[Savage]

Hi folks, I'm new here, and I've been having some problem with my pick ups lately. I built a new guitar for myself recently and I've always been a Dimazrio fan, so I got some for this new guitar of mine.

Its a H-S-H deal, Gravity Storm in the bridge, Red velvet in the middle, and a FRED in the neck, damn tasty...or so I want it to be!

So the wiring I went with is the Guthrie Govan's wiring:

Pos 1: B Hb
Pos 2: B + M
Pos 3: outercoils of both Hb's
Pos 4: M + N
Pos 5: N Hb

There is also a DPDT switch that dumps some of the Hb's through a R/C to ground which sounds more like single coils than a fill Hb's split/tap.

Now as per the diagram I followed, GG's pickups use the same wiring code as Dimarzio pickups. Green + Bare to ground, White + Black together, for the split and Red to hot.

Following that diagram, I just recently discovered that the bridge was out of phase with the middle. So I wired up the bridge to be, as per someone on the web's advice, Black + Bare to ground, Red + Green for the split and White for the hot. But now, I feel like position 2 and 4 are out of phase. And I also think the bridge pick up sounds...different to how I expected. In my last guitar I had that same pick up a Gravity Storm in the bridge and suspended in a pick guard in an alder body guitar. So perhaps that's where the difference in sound is, but my other worry was that maybe, in wiring it this alternative way, I've wired the pickup in parallel, as opposed to series? Again I'm unsure here.
My new guitar is again, an alder body, but this time with a maple cap, no pick guard, as they are directly mounted to the body.

It might be worth while mentioning that my last guitar had 2 Gravity Storms, one in the neck and bridge, with a fast track in the middle, all Hb's!

So my question(s) are, what do I do to not get a phasing issue in position 2 and 4, do I need to live with that? Is it possible for me to solder the Black of the Red velvet to hot, and the white to ground? Or will that lead to it being out of phase with the neck pickup? Also I assumed since all are Dimarzio pick ups, they were gonna play nice together... perhaps rookie mistake.



Sorry for the long post, but I've been wracking my brains trying to sort this one. And there were many a' time when I wanted to launch the damn guitar oot the window.

Thanks for reading, any suggestions/criticisms, I'm ready to learn!

[darkbluemurder]

Hi and welcome!

With your pickup selection you should not have to live with out of phase issues as all pickups have start and finish isolated from the base plate and can be wired each way.

With the regular wiring, if the bridge was out of phase with the middle (which would then only have affected pos. 2) but the other combinations were fine, then it would have been correct to flip red and green on the bridge pickup. But that cannot possibly have changed anything with pos. 4 as the bridge pickup is not involved there.

What you did however was to wire the pickup "inside out", which changes the coil selected on the split function but not necessarily the phase. Then I would do the health and phase check I set out below.

I would go back to the initial wiring and then check whether you have all the selections you want, which of them hum and which sound weird.

BTW what kind of 5-way switch did you use? And did you wire the switch to automatically split the humbuckers in pos. 2 and 4?

And yes, one and the same pickup may sound pronouncedly different in two different guitars but not like full and fat in one and thin and plinky in the other - if that is the case the one in the thin and plinky one may be miswired or defective. Do you have a multimeter? If not, get one - I find it indispensible for working on guitar wirings. If you have one, check this with the regular wiring:

1) health check:
- plug a guitar cable in the guitar jack and connect the red probe to the tip and the black probe to the shaft of the plug
- measure the DC resistance in each switch position. For the individual pickups you should get readings close to the rated ones (they will be a bit lower as the resistance of the volume pot is in parallel with the pickups). For the combinations (pos 2-4) you will get much lower readings (in the 3k to 4k range). If you get anything else, there is your problem.
2) test the phase:
- get some needle nose pliers or a screwdriver. Put it on top of the pickup with the test probes still connected. Lift the pliers and watch the reading on the meter - does it go up or down? If it goes the same way on all pickups, they are in phase. If it goes the other way on one, that one is out of phase - reverse hot and ground on that one.

Hope that helps. Good luck,

Stephan

[Savage]

Thanks for the welcome!

I attached the diagram that I followed. I should have probably attached it to begin with, sorry about that!

I have a multimeter, yeah. In the current wiring, with the green + red split, black + bare to ground and white as hot, I get 13.8k in the bridge position, almost 4k in pos 2, pos 3 is 2.7k, pos 4 is 2.8 and the neck is 9.72k!

I did the phase test with the screw driver in the current wiring and the past wiring and found the bridge pick up was out of phase, it spiked down where as the neck spiked up. so I rewired it as it currently is.

As for hum/ noise, A little bit of noise in pos 1 and 5, more noise in pos 2 and pos 3, with the least noise in pos 4. And the 5-way-switch is a super switch. Oak Grisby deal.

