Members theDogger Posted January 22, 2015 Members Share Posted January 22, 2015 Ok bought a 2001 Ibanez RG with a floyd rose. This is my first floyd and want to see if I would enjoy it. Guitar itself is in great shape, pickups are OEM Ibanez. So when playing it sounds like shit to say the least. I have to turn my bass all the way down. Its fuzzy and undefined. Tone knob does nothing and volume is scratchy and sometimes when turned kills all sound. So needless to say it need to be cleaned or replaced. So opened up the back and here is what I found. I an no expert in pickups but I have installed a few in the past and looking at the this setup it would be hard to believe that this was factory. It is a true birds nest, wires are so tight and soldering to the vol pot is nasty Pots are 500k. I am going to pull them this weekend and see if I can't clean the wiring up. Will this schematic work? The setup is 2-HB and 1-Single in the middle My question is why is there no cap on the vol pot and only on the tone? What effect would this have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted January 22, 2015 Members Share Posted January 22, 2015 If that's the actual cavity you posted I'd say that looks quite normal and actually quite good considering its a 5 way switch in there. I have no idea what you mean by birds nest and having some additional leftover wire from the pickups is actually a good thing especially if you ever transplant the pickups. I actually just pit a set of NF's in my buddies Destroyer a few weeks ago and it sounds great for the metal stuff he does. I have to question what you have the guitar plugged into that makes you think that sound as awful as you say they do. Sometimes it requires making all different tweaks to your settings you normally use. I always have to switch my setting switching from say a single coil guitar to a Humbucker to optimize the sound. The NF's are decent enough stock pickups if you have a good amp and pedal setup. I mean they aren't Duncan's but far from being garbage. As a note when you clean the pots use a lubricating contact cleaner. Also pack a paper towel around them to catch any dripping. If you flood the pots while they're in the guitar, it can leak out the shaft and damage the finish. Second note. This guitar has a bleeder cap that makes the pickups retain brightness like a fender when you turn the volumes down. If you want a more traditional Gibson type darkening to the tone when you turn down, try clipping one leg on the bleeder cap on the volume control. When I did my buddies guitar he has two volumes and a three way switch. Having two volumes lets you dial up the blend of the pups for a much wider tonal range. You may want to dump the tone all together and go with two volumes. Maybe a master and single pup volume or a single pup and a dual seeing this is a three pup guitar. Third note, If you're going in there to pull stuff out, draw yourself a wiring diagram first. Those Ibanez pups have opposite color coding for the two humbuckers. I found that out when I wired them in. I would up having coil taps instead of full HB's running. I can say it did sound pretty awful running it that was an I was scratching my head wondering why the pups sound so bad. If the wiring in that schematic isn't exactly for that model guitar, don't use it. Ibanez has had several manufacturers for their pickups and none of the color coding is the same between them so you cant trust a diagram for a model with different pickups. That cavity diagram seems to be missing the third coil tap wires so I really don't know what I'm looking at there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theDogger Posted January 22, 2015 Author Members Share Posted January 22, 2015 Thanks for the response....now a few things. The wiring diagram came from Ibanez site for the 270DX. Now what I mean by birds nest is that all the leads that are soldered to the vol pot are all twisted within each other and are so tight you can barley get the vol out of the cavity. The Vol pot has no Cap, but the tone pot does..I am plugging into two different amps and cabs with the same results. My two other guitars..one has EMG actives and Seymour Duncans passives. I plug those in and there is not much change and only small tweaks are needed to the Mesa SIngle rec or the BlackStar HT-5 Metal. I plug the Ibanez 270DX in and it sounds like Crap and even with the bass backed off all the way it is still way to heavy and almost like a fuzz pedal is in front of it on the distortion channel. Again I don't know much about pickup wiring....the vol pot has a small wire soldered from the 3rd leg on the pot to the back of the pot. There is not Cap on the Vol pot I am almost 100% sure that something is not right with the pickup/pot wiring, Any thoughts? Should I put a cap on the Vol pot? Not having the cap ont eh vol pot...how would that effect the sound? Why doesn't the tone pot do anything? Oh ya I also gets tons of feedback form this guitar plugged into all the amps where my other guitars are basically quite. I'll pull the pots out tonight and take pics of them for a closer look. theDogger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted