kiddakidda Posted September 8, 2010 Share Posted September 8, 2010 Hi All, Decided to rewire my Riviera P93 with CTS pots, Orange drop cap and silver braided wire etc. Whilst I was at it I replaced the Neck pickup with a Heywood Brothers hand built one. When I tested the pickup direct to Jack it sounded nice and was an improvement on the Epiphone version. When I wired it all back up (identical to original wiring) I had a volume drop off issue when I turned the volume up to 10. When I turned the volume knobs down to 9 the volume level got louder?! A very annoying fault. The only solution I have found is to reverse the hot & ground lead on the new neck pickup (out of phase?) and then I don't experience the volume issue. The only problem with this is that all pickups sound pretty muddy to me. Can anyone offer any help or solution?? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitmore Willy Posted September 8, 2010 Share Posted September 8, 2010 Kidda, Although I have done a fair amount of electronics I am by no means an expert. After your first statement I would have thought; possibly a dead spot in the pot. I normally set my pots to 0 when I am soldering them. If the heat gets a tiny bit too excessive from the iron it can create a dead spot. If it is set to 10 when it is soldered it can create one there. However, when you say that reversing the wires solves the problem (except for the out of phase part) I have to admit that I, too, am a bit confused. Will be interested to see if someone comes up with the answer. Personally, I would replace the pot and see what happens. Sorry if this is not much help, Willy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bynapkinart Posted September 8, 2010 Share Posted September 8, 2010 could be that you are attaching the lead to the wrong terminal. Not all pots are created equal, therefore not all terminals (right to left) will do the same thing. I had the same issue, and if I'm remembering correctly, bending back the other terminal (the one you bent and soldered to the body of the pot) and attaching the lead there solved my problem. Also, could just be a dead pot. If you want to check you can bend back the tabs on the top and pull it all apart, to check for oxidation or other signs of electrical interference on the metal tape that surrounds the knob. Check and make sure the part that contacts the tape (the part connected to the knob that sits on the tape) makes contact at full open. Or you could always bring it back and make a fuss about it, getting a new pot in the process. At least then you'll know if it was the pot or your wiring that gave you the first problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddakidda Posted September 8, 2010 Author Share Posted September 8, 2010 could be that you are attaching the lead to the wrong terminal. Not all pots are created equal, therefore not all terminals (right to left) will do the same thing. I had the same issue, and if I'm remembering correctly, bending back the other terminal (the one you bent and soldered to the body of the pot) and attaching the lead there solved my problem. Also, could just be a dead pot. If you want to check you can bend back the tabs on the top and pull it all apart, to check for oxidation or other signs of electrical interference on the metal tape that surrounds the knob. Check and make sure the part that contacts the tape (the part connected to the knob that sits on the tape) makes contact at full open. Or you could always bring it back and make a fuss about it, getting a new pot in the process. At least then you'll know if it was the pot or your wiring that gave you the first problem. Hi, I have ruled out suspect pots by the fact that I have replaced them twice and also put the original wiring back at one stage and the problem still existed. I would like to add that I also reverted back to the original Epiphone pickup at one stage and that was fine so I feel that it something to do with the interaction of the new pickup with the older ones?? Cheers Kiddakidda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bynapkinart Posted September 9, 2010 Share Posted September 9, 2010 Hi, I have ruled out suspect pots by the fact that I have replaced them twice and also put the original wiring back at one stage and the problem still existed. I would like to add that I also reverted back to the original Epiphone pickup at one stage and that was fine so I feel that it something to do with the interaction of the new pickup with the older ones?? Cheers Kiddakidda It could be that because the handwired pickup is probably of a lower ohmage, it probably makes the whole circuit react differently. If I'm thinking correctly (and a few glasses of Glenfiddich makes that assumption improbable), the lower ohmage of the neck pickup would reduce the circuit at full volume. At full open, your volume pots bypass your pot resistance and the circuit is complete, the