jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 8, 2016 20:30:21 GMT -5
Hello nuts! Trying to swap out a pup on a blacktop Jazzmaster (HB Bridge, JM neck, 3-way switch, 1 volume 1 tone)--attempting to change the neck pickup from a Jazzmaster pickup to a P90. All the sizing and fitment is done, but having trouble with the wiring... Here's the original wiring diagram for the guitar, notice only 2 wires out of the Jazzmaster pickup that I had to desolder: i.imgur.com/1ypMXw7.jpgWas hoping it would be that easy with the new pickup, but it came with Black, White, Red, Green, and Bare...see "figure 1" page 1 and 2 of this pdf (KA Noiseless P90 type): www.kentarmstrong.com/schematics/KA_Wiring_Instructions.pdfAt a loss for what to put where. Open to thoughts! If anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it greatly. Thanks! -Jo
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Post by newey on Jun 8, 2016 22:11:19 GMT -5
jj-
Hello and Welcome to G-Nutz2!
I was a little mystified that we were discussing a P90 with 4 wires until I saw that you referred to it as a "noiseless P90". Then the lightbulb went off in my head- it's a two-coil P90, and (I'm guessing here)the coils are "stacked" such that only one coil is directly string-sensing, with the lower coil for noise reduction. The 4-wire set-up allows one to split the P90 to its traditional single coil (albeit with an added dose of noise).
Assuming that your link has the correct Kent Armstrong wire colors (I didn't check it against the chart in our reference section), the red and white wires form the series junction between the two coils. Unless you plan to do the coil-split thing with this P90, these two wires are permanently wired together (and preferably soldered together as well!), and the resulting connection is taped off to prevent contact. It thereafter just dangles in the cavity. This leaves you with a green wire and a black wire. One of these goes to the 3-way switch, just as the original wiring diagram shows; the other is grounded to the grounding point, which is depicted as being the back of one of the pots.
But, which wire goes where? You now come to a crossroads. Because you are using different brands of pickups, you don't know which way 'round will yield your two pickup being in-phase, and whhich way wil result in a tinny, out-of-phase sound. Your choice is, first, you could proceed elegantly, by first testing your pickups to determine the correct phasing before wiring the new pickup into place. You would test this by performing the "screwdriver pull-off test"; there is a thread on this test in our reference section.
Or you can go "down 'n dirty", by picking one way to wire it, wiring the new pup in, then stringing it up and playing it, praying that it's in phase- and leaving yourself with 50-50 odds of getting it the wrong way, and having to reopen things so as to swap the two wires around.
The elegant way is highly recommended. We're big on testing things before diving into your control cavity headfirst with a handful of hot soldering iron. Every time you have to resolder something, you run the risk of making a mess of it, particularly with trying to solder to the back of a pot (Hint: a bit of sandpapering to the backside of the pot helps with adhesion of the solder. Try to keep dust out of the pot while doing so.)
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 8, 2016 23:08:25 GMT -5
Fantastic, thanks so much! I will definitely do the "elegant" phase test. As I'm not great with a soldering iron anyway, I don't want to be digging around with it One question remains for me, though: if you take a look at the linked pdf from the Kent Armstrong site, you'll see my wire has not only the above colors, but also a bare braided wire wrapped up among them as well. What the heck should I do with that thing? :-p Thanks for your help!
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Post by newey on Jun 9, 2016 5:52:04 GMT -5
Sorry, I neglected to mention the bare wire. It is not carrying any signal from your strings; the bare wire is a "shield" wire that grounds the baseplate of the pickup for noise reduction. This wire is always grounded to the grounding point (back of the pot, as shown in the diagram, or other grounding point if you are using a "star grounding" technique).
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 9, 2016 7:19:06 GMT -5
Those stacked p90s are cool, I really like the parallel sound of them (from a video I saw, anyway). I'd play with that option some time if I were you!
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 9, 2016 18:34:13 GMT -5
newey: thanks again--I am going to try to wire it up tonight or tomorrow and will let you know how it goes!
cheap: sounds cool, happen to have a link?
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 9, 2016 23:55:39 GMT -5
Edit: Credit given where credit due! I just realized this video was made by a forum member. I had just found it through google. Thanks, Ownyourtone!
