New CuNiFe WRHB Electronics Questions

[SbS]

I think hum cancelling middle position is traditionally mostly used in Strats, the middle pickup is wound in opposite direction. It's a single coil thing. I guess Teles were not made like that at least originally.

So hum cancelling middle position is like more modern thing, from my knowledge. In your case, the biggest problem is ground issue. When swapping wires, the ground will be connected to hot and the thing becomes noisy.

I have a Thinline partscaster and ordered bridge pickup with three wires = separate ground. And put a out of phase switch to it in the beginning, because wanted to try it. So it wasn't something I had to think much, just soldered the leads and the switch. Later I replaced bridge pickup with a two wire humbucker (without the switch, naturally) and I was like ready for both ways. It works normally though.

But yeah, searching about people installing aftermarket WRHB and pairing them with single coils, phase issues seem to be quite common.

Some more good read

Out Of Phase Pickups | Seymour Duncan

Guitar pickup polarity: guitar pickups are like flavours of food. You want to wind up with chocolate and peanut butter, not chocolate and onions.

www.seymourduncan.com

Mod Garage: May the Phase Be with You

Use this “traffic light” table to avoid potential issues when combining single-coils from different manufacturers in one guitar.

www.premierguitar.com

And I haven't memorized these things like ever. So checking it every time again when needed.

 

[badscrew_projects]

The hum cancelling middle positions are the single coil thing. As soon as you have humbuckers, this doesn't apply.

 

[Wenanderyo]

It's ok that you have unmatched valued pots. You should expect to do some adjustment when in that middle position.

The originals had 1Meg for both, that doesnt mean you'd appreciate them just because Fender did it this way. I thought the same when wiring a Firebird because " Gibson used 300k pots". Sounds like arse to me.

I dislike audio taper too. My caveman brain doesnt like the sudden drop either way.

Didnt you add the cunife? Why worry about the RI WRHB then? Dial in your new one & forget it.

Love me a Custom.

this triggered a question of mine...i dont like sudden drops in pots...is there pots that are smooth without sudden drops all the way to zero ??

and i guess i allso then wonder what would be the obvious change if go from a 250 volume pot, and say a 1k pot so there is big difference ... i get a bigger swoop, does it mean i can finetune the volume better with a 1k pot??

 

[badscrew_projects]

The audio pots have LESS sudden drop to zero than the linear pots.

 

[bender66]

The audio pots have LESS sudden drop to zero than the linear pots.

Isn't that backwards?

 

[badscrew_projects]

No it isn’t

You don’t need to believe my word, try both and you’ll see

 

[bender66]

No it isn’t

You don’t need to believe my word, try both and you’ll see

I use linear taper specifically because it doesn't have the sudden gain/drop.

"An AUDIO taper pot increases the signal from your guitar to your amp in a logarithmic (exponential) fashion. Simply explained, “1”, “2”, or “3” on the volume knob will produce little, if any, signal but once you get past “3” or so, the volume will ramp up a LOT. Past “8” or so there will be very little volume increase. An audio taper volume control is used on you car radio. You will notice that when you turn on the radio you have to rotate the knob to the right quite a bit before you get any volume. And past “7” or “8” on the radio volume knob, it doesn’t really increase your volume anymore. It causes your signal to clip.

A LINEAR taper pot increases the signal in a linear fashion. (“1” on your control is equal to 10%, “4” is equal to 40% and so forth) This works very different from an audio taper volume pot. For those looking for a smooth, predictable transition to volume, a linear taper pot will probably work best for you."

 

[badscrew_projects]

You said « drop to zero » initially.

Lin pot will drop faster at its low values (close to zero), log pot will drop faster at its high values, which ones you’ve been talking about?

 

[badscrew_projects]

Also, the « 10% at 1, 20% at 2 » is only true for the voltages or amplitudes, the trouble is human ear isn’t linear and doesn’t perceive the volume like that.

