SG Pickups... I gotta problem...

  • Thread starter Thread starter pikingrin
  • Start date Start date
pikingrin

pikingrin

what is this?
I've had a Gibson SG for a couple of years now, and recently went to upgrade the factory Gibson 490's for something a little more edgy. I have an ES-135 hollowbody for the more mellow stuff. So, I went to my local guitar shop and got a seymour duncan JB for the bridge, and a Jazz for the neck... Now here's the crappy part... for some reason the volume on the JB is about half of what the Jazz is. It's definitely not my first time to mame the factory electronics on my guitars, I know how & what I'm doing for the most part, I just can't figure out what the problem is... I installed the first JB with a soldering iron that had an electric coil in it, so I figured that I screwed up the magnets. So, I went back and got another, used a different iron, and the same thing. Is there some kind of reaction, or problem with the overall resonance of the thin mahogany body that could be causing this problem, or should I look more into the pots, wires, etc... It's starting to make me crazy!
 
Are you sure you didn't hook the JB up so that its coil-tapped? Did you adjust the height of the pickups?
 
well, like I said, I'm not a pickup-replacement virgin, and I even followed the well illustrated fold-out wiring guide that comes handy with each of their pickups. I wired it so that it does not have the option to be tapped, I think the black & white wires, or two out of the four are soldered together, and the other ones, all per the diagram, are soldered to their respective potentiometer connections...
 
It sounds like you just need to lower the neck pickup and raise the bridge pickup until the volume is more closely matched.
 
Well, I have tried, the Jazz (neck) is almost lower than the pickguard, and there is still more volume, and more beef coming out of it. The beef, I can understand, is due to the nature and the wiring of the pickup, but the JB should be hotter, and a little louder I would assume, seeing as how most of the guitars that come with duncans come with this combination, or a '59 instead of the Jazz...
 
This may sound weird but, switch the pickups. put the bridge pu in the neck slot and the neck pu in the bridge slot. There is more vibration over the neck pu than over the bridge pu so the bridge pu requires the stronger pick up.
 
Check your wiring again. Sounds like you have your JB wired parallel instead of series, or out of phase. On Seymour Duncans, white and red are soldered together, black is hot and green + shield go to ground. Good luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top