Pickups finally here! ... just need to find proper schematics?

[richly harmonic]

Well, after nearly one and-a-half months of total build time, transit delivery, yada yada...the pickups are finally here. But... I must first mention that I did not end up getting the SD Custom Shop Dynas, but instead I opted for a set of Pete's custom pickups from Vintage Vibe Guitars.

On hand with me right now, I have a neck HS-90A (ALNiCo slugs) with 9.4k hi-tap 43awg / 6.7k lo-tap 42awg, as well as a HS-90SW (bar mags) with 11k hi-tap 43awg / 7.1k lo-tap 42awg. The bridge pickup has option to change some bar magnets with additional A2 magnets provided.

Each pickup has four leads: black and white for shielding/grounding, and red for hi-output tap, green for low output tap.

I've decided that I'm going to have both pickups wired in parallel (for the middle position). I'll save for a change to multi-switch later down the road. I really miss the middle position quacky/slappy tones.

Note: I have two Alpha 250k push-pull pots for Volume controls. I'm going to use two of the stock Guild 500k for the tone pots. I'm assuming that I would wire these P-90s like regular pot wiring, except that the extra output-tap leads go where?

I've been trying to find any sources or diagrams and schematics of similar wiring online, but have not been getting any luck.

Anyone tried this before, or know similar schematics where this is still applicable? Two P-90s, wired in parallel, two volume, two tone, 3-way switch?

Thanks in advance -- RH

 

[GAD]

You'll probably need a push/pull pot or add a switch.

On most push-pull pots I've seen there are six leads in two rows. Like this:

[-] [-]
[-] [-]
[-] [-]

Ignore the right (or left) side, and you have only three:

[-]
[-]
[-]

The two rows give you much more flexibility, and you can wire each pickup to one side so one put controls both, or you can wire each pickup to a different pot for more control (one pickup high, the other low, etc.)

Working with only one side, and one pickup, imagine the wires going like this, where the overlap is the row of three in a vertical line:

----[B][-][/B]
    [B][-][/B]----
----[B][-][/B]

The wiring is like this

low  ----[B][-][/B]
         [B][-][/B]---- out
high ----[B][-][/B]

Pull the pot up, you get low-to-out. Push it down, you get high-to-out.

Best I could do with only ASCII art.

 

[GAD]

Wait... you've got single coil pickups with four wires? Did they come with wiring diagrams? I'm trying to visualize four wires in a single-coil pickup. I would think that four wires would get three different outputs if they're truly coil taps. A single coil pickup is just a coil of wire. Usually you'd have two wires:

-----[oooooo]-----

A tap would get you sort of this where you use less of the winding (tough to draw in ASCII):

-----[oooooo]-----
         \--------

 

[GAD]

I shouldn't think about wiring at 2am. I'm going to bed. Sorry if I confused things more.

 

[richly harmonic]

GAD, I'm sorry for the confusion. What I meant to say was that each SC pickup has a black and white lead (for grounding/shielding), and one red lead, one green lead. The red lead is for higher output tap, and the green for lower output tap. So in total that makes four wires per pickup, but in terms of 'lead wires', yes , I would be wrong about that.

So based on your ASCII art 'sketches', I can assume that just one side is dedicated to one pickup, the other side of 3 prongs will be for another pickup:

In other words...

_______________Left Side___Right Side
low (green bridge)-----[-]-----[-]-----low (green neck)
____out (bridge)-------[-]-----[-]-----out (neck)
high (red bridge)-------[-]-----[-]-----high (red neck)

??

 

[Walter Broes]

Ditch the 250K pots and go with four 500K pots : those pickups are way too hot to go with 250K, they'll eat up too much treble and make the whole thing sound dull. 250K are really only for vintage Fender style single coils.

Except for the coil tap part, I'd suggest to go with what's commonly called "50's Gibson wiring", that will allow you to turn down individual pickup volumes without losing all your high end. Google is your friend.

 

[GAD]

GAD, I'm sorry for the confusion. What I meant to say was that each SC pickup has a black and white lead (for grounding/shielding), and one red lead, one green lead. The red lead is for higher output tap, and the green for lower output tap. So in total that makes four wires per pickup, but in terms of 'lead wires', yes , I would be wrong about that.

So based on your ASCII art 'sketches', I can assume that just one side is dedicated to one pickup, the other side of 3 prongs will be for another pickup:

In other words...