January 22, 2015 Members Share Posted January 22, 2015 Those pickups are hot wound and designed fro metal heads who like having allot of drive. I'm not a big fan of hot wound pickups myself and prefer a vintage wind. I use electronics to give me all the drive I need but Its hard or impossible to remove too much drive. I did use the INF 3&4 on my buddy's guitar. If you're using the INF 1&2 and an S1 in the middle it may be a whole different animal. Pickup height may be a big factor too. I'd set them all to at least 3mm and see what that does. I was able to get the INF 3&4 to sound clean turning down the volume from 10 to 8. The tone cap, just shorts between the hot lead and the ground via the pot. If your diagram you posted is correct, that's an oddball wiring scheme for a tone control. Its more like an Eric Clapton "Woman tone" TBX circuit except it requires getting the volume and tone set right to have an effect. If you have the volume pot missing that might explain why its not working quite right. What I'd try this. The wire that comes from the center leg of the currently goes to the outside leg of the volume pot. Move it to the center leg of the volume pot and it will add tone at any volume. Currently it only cuts the tone with the volume turned up and without the bleeder cap the tone rolls off when you turn the volume down keeping the tone bright. As far as the outside pot legs being soldered to the cans, that's normal. Its the shortest route to ground and you want the cans grounded to kill hum. As far as short leads, well, components aren't normally removed with the leads still connected. The exposed hot leads are supposed to be as short as possible, again to minimize hum. All those wires going to the 5 way are all exposed to hum so keeping those as short as possible and leaving the shielding wrapped around the cores right up to the connection while still allowing a soldering iron to get in there is the goal. How well that worked out manufacturing guitars by unskilled workers is questionable. I bought a Plexi glass flying V several years ago. When I plugged it in it hummed badly with practically no output. I opened the cavity and found, no joke, about 10 feet of unshielded wire wrapped up inside the cavity. You'd think they were building a crystal radio. The pickups were even worse. They used loosely wound paper bobbins inside the pickups. I laughed out loud when I pulled those out. I put some decent pickups in there and its a great player. The neck and body were fine. Had to replace the nut. The bone they used was rotten and cracked. Guess that sums up what they might be eating. If the pickups are crap, just get different ones. It may be harder to find the ones that match the instrument best especially with a single in there. I have a set of passive EMG's in my Steinberger with an H-S-H config wired with a 5 way. They are very inexpensive new and you don't have to worry about changing batteries like you do with their powered ones. You can go to the Seymour site and see what they recommend too. Then you can shop around for the best price. I also redid the frets on my buddys other Ibanez that has the H-S-H pups and Floyd. Cant remember what model it was. I think it had an SG type cutaway. I'm not a huge fan of Ibanez gear so I don't pay too much attention to them. They sound very generic to me in comparison to other instruments. I dislike Floyds too. Just too dam bulky and too much metal there robbing the tone and making the strings sound sterile. The locking nits always wound up stripping out on me and the tuning peg gears would get wobbly and strip out on me. I know how to make a standard Fender type trem float and remain in pitch so I don't need all that hardware. If its you're first, then go for it. They work relatively well when they are new. When they get worn, thay wind up being a nightmare keeping in tune. Steinberger has then beat by leaps and bounds using the double ball system. Its the only guitar I can play an entire set without tuning and if I sit down then come back to a month later and its still in tune. Absolutely amazing. Strings are more expensive however. They do sell a locking nut to use regular strings but anything that pinches metal like that is going to slip, especially if you bend strings the way I do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theDogger Posted January 23, 2015 Author Members Share Posted January 23, 2015 Found the .022uf cap leg to be loose on the leg of the pot. Fixed it. But still why does the tone not work? Bad Pot? Volume pot has no cap WHY? SHould I add a .002uf cap? