Wiring issue I haven't experienced before

[BadgerDave]

2 humbuckers, 4 conductor, Gibson 50s Les Paul style wiring.

Everything works, including the pickup selector switch, volume and tone controls but the sound is thin and tinny regardless of whether the bridge, neck or both pickups are activated.

This is a new installation in a thin line hollow body, so I'll likely need to pull the harness out .

Any thoughts on where to start troubleshooting?

.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

Input jack soldering first! Heat it up and resolder as it might have a dry joint. I always do this first. Then I go reheat every solder joint. It's a process of elimination but it's normally the input jack in my experience Chances are, one wire end wasn't heated/tinned correctly and there's a dry joint in a blob of solder = just reheating the joints with a hot iron normally fixes the problem. Good luck

[gorch]

You might have swapped a pair of wires and ended up in a reverse wiring situation subtracting frequences. Making the sound thin.

[atquinn]

Do the resistances on the pickups meter out correctly? Anyway, given that the entire system is affected, Vic's suggestion seems reasonable to me. What a PITA in a for something like this to happen in a hollowbody setup!

-

Austin

[Armitage]

Yeah, my guess is the pickup coils were wired in parallel by accident.

[duncans]

Does turning either volume down slightly thicken it up? I've got a similar situation with one I just wired with, I believe, the same pickups.

[hamerhead]

....... the same pickups.

Me, too. Interesting..........

[gorch]

The stupid question. Volume and tone up?

[BadgerDave]

Yes, volume and tone controls are turned up.

I pulled the harness last night, checked all connections, put some shrink wrap on exposed wires to prevent accidental grounding and rewired the input jack.

It's 50's style wiring, so there is some interactivity between the volume controls, but the basic problem remains regardless of the settings on the volume or tone knobs.

The pickups measure 7.8 and 8.5 ohms. I think that's in the ballpark for these humbuckers, but the volume and tone they're producing isn't nearly what I'd expect from even a very low output single coil. There is no low end at all and the volume is what I would expect with the knob at around 2 on a pickup that's working correctly.

I'll pull the pickups today and see if a different set functions correctly. If so, I'll know it's the pickups.

[BadgerDave]

I pulled the wiring and replaced the pickups with a set that worked previously. The bridge pickup now works as it should. The neck pickup is exhibiting the same issue as before - thin tinny sound and very low output.

I'm getting a lot of practice in snaking wiring harnesses in and out of thinline hollow body guitars, but this is driving me nuts!

So I don't think it's the pickups. Since the neck pickup isn't completely "dead", the signal must be getting partially shunted to ground somewhere. Since the bridge pickup works, the issue can't be the input jack.

I guess I'm going to have to pull everything out again and resolder every connection on the neck pickup side of the assembly.

Damn!

[gorch]

Since the same pickup position is raising the same issue it must be something that is separate from the pickups and has been unchanged in the replacement. The bridge pots, volume and tone. I have overseen that it is Gibson wiring scheme which has two pots each.

Swap the tone pots to see if the effect walks with the swap. Then you might have it. Or better replace them all with a new set.

[Victor (Fret Friend)]

I'd replace the pots/wiring/caps! I use CTS 450G's as they are heavy duty, reliable and measure within 1% of 500K. They are worth the extra expense over regular CTS's...

[BadgerDave]

OK, I'm throwing in the towel.

Just took everything out, resoldered and checked every connection, used a new set of pickups that I verified were working. I checked the output with a multimeter, and verified the pickups were reading correctly.

Reassembled everything and got the same result - thin, fizzy, low output.

I just ordered a prewired ES335 assembly from RS Guitarworks!

[gorch]

RS Guitarworks sure is a great choice. What was his name on here? I forgot since he doesn't post here that often anymore, right?

[Teh]

RS Guitarworks sure is a great choice. What was his name on here? I forgot since he doesn't post here that often anymore, right?

RoyB

[velorush]

OK, I'm throwing in the towel.

Just took everything out, resoldered and checked every connection, used a new set of pickups that I verified were working. I checked the output with a multimeter, and verified the pickups were reading correctly.

Reassembled everything and got the same result - thin, fizzy, low output.

I just ordered a prewired ES335 assembly from RS Guitarworks!

BD, I started to ask this earlier, but then decided against it: you're not using the stock pots are you? I'm not at all certain what came in that guitar, but the pickups manufactured by the eventual successor company (i.e., EMG) to those originally in your guitar are 25k.

Did you try out the guitar prior to disassembly? I curious if it worked with those pots and the humbuckers that were in it when you received it.

Probably being Captain Obvious, but high impedance pickups and low impedance potentiometers don't mesh, and just pondering it, I can think through how that might provide the results you're experiencing.

At any rate, the RS harness should provide a simple fix.

[BadgerDave]

Good thought, but the guitar had been gutted and the original wiring was gone before I acquired it. I used new 500K pots.

[Caddie]

Like Dad used to say "Ya just had to fiddle with it didn't ya. Go upstairs while I sit down here and curse wildly while I fix it. Bring a Schlitz back down here."

Cheers Dad!

caddie