I hope someone here can help me. I have a Yamaha guitar (RGX621D) with a HSH configuration (2 humbuckers (neck, bridge) and a single coil in the center). I bought a new pickup, a Duncan SH-1 '59 humbucker to replace the bridge. The pickup has 5 wires (red, white, green, black, and one that has no cover (no color)), but the old one has only 3 (red, white and no color). I don't know where to hook up everything, I tried following the drawings that come with the pickup, but there's no drawing for a guitar with 3 pickups and a 5-way switch, there's too much wires in there, I don't know what to do. Can someone help me?
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Pickup installation problems
- Thread starter DropD
- Start date
Lo' there,
I have a yamaha 421dm and did the same thing so here's the fix....
What you got when you bought the duncan was a humbucker with 'coil tapping' capabilites. This means you can use one or the other coils as a 'single coil' or use both in a humbucking configuration. The yamaha humbucker doesn't have that.so...
. . . . ______________
RED--------/ + + + + + + \--------WHITE
. . . . \_____________/
BLACK------/ + + + + + + \--------GREEN
. . . . \_____________/
I
I-----SHIELD (NO COLOR)
So the shield is ground and the colors are each end of the coils. (I'm pretty sure the colors are right as this is typical, but check those papers they will have a similar diagram) Now to wire the damn thing.....
1) To work in your guitars current configuration you would solder the RED wire to where the original RED wire went, solder BLACK and WHITE together, and solder GREEN and SHIELD to ground (on the back of the volume pot).Now to get 'fancy'.......
2) Wire as above but wire the BLACK and WHITE wires to one side of a SPST (Radio shack has one) switch and a wire from the other side to ground (volume pot). Now when the switch is on it will ground one side of both coils and cause you to use only one coil. Now the pickup is a single coil. Flip the switch again and you're back to a humbucker. TA-DA!
For anything fancier than that you could email me and I'll send you some diagrams or go to Yamaha.com and the service guys there are really helpful.
-Later-
Viking_______________________________________
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
I have a yamaha 421dm and did the same thing so here's the fix....
What you got when you bought the duncan was a humbucker with 'coil tapping' capabilites. This means you can use one or the other coils as a 'single coil' or use both in a humbucking configuration. The yamaha humbucker doesn't have that.so...
. . . . ______________
RED--------/ + + + + + + \--------WHITE
. . . . \_____________/
BLACK------/ + + + + + + \--------GREEN
. . . . \_____________/
I
I-----SHIELD (NO COLOR)
So the shield is ground and the colors are each end of the coils. (I'm pretty sure the colors are right as this is typical, but check those papers they will have a similar diagram) Now to wire the damn thing.....
1) To work in your guitars current configuration you would solder the RED wire to where the original RED wire went, solder BLACK and WHITE together, and solder GREEN and SHIELD to ground (on the back of the volume pot).Now to get 'fancy'.......
2) Wire as above but wire the BLACK and WHITE wires to one side of a SPST (Radio shack has one) switch and a wire from the other side to ground (volume pot). Now when the switch is on it will ground one side of both coils and cause you to use only one coil. Now the pickup is a single coil. Flip the switch again and you're back to a humbucker. TA-DA!
For anything fancier than that you could email me and I'll send you some diagrams or go to Yamaha.com and the service guys there are really helpful.
-Later-
Viking_______________________________________
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
[This message has been edited by Viking (edited 01-06-2000).]
Ok, thanks a lot for the info, but I'm still unsure about one thing. There are 3 wires coming out of the stock pickup, white, red and shield. Both the red and white are hooked to the 5-way switch in different places. You say to solder the red wire where the red wire was, but what do I do with where the white wire was?
What the hell?
They must be internally grounding the two sides of the coils (black and white wires that I spoke about earlier) and are using the the white wires coming out of the factory pickup as the center of the two coils. Then they are probably switching the white wire (in the original pickup) to ground through the five-way. Check it with an ohm meter.Or..
They could be using the white wire as an open ended tap and only using it when the switch is in #2 position to humbuck the middle pickup and with one coil of the humbucker.
Either way I'm pretty sure that you'll be ok if you hool the black and white wires of the new pickup to where the white wire went on the five way, the red to red, and green and shield to ground.
But, why not contact Yamaha.Com and email the service guys there for a schematic. They are helpful cats. I put a switch in mine, so it worked out ok for me.
Viking_______________________________________
They must be internally grounding the two sides of the coils (black and white wires that I spoke about earlier) and are using the the white wires coming out of the factory pickup as the center of the two coils. Then they are probably switching the white wire (in the original pickup) to ground through the five-way. Check it with an ohm meter.Or..
They could be using the white wire as an open ended tap and only using it when the switch is in #2 position to humbuck the middle pickup and with one coil of the humbucker.
Either way I'm pretty sure that you'll be ok if you hool the black and white wires of the new pickup to where the white wire went on the five way, the red to red, and green and shield to ground.
But, why not contact Yamaha.Com and email the service guys there for a schematic. They are helpful cats. I put a switch in mine, so it worked out ok for me.
Viking_______________________________________