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 10, 2016 5:35:10 GMT -5
Wow cheap, very cool! I tend to keep it simple on my guitars myself, but what a fantastic range of sounds on that thing. Intriguing for the future... newey: Okay, I'm *very* confused now. Grounded braid, soldered and taped off red/white. Wired up green to switch, black to ground. No phase issue. Good. Reassembled, tuned up...*no* sound from the original bridge humbucker! In the middle or bridge position. New pup sounded great, though... So went out to the garage, grounded green, put black to switch. Came back, reassembled, plugged in...no sound at all from either pup, any position. I double checked to make sure I didn't disconnect any previous wires or anything not related to the new pickup. No clue where to go from here
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Post by newey on Jun 10, 2016 6:02:39 GMT -5
OK, nothing you did should have affected the other pickup at all. This leaves essentially 3 possibilities:
1) A piece of wire is shorting out somewhere. So, don't just look for loose or sketchy connections, also check to see if a lug is being grounded somewhere it shouldn't be.
2) A loose connection somewhere. You may have dislodged something while working in the cavity. The "down 'n dirty" fix is to take your soldering iron and re-melt each of the solder joints, that sometimes will work
3) Lastly, you may have fried a pot by soldering to the back of it. This is easy enough to do, those pots are mostly plastic inside these days. You have to be quick on and off them with the iron, and it's best to use a heat sink. Checking for a bad pot will require a multimeter, and if #1 and 2 above don't solve the issue, a multimeter will be needed for more thorough testing as well.
There is a fourth possibility, that you either fried or possibly bent, the 3-way switch, but that's a much less likely scenario that the other 3. The "bent" issue can only occur with the older style of toddle switch with an open frame, where the switch visibly moves two pieces of metal to make the contacts. That problem can be visualized. The more modern style of 3-way switch is enclosed, and again, requires a meter to test it.
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Post by newey on Jun 10, 2016 6:14:54 GMT -5
When I said that checking the pot would require a multimeter, the other fix is to swap out the pot for a new one. You will need to de-wire the existing pot to check it anyway, so you could just swap it out. But you should check the new pot with a meter first anyway so that it's a "known good" piece to start with.
Unless the quick fix works or you spot an obvious problem, you will probably end up de-wiring most of this anyway. So, the next time around, check all components before installing them. Check the resistance of each of your pickups while they are disconnected, and make notes of the values; these can help with later troubleshooting if necessary.
The late ChrisK taught me to keep a notebook whenever I rewire a guitar, listing the pot values, tone capacitor value, pickup resistances, etc. I include the wiring diagram in my notes. That way, if something gives me trouble years later, I have the info I need to know what I did years before. This also helps with immedicate troubleshooting if things don't go according to plan.
Don't despair, we'll help you get this up and running. But understand that troubleshooting electronics is difficult over the web; often things one could easily see if one had the guitar in hand aren't obvious from a verbal description in a post.
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 10, 2016 10:07:53 GMT -5
Thanks so much for your help and thorough responses, I really appreciate it.
I regret to inform you that after all you typed out...It was number 2!
Figured I'd burned a pot, but when I opened it back up to look, saw nothing attached to one side of the 3 way switch, and the only wire coming out of the bridge HB being a ground wire with a stub of ripped white attached...duh! I must have ripped the hot wire from the HB to the switch without even realizing it.
Time to salvage a bit of wire, solder it up, and see if everything's in order.
I'll let you know what happens next. Thanks again!
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 11, 2016 21:35:52 GMT -5
Alright, bridge HB pup is back up and running. While I was at it, I rewired the new P90 back to the first configuration that seemed to work--grounded braid, soldered and taped off red/white, wired green to switch, black to ground. Something still isn't right (sorry, feel like such a PITA!). The volume on the P90 is dramatically lower. I did a phase test in comparison with the HB, but it was hard to tell--the waveform dipped in a downward direction for the P90, but the HB obviously has 2 sets of poles, and each one went in a different direction--one up, one down. The poles on the P90 aren't far at all from the strings, so I don't think it's that. Here's a quick recording done through a scarlett solo before I even got it tuned up. First is HB, second is middle position, 3rd is P90: clyp.it/eogyk3weAny thoughts? Thanks again. -Jo
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 11, 2016 22:07:27 GMT -5
It sounds to me like only one of the coils of the p90 is active. I would check to make sure the two cables soldered together are taped off and not in contact with anything. If this touches ground, you might only get whichever coil that comes first in the series. Technically I guess it's possible you wired the p90 out of phase with itself, but I doubt this because to my best understanding it would be even quieter.