only resistance coming from the pickups. Essentially, it would be like connecting all the pickups directly to the jack. Only in this case, your middle pickup is surplus resistance as it doesn't have it's own dedicated pot. (Let me just preface this last part by adding that I've never seen the inside of a P93 Riviera, but I do have extensive experience with Casinos, 335s, Strats, and Teles). I'm guessing that because your neck pickup is probably wired onto the same volume as your neck and bridge, the different ohmage is throwing the whole circuit off. When you add resistance by rolling off the volume, the pickups equalize. Have you ever heard a Strat pickup direct to jack? MAN it is tinnnnny and far too bright. Likewise, if you throw a 50's custom shop wind in the neck and two hot texas specials in the middle and bridge, you'll get what you're talking about, a drop off in volume at full open. It is important to have a marginal balance in ohmage. I'm not quite sure what else it could be, besides a shady wind on the pickup. Call the guy who wound it for you and see what he says! Without seeing it and playing with it I really can't wrap my head around why it would be doing it. Especially without wiring diagrams... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerrymac Posted September 9, 2010 Share Posted September 9, 2010 Hi All, Decided to rewire my Riviera P93 with CTS pots, Orange drop cap and silver braided wire etc. Whilst I was at it I replaced the Neck pickup with a Heywood Brothers hand built one. When I tested the pickup direct to Jack it sounded nice and was an improvement on the Epiphone version. When I wired it all back up (identical to original wiring) I had a volume drop off issue when I turned the volume up to 10. When I turned the volume knobs down to 9 the volume level got louder?! A very annoying fault. The only solution I have found is to reverse the hot & ground lead on the new neck pickup (out of phase?) and then I don't experience the volume issue. The only problem with this is that all pickups sound pretty muddy to me. Can anyone offer any help or solution?? Cheers Yep, you wired it out of phase. You have to have two pickups on to be out of phase, so I'm assuming the middle pickup is always on. Here's what I would try as an experiment, disconnect the hot lead for the middle pickup and see how the new pickup sounds alone. I'm thinking the middle pickup is what's muddying you new pickup. If that clears it up, consider a push/pull pot for the middle pickup, that way you can add/subtract it as needed providing a lot more possibilities. Since you're working on a semi hollow, you might want to leave the controls outside the body while you experiment. Good luck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddakidda Posted September 9, 2010 Author Share Posted September 9, 2010 Yep, you wired it out of phase. You have to have two pickups on to be out of phase, so I'm assuming the middle pickup is always on. Here's what I would try as an experiment, disconnect the hot lead for the middle pickup and see how the new pickup sounds alone. I'm thinking the middle pickup is what's muddying you new pickup. If that clears it up, consider a push/pull pot for the middle pickup, that way you can add/subtract it as needed providing a lot more possibilities. Since you're working on a semi hollow, you might want to leave the controls outside the body while you experiment. Good luck... Thank you for the response. If I remove any combination of pickup from the circuit on the original wiring (volume drop) the other two remaining work fine. The new pickup is a lower OHM rating just as Bynapkinart pointed out but should that make a difference to volume control? The new pickup is around 8.5 OHM and the previous one was 9.5 OHM, the same as the other two. But lot's of guitars run on different OHM pickups at the neck & Bridge (and middle if there is one). Another issue that may be adding to the muddy sound is that the new pickup has a baseplate ground wire and the other original Epi's don't. I have also sheilded my pickup cavities and run a ground wire through them, which also grounds the metal pickup covers. I have attached the new pickups baseplate ground wire to the guitar ground. Is that causing an issue? Your also right about the Middle pickup being constant. It has it's own volume but the 3 way toggle works on the basis of: Neck and Middle = Top position. Neck, Middle & Bridge = Middle Position and Middle & Bridge = Bottom Position. Would turning the middle volume down not effectivley take it out of the circuit? All the guts are back in the guitar at the moment (due to months of frustration at not being able to play it!) but if I can find enough suggestions to try and fix it I will whip them back out in a jiffy. Thanks for your help so far, keep your thoughts and theories coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddakidda Posted