Repair And Restoration
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pickup wiring?
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pickup wiring?
I’ve built some acoustic guitars and I want to get into some electric builds. On that note, I have a highly regarded player around here asking if I could wire an existing solid body to his liking. He is providing two 500K pots, two P90 pickups and a 3 position switch. He wants two volume controls, no tone control. He’s quite an accomplished player and I don’t know enough to question him. I got a Seymour Duncan diagram from their site and it seems simple enough but most P90 diagrams I see use 250K pots, one used 300k but none using 500k. Seymour Duncan shows no resistors , are any necessary? If your using the switch in the ‘both’ position how does that effect the two volume control set up? I assume you still retain control of each pickup individually and set your volume for each? Thanks for any help with this
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5 Replies
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You don’t need any resistors, and if he just wants 2 volumes with no tone, you should have everything you need. Pot values are really a matter of personal preference. A larger value, like the 500k, will give you more output and more higher frequencies, where a lower value like 250k reduces the output and higher frequencies. Strats use a 250 to tame some of the brightness, Gibson humbuckers are usually paired with 500 to add back some of the highs that are canceled by having 2 coils. P90s are somewhere in the middle, naturally warmer sounding than a Strat or Tele single coil. 500k on a P90 give you the hotter more aggressive sound a lot of people (myself included) prefer.
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Thanks Ethan
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I finally got back to actually doing this job but I’m having trouble. I have a toggle switch , A, B, and AB. I have no problem with the neck or bridge alone but together I only get one pickup but if I tap on the covers they are both ‘live’. If I get sound thru the neck pickup I can adjust the volume using the bridge pot. both pots seem to act as somewhat of a master volume?? I checked continuity on the switch before wiring anything and it was working fine. Maybe grounding something I shouldn’t be? Its all pretty new to me. Thank you for any advice.
In the end I’m wanting to have neck, bridge, and both together and adjustable with each pickups volume control
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I finally got back to actually doing this job but I’m having trouble. I have a toggle switch , A, B, and AB. I have no problem with the neck or bridge alone but together I only get one pickup but if I tap on the covers they are both ‘live’. If I get sound thru the neck pickup I can adjust the volume using the bridge pot. both pots seem to act as somewhat of a master volume?? I checked continuity on the switch before wiring anything and it was working fine. Maybe grounding something I shouldn’t be? Its all pretty new to me. Thank you for any advice.
In the end I’m wanting to have neck, bridge, and both together and adjustable with each pickups volume control
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Check out Seymour Duncan’s diagram at https://www.seymourduncan.com/images/wiring-diagrams/P90_Standard.jpg
Wire like that and ignore the tone pots – just pretend they’re not there. Don’t forget a ground wire from the jack ground/sleeve lug to the back of the volume pot.
Standard Gibson-style wiring has both volumes ‘active’ in the bridge+neck position. That means adjusting one volume affects the sound of both pickups. That’s fine for most people but, if you don’t like it, search for ‘gibson independent volume controls’ and you should find heaps of info.
seymourduncan.com
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