 

[rhino x3]

I haven't been on here in years but I have a Is 1973 telecaster Deluxe that I had some questions about and my questions were answered but I stumbled on this thread And I might have the answer. I have a 2 pickup guitar wired out of phase in the middle The closer the volume knobs are To each other the thinner and quieter the sound gets. I know it seems counter Intuative but if you turn down one pot the sound will get thicker and louder

 

[Caffiend]

Following from all the confusion about volume levels, it's worth noting that there's a distinct 'honk' to an out of phase pickup combination, not completely dissimilar to 'cocked wah' but not quite the same either. There is a volume difference too, but the tonality is far more noticeable. It's been mentioned elsewhere about the grounding plate on tele bridge pickups, but not overly hammered. If you pop a test meter between the metal base plate and the ground wire of the pickup you should have continuity. By extension, you should have continuity between the base plate and the backs of the pots ant the rest of the earth circuit. There's a small bridging wire between the baseplate and the ground wire of the pickup. You may need to warm the brass plate to lift it clear of the back of the coil to get at this. If you feel the need to make yellow ground instead of black, you should swap the plate jumper wire to the yellow terminal instead.

 

[Digger73]

I encountered this precise problem when I installed a new Fender CuNiFe neck pickup in my Tele Custom. Wazzou nailed the problem in this Dec 12 post when he indicated that he did not want to clip the bridge base to pickup ground connection. Merely switching the wires is part of the step, but you end up with a ground loop if you don’t clip that ground wire to the base. I clipped mine. It can be re-established later if needed, but after switching the hot and ground in the control cavity, I used the factory solder dollop on the bridge plate and soldered a piece of 22 gauge wire to it, ran it into the control cavity soldering in to the collection of grounds on the volume pot if I remember correctly. Out of phase disappeared. Later I spoke with Fralin pickups when I ordered a Blues Special for the bridge and it was indicated that this is encountered frequently with Fender pickups. They may be assembled at different factories and actually the polarity has been reversed at the same factory. I watched a Fralin clip on tone controls and learned that a .022 cap works well on a Fender Tele Bridge pickup. I changed to that from a .047 yesterday. My guitar has 250k pots and this made a huge difference. Useable tones across the pot sweep and the tone is thicker, just a great change. I find piano, bell, and “woman” tones and yet when full open has the whole enchilada back.

Including the Custom, I have 3 guitars with WRHBs. One is an original Fender Thinline with the original CuNiFe pickups that I purchased new in 1972. I don’t know where that 50 years went? It shows smudges on the neck, been refretted, and still plays well. I also have a guitar I purchased about ten years ago a Fender American Vintage ‘72 Thinline-a reissue with that came with the 2nd generation of the non-CuNiFe WRHBs. It has 250k volume and a 1 meg tone stock. I replaced those pickups with Mojotone “72 Clone” several years ago and they use FeCrCo in the pole pickups gaussed to the Fender specs. I have 500k pots in this per Mojotone and a .022 cap.These are constructed without bar magnets of course, and the pole magnets sound like a proper WRHB. They have played on lots and lots of sets and they sound right.

The new CuNiFe I placed in the Custom was worth the upgrade. I could no longer get along with the brash and harsh Fender bridge pickup and replaced it with a Fralin Blues Special…I have other Tele’s with Fender pickups that I like just fine.

 

[badscrew_projects]

Well, I have a problem. My local classifieds has someone selling this roadworn Fender...
Do I have money available? No. What a shame.

 

[redhouse_ca]

Thanks for your comments. I guess my pickups are out of phase, because that is exactly what is happening in the middle position. How do I fix that? Does it mean my neck pickup was built upside down? If I rotate it the other way, it will say Fender upside down.

Sorry if someone asked this already, I may have missed in in the thread, but Is the taper on both pots the same? And I'm not just wondering about the type of taper (linear, logirythmic, or somewhere in between - like CTS's "guitar" taper)? Are the pots from the same manufacture)?

Can I confirm that I'm tracking the current issue, is it that the gain levels are not absolutely aligned on the two knobs (ie, one is louder at, say 9pm than the other)? Again, sorry if not tracking, just want to make sure I understand the issues well enough to knows if I have a suggestion or not.

 

[redhouse_ca]

These two pickups are made so these two are putting out signals out of phase if used in the same guitar. They weren't designed to work together as a set, but in two different sets with their corresponding counterpart, that's all.

It IS POSSIBLE to rewire the pickups so they work in phase one to another

I agree it should certainly not be a problem to wire in phase, but I don't know anything about those pups or pups designed to be out or phase so I'm curious to learn, how do they do that? Is it just a matter of changing the wire colors, or is the wind different (which I guess would mean the same thing as changing the wire colors, but I don't understand). How are the made out of phase to a regular pickup?