Warpig wiring issue (Ibanez SZ520)

[Pilsner]

Hey lads.

I've been pestering Ben with a LOT of emails now, almost to the extent where i'm starting to feel sorry for the bloke.. :)

I ordered a Supermassive P90 neck and alnico War pig for the bridge. The SM was no problem hooking up but i can't get the pig to work properly.

The switch is an odd acquaintance with twelve connectors on the back and really odd circuitry. The middle position is split coil for both pups. Everything is displayed in the attached schematics. The original pups were Duncan/Ibanez design. I've wired everything according to this conversion chart but translated the colour code from Duncan to BKP: https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/main/downloads/schematics/general/humbuckers/humbucker_colour_code_conversion_chart.pdf

The pig sounds very weak and full volume on the bridge equals about a quarter of the neck volume. Putting the selector in middle pos gives a noticeable boost to about half of full neck volume. However it still sounds like cr@p.

I'm gonna swing by the music store and pick up a regular 3-way selector without split coil functionality today, cause I'm running out of ideas.. Could it be that i burnt the pot while soldering the ground? How would this manifest itself?

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong, or at least point me to a place where i can read up on the electrical principles of guitar electronics?


Thanks
/Fred

[darkbluemurder]

It is very difficult to trace the wires in the picture but the Warpig's green and white wire should be soldered together and be soldered to the pin where the bridge pickup's black and white wires in the DiMarzio diagram go. Red BKP = red DiMarzio, Black BKP = green DiMarzio.

If that does not work, then solder the green and white together and tape the connection. Solder the red to the hot connection and the black to ground. Then you should at least have full humbucker volume.

Cheers Stephan

[Pilsner]

Thanks Stephan.

I replaced  the switch, wired it for HB and now the volume is ok, i guess.

But it doesn't quite live up to it's name. It's as weat and brittle as the one it replaced. Very midscooped sound without any bottom end or warmth whatsoever. Nowhere close to the samples i heard of it.

 I am slightly worried that I ordered the wrong spacing. The bolts are a tad off on all strings but high E. Should this make such a huuge difference?

[Pilsner]

Now i tried routing it over the neck pot but it is the same. The SM sounds great on both pots. When I measure the dc resistance on the end of the guitar cable it matches up with BKP's value. My (cheap) multimeter says 20,9 and the card says 21,5.

[Dave Sloven]

I am slightly worried that I ordered the wrong spacing. The bolts are a tad off on all strings but high E. Should this make such a huuge difference?

On a low output pickup this might be an issue, but on the most powerful pickup in the range I suspect not.  It might be time to take it to someone for a complete rewire.  Something's wrong somewhere. It's possible you have the bridge coils wired in parallel, the sound you are getting sounds like that might be the case.  Warpigs have too much bottom end if anything.

[PhilKing]

You could unsolder all the wires and check the resistance of each coil, but it sounds like everything is OK.  That being the case the options are more limited.  The coils in parallel makes the most sense, but you have the wires connected correctly.  Is your control cavity shielded paint?  The white & green might be shorting to it if you don't have some electrical tape around the connectors.  One thing to test if you want to check each coil is that you get about 10.5k with the black and white & red and green.  You could try swapping the red & green too, which would fix it if there was a mistake somewhere.

[Pilsner]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Well last night during a jam session, a friend of mine picked it up and worked his magic. He looked at the soldering work and told me it was nicely done. :)

So he worked his magic (i will refer to it as that as he "fixed" it whilst i was out) and now it sounds A LOT better. I think a string change up to a heavier guage will do it good. I am also gonna swap the 500K pots for 300 or 250, and add a push-pull for the pig. As of now it's got way more treble and twang than i will ever need.

I tried it in six different amps last night, and it only sounded "good" in half of them. I think a lot of the sound actually comes from the guitar itself. What made me so convinced there was a problem still after replacing the selector is that the warpig sounded truly awful with my Orange TT. Still does. With a lot of gain it's alright, but as soon as i roll it back it sounds frizzy and synthetic. But fortunately it sounds mindblowingly heavy with my old 70's Randall half stack. Put on some octave multiplex goodnes and a fuzz factory and you're in heaven (hell?!).

And on the upside - all these issues have taught me a lot about guitar electronics and how it works, so hopefully i'll be able to help a lost soul or two here in the forum in the future drawing from these experiences.

