Did some soldering, now my middle P/U sounds like mud...

[carlsoti]

I'm not certain what to make of this issue, and I would really appreciate some assistance. This may need to be moved to the wiring forum, depending on the answers I get. Though, it doesn't seem to be wiring specific as everything is working correctly, save for the muddy tone any time the middle pick-up is selected.

I recently re-wired my late 80's MIJ strat due to a funky 5-way.  That one bad switch led me to copper shielding, 6-way switches for N+B, PTB controls, push-pull pots for tone-cap changes, and shielded Gavitt wire.  The pick-up was fine before I opened up the guitar to change the switch.

 

Aside from replacing the stock pickup wires with shielded Gavitt wire, nothing else was done to them. All the switching and PTB controls work as expected and intended.

The pick-ups might be stock. Ceramic magnets, nothing fancy. All 3 pickups metered just under 5k before I took it all apart, and were more or less the same after I changed the wires. I followed "best-practices" for rework, as learned during my time working at Rockford Fosgate/Hafler, and didn't have any issues that would've given cause for concern.

I just did the "bare plug in the jack" check, and they all read a smidge lower than they did in-the-raw, as expected, though the middle pick-up reads around .15k lower than the others.

Does anyone know what sort of issues I could look for to see why every position that included the middle pick-up is muddy, as if the tone control is rolled all the way back?  All the settings without it are bright and chimey, with typical low-output single-coil bass response?

TIA.

P.S. I'd really love it if someone could point out a glaring mistake or flaw in my wiring. My ego can take that hit better than my wallet taking the hit of a full set of pickups.

[reTrEaD]

Oct 4, 2020 17:00:03 GMT -5 carlsoti said:

I just did the "bare plug in the jack" check, and they all read a smidge lower than they did in-the-raw, as expected, though the middle pick-up reads around .15k lower than the others.

Hi carlsoti

Doing a colonoscopy on your guitar the way you did can reveal some important clues. The fact that the DC resistance readings are slightly lower comes as no surprise. The full resistance of the volume control is in parallel with the selected pickup. Hence the lower reading.

What IS unexpected is the resistance reading you got for the middle pickup, relative to the other pickups. One would expect it to be slightly higher than the neck but lower than the bridge. Typically there are more winds on the middle than the neck and even more winds on the bridge.

Why is the measured resistance of the middle pickup lower than the neck pickup? My guess would be some resistance (say 50k~100k) in parallel with it. Could be some carbon paint bridging across the solder connections on the plastic or fiber base of the pickup. Or a lot of carbon in residual flux from making those connections. Or maybe the insulation of the shielded cable has been overheated and the plastic has broken down and is resistive. Perhaps at one end or the other. Or even where you've soldered the braid to the side of the push-pull switch.

[ziggystardust723]

That's all really true..
(sorry, I answer really late, but I'm totaly New on this Forum..)
1thing:
- Are the wires on shielded cables really the 'good ones' + & - .?
- If they were 7ender style pu's:
> the Black inside & begining of wind comes on - ,
> & the White (or Yellow etc) finishing the winding goes to + :
= it is always like this,
> but it is the Contrary of what it would be:
= Normally: the Inside wire is the +
> but L.7ender was afraid than the winding wire was in Electric contact with the Rod-Magnets..
= So he inversed the Wires Contacts,
( & this gives more noise..)
- but they are still 2 wires..
> The New Shielded Wires are really better,
= but are they correctly connected.?
- I don't see more answer, thince the questions..
> In 1st: maybe better to Change these kinds of Pickups:
= for better sounds.
Bye bye Butterfly, Ziggy (France).

[scottosan]

You can’t look at it as shielded since audio is AC not DC. As such your middle is RWRP and using the gavit you no longer have isolated signal. Since 1 side of your AC signal on your neck pickup is canceling out the the other side of your AC signal on the middle RWRP because you are essential shorting one side of the AC to the other kn the middle because the “shields” are touching . You need to go back to insulated hot and ground.