Pickups sounding below Par..

KevS

If you connected all the earths to the switch and the hots to the back of the switch,what would happen..

I have some early noughties Fender American Series pickups that sound nowhere near as good as my other set
of the same..They read the same on a multimeter...
They don't have the Fatness and they sound kind of closed in compared to the better set....

When I got them,,the coloured coded wires were cut really short..
They could have only been used to earth to the pot at that length is what I am thinking..
I'm wondering if these pickups were wired in reverse for some reason..
It is the only way to make sense of the original wire lengths..
What would happen if all 3 pickups had the wires the wrong way round..

I don't know much,,so please go easy on me if this idea is daft.. 

Funkfingers

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ICBM

Fender did wire the pickups that way round back then - this is a '96 Strat.



Which end of the coil - inner or outer - is grounded will affect both the noise and possibly the tone. If the inner end of the coil is grounded, the outer windings are exposed to external noise, but touching the polepieces produces less noise. If it's the outer windings which are grounded they act as a Faraday shield, so the noise should be reduced, but touching the poles is worse - especially in traditional-construction pickups where the wire is wound directly onto the magnets rather than separated by a plastic bobbin, so noise is easily induced. Finally - the bit you're probably interested in - having the outer windings grounded will increase the internal capacitance to ground of the pickup, since the area of the outer windings is larger than of the inner ones...

It appears to be the coloured wires which are the inner winding on the neck and bridge pickups, and the white on the middle pickup (because it's RWRP).



So I would expect a guitar wired this way to be slightly brighter and more open sounding (in all bar the middle-only position) than one with the white wires grounded and the coloured ones to the switch.

That said, if you're comparing these two sets in different guitars, the only way to tell if the difference is due to the pickups or the guitars is to swap them...

KevS

ICBM said:

Fender did wire the pickups that way round back then - this is a '96 Strat.



Which end of the coil - inner or outer - is grounded will affect both the noise and possibly the tone. If the inner end of the coil is grounded, the outer windings are exposed to external noise, but touching the polepieces produces less noise. If it's the outer windings which are grounded they act as a Faraday shield, so the noise should be reduced, but touching the poles is worse - especially in traditional-construction pickups where the wire is wound directly onto the magnets rather than separated by a plastic bobbin, so noise is easily induced. Finally - the bit you're probably interested in - having the outer windings grounded will increase the internal capacitance to ground of the pickup, since the area of the outer windings is larger than of the inner ones...

It appears to be the coloured wires which are the inner winding on the neck and bridge pickups, and the white on the middle pickup (because it's RWRP).



So I would expect a guitar wired this way to be slightly brighter and more open sounding (in all bar the middle-only position) than one with the white wires grounded and the coloured ones to the switch.

That said, if you're comparing these two sets in different guitars, the only way to tell if the difference is due to the pickups or the guitars is to swap them...

This is how the pickups came to me,with short coloured wires,,seems I misjudged the seller here...
Sorry Seller, for misjudging,I was uninformed here...I jumped to conclusions..
.
Mine have the same colour coding and I have wired my white wires to the pot and my coloureds to the 
switch...So problem solved there hopefully as far as sounding different...
The difference in sound  compared to the other set,is exactly as described.....

Now on another Strat the Middle Texas Special Pickup..If I go anywhere near it there is a nice loud scrunching 
comes from it..This includes touching the lower side mounting screw. also...
I have tried painting the pole pieces and screw over with clear nail varnish,,
it still does the tearing velcro scrunch....It can be really off putting..
my single other single coils are nowhere near as sensitive as this...
I actually have another Texas Special  Middle Pickup..
This one an aftermarket one,,rather than the one that came with the guitar..
It is an American Special Stratocaster which came with Texas Specials,,
but the Fender Aftermarket set might be a little different..
Could it actually be a bad pickup..?
Or is it a choice of between Scrunch and Thinness on the other pickups.. ?
Or is that part of the ,ERM !! Character of the Texas Specials... ?