every connection and making sure the bare wire(s) from the pickups aren't causing issues. You'll see why in the video I linked you to at the bottom. If the switch is defective you'll need is a Cortek 3PS1SC5 it's totally different than a standard import or USA switch no matter how well you know the pickups or convert the switch. I learned this the hard way. Without it you won't be able to do that brilliant wiring.

The bad news is that Cortek switch can be rather expensive which is odd because it's an import switch. I've seen a few of them pop up on ebay for too much money (in my opinion) so unless you know an Ibanez dealer or get luckier online than when I was looking for them your best bet is a super 5 way blade that can do the same job. Apparently there is a Dimarzio EP1112 wiring schematic as a last resort to achieve the same tone. Contact Dimarzio about that one as there is one bad one floating around photobucket that isn't properly converted.

for reference this video Aaron did a while back is extremely helpful about that particular wiring and why that switch is so important

 

[Rocksmitson]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

Thanks for the info. I actually checked this video earlier. Im in all ears if you have suggestions for changing the wiring. After all it would be nice to have all the positions working as intented. The situation at the moment is: pos 5 perfect, pos 4 its working, but its not splitting after all. I actually think its parallel. I tapped all the coils and neck pu is muted but bridge is making noise. The sound is different compared to pos 5. Position 3 is working as intented i think. Tapping both pickups are making noise. Pos 2 is copy of 1. Positions are counted from neck to bridge.

 

[Crowbar74]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

I'm in the process of changing pups in an RG with this same switch. Currently position 2 is very weak. So, i'm very interested in a wire diagram for this switch.

thanks for the help!

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: Wiring help Ibanez RG 721 Premium

position 2 is both pickups coilsplitting similar to the 2nd or 4th position on a strat , 4th is parallel so 25% roughly of your pickups output so by the sounds of it that is quite normal. To double check if you know the pickups plug a guitar cable in and set your multimeter to 20k in Ohms. 200k if you've got really high resistances such as the YJM , Super distortion 3 Dimarzio or so forth.

So put one probe from the multimeter on the sleeve of the guitar cable , the other to the tip. The sleeve is closest to the jack. Doesn't matter which one goes where as we're testing wiring. Set it to 20k and say you're using a JB /59 combination for example. 16k and 7.5k roughly. I'm doing for resistances. Now seeing as there is electronics soldered to the guitars your readings will not be 100% accurate but this will be the approximate readings.

1 - 14 - 15k - bridge pickup in series which is our highest output any pickup can get by itself
2 - 2-4k - both pickups inner coils , coilsplit - simulating position 2 or 4 on a strat
3 - 5k - both pickups standard "2nd" position on a say les paul or tele
4 - 3.3k - neck pickup in parallel by itself
5 - 6-7k - neck pickup in series

if these all look fine your wiring is ok, sadly the only other 5 way blade wirings to get stuff you'd find useful you'd need to get a super 5 way blade and unfortunately a majority of useful super 5 way diagrams aside from guitarelectronics website most are keeping to themselves. Anyways.. here's the wiring for reference, I modified an old seymour duncan diagram to do this so reblog this and everything to other sites to help people out.