September 9, 2010 Author Share Posted September 9, 2010 It could be that because the handwired pickup is probably of a lower ohmage, it probably makes the whole circuit react differently. If I'm thinking correctly (and a few glasses of Glenfiddich makes that assumption improbable), the lower ohmage of the neck pickup would reduce the circuit at full volume. At full open, your volume pots bypass your pot resistance and the circuit is complete, the only resistance coming from the pickups. Essentially, it would be like connecting all the pickups directly to the jack. Only in this case, your middle pickup is surplus resistance as it doesn't have it's own dedicated pot. (Let me just preface this last part by adding that I've never seen the inside of a P93 Riviera, but I do have extensive experience with Casinos, 335s, Strats, and Teles). I'm guessing that because your neck pickup is probably wired onto the same volume as your neck and bridge, the different ohmage is throwing the whole circuit off. When you add resistance by rolling off the volume, the pickups equalize. Have you ever heard a Strat pickup direct to jack? MAN it is tinnnnny and far too bright. Likewise, if you throw a 50's custom shop wind in the neck and two hot texas specials in the middle and bridge, you'll get what you're talking about, a drop off in volume at full open. It is important to have a marginal balance in ohmage. I'm not quite sure what else it could be, besides a shady wind on the pickup. Call the guy who wound it for you and see what he says! Without seeing it and playing with it I really can't wrap my head around why it would be doing it. Especially without wiring diagrams... I have tried to attach a word document with a diagram of my wiring but I get a error saying that this type of file cannot be uploaded? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KX36 Posted September 9, 2010 Share Posted September 9, 2010 This is simple enough... When you have 2 pickups out of phase at the same volume, certain frequencies cancel each other out and other frequencies summate. A side effect of this is that it seems quieter. If they are not at equal volume, but still out of phase, then you won't find nearly the same effect and it will sound louder. Hence when both pickups are at 10, it's quieter than having one at 10 and one at 8. This is completely normal for out of phase pickups. If I'm reading correctly, you think this is happening when the pickups are wired in phase and wiring it out of phase fixes it, when in fact, you were having the problem with them wired out of phase and wiring them in phase fixed it. If you look at the pickup and you're sure it should be in phase when it's actually behaving out of phase, it may be that the pickup's wired backwards or wound backwards and that may be a design feature or a fault with the pickups, or it could be user error if you're mistaken about which wire's which on the pickup; colour codes are not standardised between manufacturers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KX36 Posted September 9, 2010 Share Posted September 9, 2010 It has it's own volume but the 3 way toggle works on the basis of: Neck and Middle = Top position. Neck, Middle & Bridge = Middle Position and Middle & Bridge = Bottom Position. Would turning the middle volume down not effectivley take it out of the circuit? Yes, all the P93 owners I've spoken to use the middle pickups's dedicated volume knob at 0 to effectively be like a switch and remove it from the circuit. DC resistance won't be causing this problem. Having the pickups out of phase from eachother will. Out of phase pickups sound more "tinny" (that's what people want when they put them out of phase), so putting them in phase sounds relatively more "muddy", but that's what it's supposed to sound like. Just wire the new pickup in the way you had it that sounded muddy but fixed the problem. If you have 1 conductor or 2 conductor wiring, the pickup casing will probably be grounded on the wire that's also the signal ground, so you don't want that out of phase because it will dump the safety ground into the signal hot, possibly causing buzzing, and it will also not be safe to use as guitar grounding is extremely important as it's wired up to a high voltage amp and you can risk electrocuting yourself through your guitar if the safety grounding's no good if your amp malfunctions ro gets wet etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiddakidda Posted September 9, 2010 Author Share Posted September 9, 2010 Yes, all the P93 owners I've spoken to use the middle pickups's dedicated volume knob at 0 to effectively be like a switch and remove it from the circuit. DC resistance won't be causing this problem. Having the pickups out of phase from eachother will. Out of phase pickups sound more "tinny" (that's what people want when they put them out of phase), so putting them in phase sounds relatively more "muddy", but that's what it's supposed to sound like. Just wire the new pickup in the way you had it that sounded muddy but fixed the problem. If you have 1 conductor or 2 conductor wiring, the pickup casing will probably be grounded on the wire that's also the signal ground, so you don't want that out of phase because it will dump the safety ground into the signal hot, possibly causing buzzing, and it will also not be safe to use as guitar grounding is extremely important as it's wired up to a high voltage amp and you can risk electrocuting yourself through your guitar if the safety grounding's no good if your amp malfunctions ro gets wet etc. Thanks for your replys, So it looks as if I have got it right then? I have just give it a little test and there are absolutley no strange goings on with the volume controls at the moment in it's current wired state with no strange hums or noises from any of the pickups. So, what I believe to be wired 'out of phase' is indeed in phase and all is normal. I suppose I got used to the thinner sound with all my attempts at wiring what I thought to be 'in phase' I must also assume that the company that made this Pickup wired it the wrong way round? or gave me an incorrect diagram? As I find the sound still muddy to my ears I suppose the only option would be replace the whole 3 pickups with a matching set at some stage to try and brighten the sound? It such as good looking guitar that I want to stick with it but it needs to sound as good as it looks for me. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rollo Posted February 16, 2014 Share Posted February 16, 2014 Hello from the PNW...just left the evil empire after 18 years - time to play...SO i am doing a P-93 right now for fun - i loved it when i walked in the door and saw it as a great platform to mod... so now with gold grover rotomatic 18:1 lockers with the slight curve to follow head like the old sheraton's did. looked over the original switch and decided to re use it, the wiring is color coded crap but nicely done neatness wise and the harness is LONG and corralled by tubing in places the pots are ick, small...interestingly the tone cap a .022uF was mylar and not a ceramic disc. the pickups were yanked i would use lollar or duncans- but i stumbled on to a guy here in the seattle area that rolls good ones so he rolled me three in the low 7's with alnico II and one at 8.02K alnico V..bone nut CTS pots hand picked 500k not the 300's/500's of the original harness. so i decided the wiring was way too wasteful, long etc so i made a board and drew her f hole from the reverse side. and wired it up with a 6Ps .022 waiting for fibre covers one small fralin shim and one taller shim because it appears i will need them (the stock one should have a shim in the middle pup) the dude at fastback who is winding the pup is winding me a set of low to mid 8K with a 9 for the bridge..that one i will mix and match with the others and select a set that is sweet...the new ones are two alnico III and one V should sound great just did a gibby usa classic SG and did same with duncan antiquities n built up wood in the cavities planer. micometers and a wife that was shaking her head , the orange drops (716) and 500K's (i am going to try bypasses on all vols when done wiring and pissing off the wife (using HER counter top) as work space. but it has aged rotomatics, abr 1 callahan adapter + steel avbr-1 les paul trapezoids now and the duncan antiquities in wood PLUS ya gotta add thumb cutters or there is no pain and gain garbage - so i did. DAMN!!!!! that guitar jumps off my belly with anything over 18watts just has a voice the wood and parts have ....become one with each other..just an amazing sound and feel i'll put up a wiring diagram and stuff asap for the stock OP-93 (AND i modded min so it's in (the middle pup) all the time until you pull the pot (middle vol) and then it takes out the opup AND removed the 500K pot from any conducted pats..(no noise to contribute as an antenna or crackly poppy freaking carbon popcorn vendor.... pics to come Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old mark Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Just FWIW, on my P93, I like the sound better as above, with the middle P90 Vol down to 0, and then turning it up to blend tones as seems appropriate. I think the P93 sounds great, and is a beautifully made guitar. I also have an Elitist Casino, totally different animals, but I love 'em both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteWilson Posted February 17, 2014 Share Posted February 17, 2014 Just FWIW, on my P93, I like the sound better as above, with the middle P90 Vol down to 0, and then turning it up to blend tones as seems appropriate. I think the P93 sounds great, and is a beautifully made guitar. I also have an Elitist Casino, totally different animals, but I love 'em both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.