_______________Left Side___Right Side
low (green bridge)-----[-]-----[-]-----low (green neck)
____out (bridge)-------[-]-----[-]-----out (neck)
high (red bridge)-------[-]-----[-]-----high (red neck)

??

Correct, with some assumptions. For example, what many people call a coil tap on a humbucker is actually a coil split, and in that scenario one of the coils is shunted to ground. It sounds like you've got a true coil tap on a single coil pickup which would be wired differently. I would defer to the manufacturer. I'd bet he's got sample wiring diagrams and I'd be interested in seeing them.

 

[DThomasC]

GAD's use of the switch(es) is what I would use. Ground the black and white wires, then use either the red or green for output. The switch should be wired so that in either position one of the wires is connected to the output and the other is left completely unconnected.

The WRONG way to do it, but a way that I wouldn't be surprised to see some techs use, is to take the output from the high (red) wire, then use the switch to short the green and red together for coil tapping. That's essentially what's done sometimes with humbuckers, but it would be a disaster in this case.

 

[Quantum Strummer]

Ditch the 250K pots and go with four 500K pots : those pickups are way too hot to go with 250K, they'll eat up too much treble and make the whole thing sound dull.

In this case, almost certainly so. I have, though, found 250K tone pots useful in smoothing high-end spikiness from some ceramic magnet HBs. My Nightbird came with this configuration (DiMarzio Dual Tone at the bridge) and I've since used it to sweeten up an early '80s Martin-assembled Goya GA25.

I like the idea of tapped output DeArmond 2000-style pickups…curious to hear how they work out.

-Dave-

 

[parker_knoll]

definitely interested to hear how it works with the two different taps. I've never thought of that mod and i do like to mod - well, it, beats practising for me.

Also, can we see a photo?

 

[richly harmonic]

Back online after a couple weeks absence, just been busy with too many things lately...I've finally managed to install both pickups, whilst using both low and high output taps. Sounds really great so far, but a few things still bothering me:

I originally wanted to have these pickups wired in parallel to give me more quack/cluck factor in the middle position. Now granted, it's not exactly going to sound like Strat quack, but I've heard some hollow bodies before where middle position had some "quackness" or "clangle" to it. I can kind a get it, but it still sounds HB-ish and mostly trebly if tone knobs tone all the way up, in a Gibby/PAF kinda way.

I am using 250k pots, so that's probably part of the problem. I will see if I can get my hands on 500k push-pulls sometime soon. Looks like I may have to another upgrade fix down the road. Neck tones are nice, sounds like a fat Tele/Strat neck pickup. Crisp, round and clear, yet punchy. Bridge tones can be twangy, growly, horn-like, but middle tones aren't what I was expecting, so far.

...

 

[richly harmonic]

Some problems I've encourtered after the installation:

1. Tone knobs no longer work (maybe connections severed when putting harness back into cavities?)

2. Alpha push-pull pots are smaller than stock shaft diameter (had to use thin strips of electric tape around Alpha pots to make diameter more suitabe for fit (but if used CTS pots, the Guild knobs wouldn't fit the fine knurlings on the shaft)

3.Middle position doesn't have any cluck/quack. It can jangle and chime a bit (especially on low output), but still sounds too meaty and HB-ish.

4. Short-sighted planning and budgeting led to me reusing/recycling stock harness at the cost of trimming some wires and modding some connections to connect the new pickups, with taps. Result was some connections and wires were 'fragile', while others were good strong connections.

5. My volume knobs still interact with each other. Is this because I somehow inadvertedly wired the pickups in series? Maybe some ground connections are still enroute to the 'hots' of each other? Strange because I did what Pete's instructions told me: black, white and braided shield wires of each pickup, go to a ground (backs of volume pots).

...on the other hand I do recall the braided shielding of the wires (coming from the switch) are linked to the ground source of each pickup though....hmm


Some positives:

1. High output tones are meaty, full-bodied, but maintain good amount of clarity and chime/sparkle, and nice grunt (IME). Definitely more midrange bark/honk.

2. Low output tones are more crisp, a bit more clangy, looser attack, more treble.


Summary:

Mostly good, but still need to work out some issues.

Parker, I'm afraid I did not have any pics of the installation process, but I will see about posting pics of the guitar. Somebody said that we need to use Photobucket first for uploading, or was I confusing that for something else? Also, what to use for uploading sound clips? I've only got Audacity on my laptop, as well as a Zoom R8 muti-tracker :crazy:

-- Cheers

RH