Cheers lads!
Fred

[darkbluemurder]

It's possible you have the bridge coils wired in parallel, the sound you are getting sounds like that might be the case. 

I don't think so - with the coils in parallel he would have a DC resistance of about 5k instead of 19k. But I agree - something is definitely wrong.

Cheers Stephan

[Pilsner]

It's possible you have the bridge coils wired in parallel, the sound you are getting sounds like that might be the case. 

I don't think so - with the coils in parallel he would have a DC resistance of about 5k instead of 19k. But I agree - something is definitely wrong.

Cheers Stephan

I think maybe i freaked out a little (actually a lot), because i was so anxious to hear the war pig grunt, and when it only whined, it was such an anti climax.. And it does sound horrible with the Tiny terror.
 
The cavitys are painted with shielding paint. I'm gonna change the pots and capacitor this week, and then i'll also clean up the wiring so it's not all over the place. Can it produce hum or anything if cables are parallel and tied together for neatness? I also think a string change will make a big difference. The fact that it's in the bridge of course takes away some of the bottom end and raunchiness. Neck and Bridge are very well matched in output now and i can't wait to get home and continue experimenting. :D

[Dave Sloven]

Use your multimeter to check that the shielding is completely connected throughout.  Poorly grounded shielding can cause sound problems.

My Explorer (Warpig set) has well-shielded cavities, with continuity right through.  You might need a second coat of paint or maybe some other tweaks to get it right.  And yeah be careful of shorts against the shield.

[Pilsner]

Use your multimeter to check that the shielding is completely connected throughout.  Poorly grounded shielding can cause sound problems.

My Explorer (Warpig set) has well-shielded cavities, with continuity right through.  You might need a second coat of paint or maybe some other tweaks to get it right.  And yeah be careful of shorts against the shield.

Thanks for the input, man. I'll be sure to give it a proper inspection. When measuring the shielding - is it the resistance that you measure?

[Dave Sloven]

No, you just need a multimeter with an audible continuity tester in it.  You put the two points on two spots on the guitar and if the conductivity is continuous between them it will give a 'beep' and you should see some kind of reading.  Sometimes the beep can be very weak.  Usually though you will get the same loud beep everywhere or none at all if it is broken.

One place to be careful not to get shielding is around the jack socket.  Those are usually pretty tight and it doesn't take much for the hot wire to short against it.  You really don't need the paint there.  If it looks like it might touch you should cover it with tape or grind it away.  I had to grind mine as it was so tight when I put the jack in the tape was pushed away.  In the channel where my selector switch sits I put some black electrical tape on the walls near the uncovered connections just to make sure it didn't touch.  I still have full connectivity under the tape.  If you have shielding underneath the pickguard or control cover you will need to make sure there is good contact between that and the shielding in the cavity.  You can see how I did mine in the following thread.  If you want to be extra sure you will need to screw wires into the side of your cavities and connect them so that you have an earth wired all the way down to be soldered on the back of one of your pots.

https://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=30925.0

[Kiichi]

Have you tried wiring the WP directly to the output jack for testing? Green and white together and taped off, red to outputjack directly, black to ground? That way there can be no wiring problem, but if the sound is still weird then that might point to something else.

Also did you make sure that both coils are on by tapping the pole pieces with a screwdriver or something? That is one of the essential tests I do when wiring to see that the correct coils are on in each position (made more than enough mistakes on that front giving me weird results).

[Pilsner]

Have you tried wiring the WP directly to the output jack for testing? Green and white together and taped off, red to outputjack directly, black to ground? That way there can be no wiring problem, but if the sound is still weird then that might point to something else.

Also did you make sure that both coils are on by tapping the pole pieces with a screwdriver or something? That is one of the essential tests I do when wiring to see that the correct coils are on in each position (made more than enough mistakes on that front giving me weird results).

Yes and yes. But i still don't like the sound of it. I could never see myself using it for anything else than some chugga chugga metal. I'm starting to think it's more about the guitar than the actual pickups. It is quite bright sounding unplugged. Most likely I'm bringing it by the local guitar tech soon - mainly to take myself out of the equation and to be 100% sure that the guitar is set up as good as possible. If that doesn't help the pig is leaving the farm..

Is it hard to transplant the cover by the way? Got the special burnt chrome covers and they look really tasty together.