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 11, 2016 23:39:50 GMT -5
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 11, 2016 23:56:18 GMT -5
Tentatively, I'd say you're good to go. The middle position is normally a bit quieter. I'm still looking forward to hearing what it sounds like.
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 12, 2016 2:17:07 GMT -5
Ah, of course the one time I don't do a proper phasing test...It's out of phase Swapped red and green and it's good to go! Here's a short clip (broke my high E getting bridge back on, of course), in order of HB/Middle/Neck for comparison, just a little bit of amp sim and gain in guitar rig. New neck sounds like burnt butter, love it! clyp.it/gt3grrl3Thank you guys so much! -Jo
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jun 12, 2016 2:36:48 GMT -5
"burnt butter"... I'll have to use that some time. Glad you like it, sounds killer to me.
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Post by newey on Jun 12, 2016 9:46:15 GMT -5
jj- Let's document, for those who may come along with the same problem, where this went awry. First, you linked information on the wire colors which is apparently straight from WD music, who sells Kent Armstrong pickups. That link showed the KA coils as being Green/Red and Black/White. Later, I said: My fault for not checking, and I "assume" you didn't double check it either. But the Reference post on wire colors has a link which I posted to another reference on wire colors that includes "WD/Kent Armstrong HB" that shows Red/Black as the South coil and Green/White as the North coil. Which, according to your wiring experience here, is correct. For completeness sake, we should also mention that some KA HBs apparently have a pink wire instead of a red, and/or a blue wire in place of the black, according to the reference link. So, WD's instructions are wrong, and neither one of us double-checked it. Had we done so, we could have saved you much grief. WD should certainly know better, since they sell these things. I'm sure they get numerous inquiries about this error!
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jun 25, 2016 5:35:57 GMT -5
newey-- thanks for your help, and you're absolutely right. ultimately i was referred to kent himself with a phone number, but i didn't want to bother him, and by that point we were on the precipice of fixing it here i have another issue with noise that i'm trying to diagnose. in fact, it's partially why i got rid of the single coil in the first place, hoping it would do away with the problem. the trouble is, i'm having trouble figuring out whether it's definitely related to wiring (i've tried different cables, audio interfaces, locations, and still get the problem, so i'm thinking it's wiring). should i make a new post on this forum or one of the other subforums? or can i post sound clips here and you guys can chime in with what you think? thanks again, jo
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Post by newey on Jun 26, 2016 21:04:58 GMT -5
You could do either, but more people would be likely to chime in with a new thread, so that's probably the best bet. Noise problems are particularly hard to diagnose over the 'net. First question: Is the noise positional, IOW, does the level vary as you move around? Also, is the guitar shielded?
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jul 1, 2016 15:48:23 GMT -5
I've been trying to deal with the issue over the past week or two and am 99% sure it's just some electrical interference in my house, so I'll spare the forum from starting a new thread
Guitar is shielded, I replaced the input jack over the past week, have tried different cables, plugged in/unplugged laptop, different rooms in the house, a different PC, a different audio interface. Nothing seemed to work. Here's the noise, though, in case anyone might have any ideas (I've yet to be able to bring it to somewhere else and see if I get the same issue):
Clean: clyp.it/lrjemruz
Distorted (loud, watch your ears): clyp.it/jar0atll
It's unique, almost like morse code. Really frustrating. Might just have to go somewhere else if I'm going to record
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cheap
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Post by cheap on Jul 1, 2016 16:38:12 GMT -5
Take your cell phone out of your pocket, dude.
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jezzyjo
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Post by jezzyjo on Jul 1, 2016 18:46:12 GMT -5
Take your cell phone out of your pocket, dude. If only it were that easy!
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popsaka
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I'm tired a'playin' so low...
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Post by popsaka on Jul 18, 2016 14:24:37 GMT -5
Does the noise vary in loudness when you turn yourself and guitar to different points on the compass? I've had many experiences where with effects turned up one had to stand say 12 degrees North by Northwest etc. just to keep hum and noise bearable...
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