Just joined the community!
And I have a little issue...
I'm using both under saddle PU and disc PU inside, combined they don't sound so good so I use an ON/ON switch to go back and forth. But when I flip from under saddle to disc I get a loud POP, not the normal click sound that would get picked up by the disc, but much louder. But it's only the first time, if I repeatedly flip the switch it sounds normal. It will happen again if I play for a minute or so in the under saddle position and then flip to disc.
It seems like a build up of static electricity, maybe? I really have no idea. Any one had this issue? Any solutions?
Thanks!
Replies
Regarding series to parallel and single coil wiring I have had varied results.
First thing is that each pickup maker uses a different wiring code. Also the pickups from China that look the same and from the same seller can switch colour codes. So unless it is a well known brand with info with the pickup or info online from the seller check which wire is which with a multimeter.
Cutting to single coil with side by side coils sounds like you have turned the volume down a bit. Very occasionally I have been pleasantly surprised with the cheap rail minihumbuckers from China - some sound like they have been turned down a bit, others sound like the overdrive has been turned on (in these I am guessing having the two coils so close together causes some signal cancellation so switching to one coil gives the unexpected boost). Until I need to open up one of my guitars that does this I am unable to tell which pickups will do this in advance.
Switching from series to parallel gives one of the most noticeable tonal changes. If you are not getting this it would be worth rechecking the wiring.
For future reference you can wire a 4 wire pickup (or 4 plus bare shielding wire) with a dp/dot on/on/on switch (it must be the on/on/on type for it to work). Assuming photo 1 downloads this is the wiring yo do this (from Warman guitars website). You can also do it with an electric 3 way guitar (but it has to be an Oak Grigsby 3 way switch - previously I transposed the lug locations to a cheap import switch and found this has an extra connection so it doesn't work fully). The diagram for this is from Seymour Duncan. To help compare wiring the final attachment should be the Seymour Duncan wiring codes for major manufacturers.
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series/parallel/single coil wiring with a dp/dt on/on/on switch
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Series/single coil/parallel with Oak Grigsby 3way switch
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Seymour Duncan wiring codes
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The blend pot is usually two linear pots wired so as one is turned down the other is turned up. At the midpoint signal A is the equivalent of 5/10 and signal B is 5/10 sticking to the simplified idea of volume being 0 to 10 on the dial. Wired separately both can go to 10/10.
I used blend pots on a few guitars and CBGs but found because the humbucker gives a more powerful signal the piezo sound gets lost and the expected wide variety of tones just don't appear. I found it wasn't much better than a usual electric guitar 3way. The "best" I could get was with the humbucker wired in parallel giving a lower strength signal.
What I do now is give each pickup a volume pot and add a diode1N5819 (you can buy a bag of 50 for about £1 off eBay ). These go on the hot output from the pot (middle lug the way I wire them) with the non shaded end soldered to the hot lug. The diode acts as a one way valve for the signal and prevents the volume pot affecting anything beyond the diode meaning the volumes + diodes become individual blend controls which can give 0 to 10 of each signal and not the fixed ratio the blend pot gives.
OK, so based on both suggestions I am going to add grounding to the switch. The switch is an on/on DPDT and currently wired shown in the BEFORE image. I think you guys are suggesting something like the AFTER image, which I'll try later today. Thanks!
That should work.
That will let you know if grounding the piezo when in the off position gets rid of the loud pop.
If it works I would wire each pickup separately (you can leave one pickup wired as above and add another switch for the other). The reason being is you can then have both pickups on at the same time giving 3 different tones from your guitar.
I first tried hooking both in parallel and even series, but I didn't think it sounded very good. Although, when I ran this config into Logic as 2 separate L/R channels it sounds great. I also tried to use one of those stacked blender pots and that really failed; in the center notch I got almost no signal, cut probably at least 50%. Any idea why that didn't work?
Regarding loss of signal - in addition to below and trying to answer the problem when you switch from L/R channels to one.
I am aware of two others who have done a very similar circuit and been happy with it. As far as I am aware this was for playing only and not recording. Many years back I did read that you can get issues when you try to mix an active (preamp piezo signal) and a passive (magnetic) signal. One of the early CBGs I made had an echo circuit on it and the option to send the piezo/magnetic/both signals through it. To join the active plus passive signals on that I added a 10k resistor between each final live wire from the two signal pathways and the jack socket. From what I recall the info I read at the time said this caused a 3decibel loss in signal. It seemed to work okay.
When I put a preamp into any guitar I add the passive piezo signal and the magnetic signal (either via a simple 3 way or volumes plus diodes as discussed elsewhere on this thread) and send that signal through the preamplifier. This has always worked well for me.
Here is a video from many years back which shows this method http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/comparing-cbg-pickups
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