Post by closeyetfar on May 30, 2009 15:57:58 GMT -5
This is from the thread: Series Wiring Question guitarnuts2.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=wiring&action=display&thread=4119
Here is a quick summary of the question:
"I have a new problem that just came out of no where. It seems that for some reason both tone controls stopped working, and at the same time the guitar now has no treble either, it sounds very bassy and muddy."
First off, it was two problems occurring at the same time. I checked all my wiring about 3 times and could not find any shorts of any kind. Then I realized that because I have the pickguard shielded on the back I have a hidden circuit. The back plates of the pickups are grounded all together due to the pickup springs touching the grounded pickguard shielding. I thought the first step would be to get rid of all the unneeded secret circuits, so I cut the shielding around the springs on all the pickups. This made a huge difference in the tone, and the tone controls were now working again. I think it had to do with the fact that not all the pickups have the same ground being that I have series wiring installed. After this it sound much better but still a little bassy.
Secondly I had some help from a friend that showed me that the neck was always about 30% on. He figured this out by simply taping on the pickups with a screw driver. It ended up being a bad 5 way switch. I though I had a good switch being it was a modern 5 way Mega switch, which had a flat computer board. I switched it out with the old 50s style 5 way switch and it now finally sounds the way it should. Thank God. I never would have thought my switch would have gone bad. Here is a link to the switch so you can avoid it:
www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/3/Megaswitches.html
Lastly, yes lastly the story goes on. I converted to series switch to a phase reverse switch for the neck pickup. This reversed the phase of the whole neck pickup. I felt that the only thing the series switch was doing was giving me a volume boost, the tone was really the same as when its in parallel. It did sound a little thicker when in series though, I felt that was too insignificant to warrant the extra switch. Now with the phase switch the sound is completely different. The out of phase sound does not sound that great by itself but with effects or distortion on top of it, it can sound pretty good. As for distortion, I don't like the sound of any setup other then the bridge pickup with distortion because the other pickups just make the distortion sound muddy. But the phase switch gives me 3 more position where distortion sound great and not muddy. Running the neck out of phase with the middle pickup sounds awesome with thick distortion.
Here is a link to the final diagram of my wiring. I don't think I an gonna change it anymore. I may add a volume kit but that's simple. I'm very happy with it now, it gives me a total of 10 sounds from a 5 way and two push/pulls.
Diagram:
Here is a quick summary of the question:
"I have a new problem that just came out of no where. It seems that for some reason both tone controls stopped working, and at the same time the guitar now has no treble either, it sounds very bassy and muddy."
First off, it was two problems occurring at the same time. I checked all my wiring about 3 times and could not find any shorts of any kind. Then I realized that because I have the pickguard shielded on the back I have a hidden circuit. The back plates of the pickups are grounded all together due to the pickup springs touching the grounded pickguard shielding. I thought the first step would be to get rid of all the unneeded secret circuits, so I cut the shielding around the springs on all the pickups. This made a huge difference in the tone, and the tone controls were now working again. I think it had to do with the fact that not all the pickups have the same ground being that I have series wiring installed. After this it sound much better but still a little bassy.
Secondly I had some help from a friend that showed me that the neck was always about 30% on. He figured this out by simply taping on the pickups with a screw driver. It ended up being a bad 5 way switch. I though I had a good switch being it was a modern 5 way Mega switch, which had a flat computer board. I switched it out with the old 50s style 5 way switch and it now finally sounds the way it should. Thank God. I never would have thought my switch would have gone bad. Here is a link to the switch so you can avoid it:
www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Components:_Switches_and_knobs/3/Megaswitches.html
Lastly, yes lastly the story goes on. I converted to series switch to a phase reverse switch for the neck pickup. This reversed the phase of the whole neck pickup. I felt that the only thing the series switch was doing was giving me a volume boost, the tone was really the same as when its in parallel. It did sound a little thicker when in series though, I felt that was too insignificant to warrant the extra switch. Now with the phase switch the sound is completely different. The out of phase sound does not sound that great by itself but with effects or distortion on top of it, it can sound pretty good. As for distortion, I don't like the sound of any setup other then the bridge pickup with distortion because the other pickups just make the distortion sound muddy. But the phase switch gives me 3 more position where distortion sound great and not muddy. Running the neck out of phase with the middle pickup sounds awesome with thick distortion.
Here is a link to the final diagram of my wiring. I don't think I an gonna change it anymore. I may add a volume kit but that's simple. I'm very happy with it now, it gives me a total of 10 sounds from a 5 way and two push/pulls.
Diagram: