Duncan/DiMarzio wiring colours? HELP!

[MartinBarre]

Are you sure yo should be using a soldering iron then J/K
solder the red and white together, green is still green on the two, and swap th red(dimarzio) to black (SD).
oops too slow.

sounds like you just have a bad connection. Are both pickups not working properly?

Nope, neither. However! You say, solder the red and white together. That's the two that aren't used, right? Do I actually have to connect them, even though they aren't used? I just taped them together, without actually connecting them. Could that be the problem?

[Rich#6]

yes, you are not connecting the coils without them together

[MartinBarre]

I'm not done with this, it doesn't look right as it is. But there's a red pearl scratchplate and truss rod cover being custom made. I think it'll look great.

[Newc]

If you want the neck and bridge pickups to have individual Volumes and share the Tone, connect each pickup's black wires to the outside prong on each volume pot, then the centers out to Toggle, then the toggle to the Tone pot's outside lug, and the Tone's center to the Output jack.

You can also wire each pickup to the Toggle first, then the toggle out to the first Volume's outer lug, then the center of that pot to the outer lug of the next volume, then the center of that to the Tone. This will give you an interesting setup where rolling off one volume will keep the beef, but reduce the gain, and the other will roll back the volume to clean things up (a bit thinner sounding).

Or you can follow the Les Paul diagram and just merge the two Tone connections.


And make sure the red and white wires are soldered together and taped to prevent them from making contact.

[MartinBarre]

yes, you are not connecting the coils without them together

Ok, I'll go try it now!

[Rich#6]

If you want the neck and bridge pickups to have individual Volumes and share the Tone, connect each pickup's black wires to the outside prong on each volume pot, then the centers out to Toggle, then the toggle to the Tone pot's outside lug, and the Tone's center to the Output jack.

You can also wire each pickup to the Toggle first, then the toggle out to the first Volume's outer lug, then the center of that pot to the outer lug of the next volume, then the center of that to the Tone. This will give you an interesting setup where rolling off one volume will keep the beef, but reduce the gain, and the other will roll back the volume to clean things up (a bit thinner sounding).

Or you can follow the Les Paul diagram and just merge the two Tone connections.


And make sure the red and white wires are soldered together and taped to prevent them from making contact.

He is having a hard time changing the color codes and you give him options

[MartinBarre]

Okay I just went and connected the two red and white wires on each pup and it seems to have solved the problem. So thank you Rich for telling me about that!

However - something isn't right. I was never happy with the DiMarzios - they just didn't sound good to me. And now I've replaced them with these Invaders and it's the same thing. THey just don't sound like they're being pushed. There's no harmonics, and although rythm sounds are decent, leads are just not good at all.
Compared to the JB in my SL3 the Invaders and DiMarzios in this RR3 sound very very poor.
I really am starting to think there's a wiring issue. Going on the photos I posted, can anyone see any reason for the problem I'm describing? I'm really getting a bit fed up with this guitar - two sets of great pickups and both have sounded lifeless.

[Rich#6]

I personally hate invaders, very low treb to me not gret for leads
what kind of dimarzios were they?
The JB has lots of treb. very different pickups then the invaders
How did you pickout the invaders?

[MartinBarre]

I personally hate invaders, very low treb to me not gret for leads
what kind of dimarzios were they?
The JB has lots of treb. very different pickups then the invaders
How did you pickout the invaders?

They were FRED and PAF Joe.
I chose the Invaders as I wanted a pretty high gain pup, but not another JB since I already have one in the SL3. I like some variety! I really do think somethings stopping this guitar from working correctly. They sounded better - more harmonics - before I joined the red and white wires!


BTW I have another problem now - the trem seems to be sitting way up. The action is now rather high, whereas it was nice and low before I started messing around with things.
I think it's probably because I was propping the trem up with a couple of clothes pegs so it didn't fall into the cavity. I thought it would spring right back no problem but it doesn't seem to have.

[Sunbane]

I bet you're losing signal strength in a pot or the switch. I had a similar problem with my Rhoads (although more severe), and I had to replace the switch. What you have to do, is to isolate the problem. I don't know how useful this will be to you, but anyway:

To override the tone control, simply disconnect its hot lead from whatever point it is connected. If that fixes the output issue, there you have the problem.

To override the switch, you can wire the output from one of the volume pots directly to the jack.

To override a volume pot, simply wire the pickup directly to the 3-way switch.

Or to override the whole shebang, wire the pup directly to the jack. That should give you the pickup's sound at full power.

[MartinBarre]

I bet you're losing signal strength in a pot or the switch. I had a similar problem with my Rhoads (although more severe), and I had to replace the switch. What you have to do, is to isolate the problem. I don't know how useful this will be to you, but anyway:

To override the tone control, simply disconnect its hot lead from whatever point it is connected. If that fixes the output issue, there you have the problem.

To override the switch, you can wire the output from one of the volume pots directly to the jack.

To override a volume pot, simply wire the pickup directly to the 3-way switch.

Or to override the whole shebang, wire the pup directly to the jack. That should give you the pickup's sound at full power.

That sounds very helpful, and I think you must be right. Maybe I'll just take it up to the local guitar shop, they do things like this pretty cheap.

[Newc]

Desolder everything before you take it and spare yourself the humiliation when he opens the cavity and sees the mess you've made

It'll also help him wire it up faster.

While you're out, pop into the nearest Radio Shack or other electronics components shop and pick up a bag of jumper leads, or alligator clips, or whatever they're known as over there. They're multi-colored - red, green, black, yellow - and should come 10 or more in a package.

Use those whenever you're testing out wiring options, since you just clip them to the solder points (wires, pots, etc) before you solder anything.

That taught me tons about wiring options.

[Newc]

One final point about high-output pickups like Invaders - their tone can be affected drastically by changing their proximity to the strings.

Too close and the gigantic magnetic field they produce will walk all over itself, and strings might sound dull - chords suck, no harmonics, etc etc.

Too far away and you're in the outer bands of the field, and get a reduced response (weak signal, low sustain, etc).

What you want to find is the middle of the field above the pickup and set the pickup height so that the string never goes too far into the outer bands nor too close to the poles (or into the eye, where there is no field).

Obviously whammy bar work will affect this, but normal chording and fretting/strumming shouldn't drive the string out of the magnetic field if the pickup height is set properly.

[MartinBarre]

Thanks Newc. I've been playing the guitar here and there over the past couple of days and it actually sounds alright. Through the Toneport GX I can hit harmonics as often as Zakk Wylde.
I've tuned the guitar to D, think I've managed to get the trem arm to sit nicely and the action is pretty low again. In fact, it's so low I've had to lower the height of the bridge pup as the strings keep sticking to the massive poles!
Not had too much chance to properly test the Invaders out yet, but they're certainly better than the DiMarzios although I'm not sure if I prefer the JB. Think I do, but this guitar offers different tonal options than the JB fitted SL3 so it's cool.
Thanks for all your help guys, this thread has been a great help and I'd now not be too worried about replacing pickups again.