Balancing pickups

dtr

I've recently put a gorgeous Mojo Jazzmaster Tiesco gold foil in the neck position of a tele with a (equally gorgeous) Oil City Wapping Wharf.  Each pickup on it's own sounds amazing, and the serial position (via 4 way switch) is huge and raucous. I've adjusted the height of each to where the outputs (in volume terms) sound balanced and the single pickup sounds are to my taste.  I'm loving the guitar now and it's jumped ahead of it's sibling to be my go-to electric.

The parallel position (traditional tele middle setting) just doesn't work for me though, as it's overwhelmed by the neck pickup sound.  My assumption is that this is because the gold foil in the neck's resistance is around 6k, compared to around 10k in the bridge, so in a parallel circuit the current takes the path of least resistance - mostly through the neck.  Volume and tone pot are both 250k.

While this is something I can, and probably will, live with, I've found myself wondering whether there's a way to add a resistor in series with the neck pickup in the middle position.  I'm guessing this would need some kind of superswitch with a dedicated pole, and would darken the tone of the neck (not necessarily a bad thing in the parallel position, I'd think).  Anyone got any ideas?

Roland

Does your parallel setting have the Wapping Wharf tapped or full wind?

dtr

Roland said:

Does your parallel setting have the Wapping Wharf tapped or full wind?

I've stuck a little 2way switch between the volume and tone pots for the tap.  I've tried both in the parallel setting.  The tapped position is better (untapped I barely hear any change, which I'd pretty much expect).

Alegree

A series resistor will darken the pickup significantly, and won't solve your issue anyway.

What you want, in my opinion, is a resistor taking some of the neck signal to ground and a treble bleed for it.

dtr

Alegree said:

A series resistor will darken the pickup significantly, and won't solve your issue anyway.

What you want, in my opinion, is a resistor taking some of the neck signal to ground and a treble bleed for it.

Thanks for the suggestion.  I don't think I've understood properly though.  Wouldn't having a resistor between the neck hot signal and ground mean I'm looking at parallel resistors (the pickup's own 6k, and the value of the shunt resistor) so be lowering the resistance of the neck pickup further?  Do you mean doing it on the bridge pickup to drop it's 10k nearer to the neck's resistance value?

Alegree

Ignore resistances. They have little to do with output levels.

dtr

Alegree said:

Ignore resistances. They have little to do with output levels.

Sure, but the output levels are nicely balanced, at least in terms of the volume when switching between the two pickups individually.  Ideally I wouldn't want to change anything at all about the single pickup or the serial sounds, which is why I was thinking along the lines of a superswitch and use an independent pole for the parallel position.

Am I wrong in thinking that the mismatched resistances are the reason why the neck is so dominant when the pickups are parallel?

OilCityPickups

dtr said:

I've recently put a gorgeous Mojo Jazzmaster Tiesco gold foil in the neck position of a tele with a (equally gorgeous) Oil City Wapping Wharf.  Each pickup on it's own sounds amazing, and the serial position (via 4 way switch) is huge and raucous. I've adjusted the height of each to where the outputs (in volume terms) sound balanced and the single pickup sounds are to my taste.  I'm loving the guitar now and it's jumped ahead of it's sibling to be my go-to electric.

The parallel position (traditional tele middle setting) just doesn't work for me though, as it's overwhelmed by the neck pickup sound.  My assumption is that this is because the gold foil in the neck's resistance is around 6k, compared to around 10k in the bridge, so in a parallel circuit the current takes the path of least resistance - mostly through the neck.  Volume and tone pot are both 250k.

While this is something I can, and probably will, live with, I've found myself wondering whether there's a way to add a resistor in series with the neck pickup in the middle position.  I'm guessing this would need some kind of superswitch with a dedicated pole, and would darken the tone of the neck (not necessarily a bad thing in the parallel position, I'd think).  Anyone got any ideas?

Okay.the Wapping Wharf is wound with 43awg wire ... and I'm assuming the Gold Foil is 42awg (as it has a 6k DCR). You are not comparing like wire gauge DCRs here. The Wharf is 10k in it's tapped position and about 14.8k in it's full on mode. 
The tapped (10k setting) bridge pickup's actual 'loudness' will be around the same as the neck as the higher DCR comes from the wire gauge not the number of turns. Were the Wharf wound with 42awg wire the DCR would be about 7.0k tapped and 10k flat out. The wire gauge is chosen with the Wharf to add compression to the mid tones. 
So tapped I would not expect a Wharf to balance very easily with a 'Foil' as they are quite close in output and the Foil has the advantage of being on a louder part of the string. 
With the Series/Parallel thing ... are you sure your wiring is correct?

Alegree

dtr said:

Alegree said:

Ignore resistances. They have little to do with output levels.

Sure, but the output levels are nicely balanced, at least in terms of the volume when switching between the two pickups individually.  Ideally I wouldn't want to change anything at all about the single pickup or the serial sounds, which is why I was thinking along the lines of a superswitch and use an independent pole for the parallel position.

Am I wrong in thinking that the mismatched resistances are the reason why the neck is so dominant when the pickups are parallel?

Yes. 

dtr

TheGuitarWeasel said:

dtr said:

I've recently put a gorgeous Mojo Jazzmaster Tiesco gold foil in the neck position of a tele with a (equally gorgeous) Oil City Wapping Wharf.  Each pickup on it's own sounds amazing, and the serial position (via 4 way switch) is huge and raucous. I've adjusted the height of each to where the outputs (in volume terms) sound balanced and the single pickup sounds are to my taste.  I'm loving the guitar now and it's jumped ahead of it's sibling to be my go-to electric.

The parallel position (traditional tele middle setting) just doesn't work for me though, as it's overwhelmed by the neck pickup sound.  My assumption is that this is because the gold foil in the neck's resistance is around 6k, compared to around 10k in the bridge, so in a parallel circuit the current takes the path of least resistance - mostly through the neck.  Volume and tone pot are both 250k.

While this is something I can, and probably will, live with, I've found myself wondering whether there's a way to add a resistor in series with the neck pickup in the middle position.  I'm guessing this would need some kind of superswitch with a dedicated pole, and would darken the tone of the neck (not necessarily a bad thing in the parallel position, I'd think).  Anyone got any ideas?

Okay.the Wapping Wharf is wound with 43awg wire ... and I'm assuming the Gold Foil is 42awg (as it has a 6k DCR). You are not comparing like wire gauge DCRs here. The Wharf is 10k in it's tapped position and about 14.8k in it's full on mode. 
The tapped (10k setting) bridge pickup's actual 'loudness' will be around the same as the neck as the higher DCR comes from the wire gauge not the number of turns. Were the Wharf wound with 42awg wire the DCR would be about 7.0k tapped and 10k flat out. The wire gauge is chosen with the Wharf to add compression to the mid tones. 
So tapped I would not expect a Wharf to balance very easily with a 'Foil' as they are quite close in output and the Foil has the advantage of being on a louder part of the string. 
With the Series/Parallel thing ... are you sure your wiring is correct?

Hi, and thanks.  Apparently the gold foil uses 44awg wire (round a rubberized ceramic magnet).  My wiring could be wrong I guess, but I can tap the pickup poles and hear the correct pickups in the correct positions.  I'll get the multimeter out tonight to double check though.