Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Tech => Topic started by: MM-S MIKE on December 06, 2007, 12:49:04 AM
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I bought a pair of BKP humbuckers and installed them in my guitar about a week ago, (cold sweat neck, nailbomb bridge .... aren't I original). Anyway, after installing the pickups I had the guitar setup by my local guitar shop and now the action is perfect. The problem is that when I plugged it into an amp I found the strings sounded very unbalanced over the nailbomb, the high E string (the thicest one) sounds a hell of a lot louder than the other strings. In fact it is so much louder that when I play power chords all I can hear is the big E string and what sounds like ghost notes from the other 2 and any diads on the thickest two strings just sound like the E string note.
I was wondering if anyone has had a similar problem and could help me to sort it out. The neck pickup works fine btw, just the bridge one is dodgy. I've alreaty tried fiddling with the pickup height but that makes on difference, the thick E is still a LOT louder than the other strings and masks their noise. I just want to know if this is a wiring issue or a pickup one (so I'd have to send it back) or something really simple I can fix myself.
Any suggestions/diagnoses would be great
Thanks
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You say you have played with the pickup height - so what is the distance between strings and pickups on the bass and treble sides? It should be closer to the treble side than the bass
You can also do fine adjustments with the polepieces but you need to get into the ballpark with pickup height first
other than that it generally comes down to technique
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It sounds to me like youre not used to high output pickups yet, just take a thinner plectrum and play less agressive. I had the same thing once, i eventually got back to lower output pickups because i felt like i couldnt EXPRESS myself that way :lol: :lol: :twisted:
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Double check the wiring colour codes
BKP uses a different config to other makes and it has often been a problem when someone has inadvertantly used a Duncan or Dimarzio wiring scheme.
This results in an out of phase pickup which can sound spiky
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OK problem solved. And it was down to the wiring.Turns out I followed the coil split diagram for the pickups by mistake even though my guitar has a minimalitic 2 humbuckers with 1 volume and 1 tone control between them. I've rewired it now so that the series link wires are no longer soldered to the 3 way switch but soldered together and I moved the hot output wires as well. It now sounds perfect, the nailbomb punches with more weight than a train and the cold sweat is great for ringing cleans and solos. Thanks for all the advice. Will post some pics on the pickup forum tomorrow