In the wiring that is dictated by the diagram, as I originally had it. the neck position was full HB, and position 4 was spliting fine. But I would get no sound at all from position 3, which is the outer coils of the HB's together, and position 2 and 1 were thin and weak sounding, thats when I discovered the way I rewired it, wit the red and green as split, etc.

Does this help? Should I do anything else, is it still worth me going back to the original wiring and testing the DC, like you suggest?

Many thanks for your help Stephen,

Adam!

Oh, I should also mention, to try and fix my original problem, I tried swapping the red with the green, so the green was hot and red grounded with the bare. That didn't help. I was still getting the same thin sound, hence this alternative wiring.

[darkbluemurder]

Hi Adam,

The readings look good to me so the pickups should be ok.

How did the middle pickup come out in the phase test? You can test it in any position in which it is active, i.e. #2 and #4.

#1 should be the full humbucker. It should have similar volume to #5 (the full neck humbucker). If it hasn't something is wrong. Both the original wiring (red to hot, black+white together to split, green and bare to ground) as well as the "inside-out-wiring" (white to hot, red+green together to split, black and bare to ground) should give the same tone in pos. 1. I guess that if you flipped the phase on the bridge you have it now wired as follows: black to hot, red+green together to split, and white and bare to ground.

A bit of noise on the individual humbuckers (#1 and #5) is normal. If you have no noise in #4 (neck+middle) and the expected stratty tone, this means that you have wired the neck and middle pickups correctly so the focus should be on the bridge pickup.

If you have more noise in #2 and #3 this means that the active coil from the bridge pickup has the same magnetic polarity as the middle pickup and as the active coil from the neck pickup. In order to humcancel they should have the opposite magnetic polarity which means that in each position the wrong bridge coil is active. You can check the magnetic polarity of the coils (a humbucker = two coils of opposite polarity) with a small magnet or a spare pickup. You don't really need to know whether you have a south or a north coil - just take any spare pickup you may have and put it close to your coils. Does it attract or repel? For humcancelling you need to combine an attracting with a repelling coil.

I will check the diagram you used next.

Cheers Stephan
 

[Savage]

Hello again!

So the middle pick up in pos 2 and 4 was out of phase with the bridge and neck. pos 2 and 4 spiked down, whilst 1,3 and 5 spiked up.

The sound of the bridge and neck are similar in volume to be sure! The middle and neck does sound stratty, as it should. But, the bridge and middle sounds out of phase to me? Like its noisy and thinner than I expect it to be. So I guess that's out of phase? I have the bridge currently wired inside out ( W to hot, R+G together for split, B + B to ground.) But for the correct wiring, R to hot, B+W for split, and G+B to ground, the bridge sounded just out of phase. And It was out of phase in the test I done. It was spiking down, where as the Neck was still spiking up.

As for the noise, I do in fact have more noise in 2 and 3, than 4. For the magnetic polarity I have an old pick up and it attracts the outer coil and repels the inner. middle pick up attracts. For the neck, the inner coil repels and the outer attracts!

Does this help some? Also i really do appreciate all the advice and help you're giving me right now, Stephen!

Adam

[Savage]

So after some more tinkering, and rewiring back to the original wiring ( R to hot, B+W to split, and Green and Bare to ground) It is definitely out of phase. I tried wiring black to hot, R+G together for split, white and bare to ground, but I got nothing at all pos 1 or 2, got something on 3 but that was essentially just the neck pick up outside coil.

I basically went back to the second wiring I done, W to hot, R+G together and black and bare to ground. And it sounds full on pos 1 again, but still out of phase sounding on pos 2. I had considered swapping the hot and ground of the middle pick up, but I feel that will cause that pick up to be out of phase with the neck.

So who knows, my thoughts are maybe that the lead wires have been hooked up inside the pick up wrong, or the pick up is faulty, even though all the readings check out. So I'm confused as to why the original R to hot, etc, wiring is out of phase.

Adam

[darkbluemurder]

I will have a look at it as soon as I have more time.

Cheers Stephan

[darkbluemurder]

OK - my first thought was that if #2 and #4 are out of phase then I would reverse the connections of the middle pickup and wire the bridge and neck in the standard wiring (red to hot, black+white together for split, green+bare to ground).

If you want to stay with the bridge pickup wiring as you have it right now, then reverse the middle pickup connections and also change the neck pickup wiring to white=hot, green+red=split and black+bare=ground. If this is out of phase with the middle, reverse white and black.

Good luck,
Stephan

[Savage]

Thanks again Stephen!

I'll try these when I have more time and will keep this thread up to date when I get round to doing it!

cheers,

Adam!

[BluesJam]

Instead of splitting the HB coils, how about running them in parallel.  It will still be humbucking with a single coil sound.

You also may want to check the magnetic polarity of the coils.