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted January 23, 2015 Members Share Posted January 23, 2015 Treble bleed cap on the volume is purely optional. No one can tell you if you need it or not, they can only tell you what it does and you are the one who will have to just try it and see if its something you like or not. The decision often depends on the pickups you use. A bleeder is a band pass cap that works opposite of a tone cap which is a band cut/block filter. The bleeder is in series with the signal and the treble leaks through while the bass gets turned down by the volume pot. Without a bleeder there is no leakage and all frequencies get attenuated evenly. Depending on the pickups and amp settings, an even attenuation without a bleeder cap can sound dark to the ears so people put a bleeder cap in to keep that bright tone. You would need to use a .001uf cap for a bleeder on the volume pot. A .022uf is 2000% too high for a bleeder and is used for treble roll off, treble blocker tone control. Humbucker guitars rarely use a bleeder cap. It does weird things to the sound few prefer because HB's don't produce that quacky clean fender tone single coils do. Your guitar may be an exception because it does have one single coil. Most prefer the tone to darken when you turn the volume down like most Gibsons do to get a jazz type tone turned down. This all depends on the pickup type as well. You mentioned you got feedback when you cranked it up. A bleeder cap would likely aggravate that issue but its cheap enough to try and undo if its not your cup of tea. For the tone control, if you see little or no tone changes, you have an open circuit, or .022 may not be enough for your tastes. If you want more treble roll off you can use a .047 and it should roll off just about all treble turned down on any amp. Again this is all up to you and what you need to match the gear you use. A solid state guitar amp is likely to be much brighter sounding. A small combo may lack bass. Using a higher value tone cap can be used to tune your tones to match your amp and remove some edginess for a more tube like tone. In most of my builds I never use tone caps with the exception of a couple of fenders where I want to darken the tone when I have new strings. I have no use for tone controls. When I pick up a guitar I want it to sound different then the others, and not mask its tone to sound the same. If its a little bright I simply reach over and tweak the amps treble and bass a little, select a drive pedal on my board, or punch up a presets built specifically for that instrument using a programmable effects unit. I have several Rack and pedal units that have a programmable EQ I can contour for recording or live to get the best tones for that guitar. Saves me from having to reset a half dozen or more floor pedals each time I change guitars. Also, If you have high gain pups and want to gain them down you may want to try using 300 or 250K pots. It should reduce the gain enough to match something more vintage. On the other hand if you have weaker pickups that don't drive well, using 1Meg should let all of the signal pass without loading and give you maximum output. If the pups are microphonic and give you feedback like a microphone, you may want to pot the pickups with beeswax. If I cant get what I need from any of those items, then I'd think about modding the pups which will definitely cost more then the dollar or two it takes to buy a couple of caps. Just some things to try. There are many ways of skinning a cat and by trying them you learn what you can and cant get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members theDogger Posted January 23, 2015 Author Members Share Posted January 23, 2015 This is great info..thanks! My other guitars have EMG actives, some of the guitars are tuned down to drop B and they sound great through the Mesa, Bugera and Blackstar, I run a few pedals, Boss NS-2, BBE Sonic Stomp and Ibanez TS-9.(These are in front of the amp) in the loop I run a MXR 10-Band EQ, MXR Delay and Chorus. I bought this Ibanez to see if I would like the Floyd and if I would have any use for it. I realize that the 270DX was not a expensive guitar but I am bent on making this thing work and sound good. I am currently looking at some GFS pickup to put in it...either the http://www.guitarfetish.com/Crunchy-...ebra_c_49.html or the http://www.guitarfetish.com/Crunchy-...ebra_c_49.html. I want to use this guitar for more old rock and blues. Basically just going swap all pickup parts and pickups and start fresh. CTS pots, new caps and input jack.thanks again theDogger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted January 23, 2015 Members Share Posted January 23, 2015 This is great info..thanks! I am currently looking at some GFS pickup to put in it...either the http://www.guitarfetish.com/Crunchy-...ebra_c_49.html or the http://www.guitarfetish.com/Crunchy-...ebra_c_49.html. I want to use this guitar for more old rock and blues. Basically just going swap all pickup parts and pickups and start fresh. CTS pots, new caps and input jack. thanks again theDogger Man, with 14K ohms on those you're right back where you are now with pickups that wont give you any clean tones. GFS sells Artec pickups mostly and I haven't found any of their hot wound that sound good. The problem is they use the same magnets. Companies like Dimarzio and Seymour know how to balance coil winds VS magnet strength to get a good tone and strong output. Artec makes some good vintage winds, but they use the same magnet strength in their hot winds. This winds up making the pickups sound horribly midrangy and muted, no top end at all. I have three sets, no, actually 6 sets of their hot wounds in my parts cab. 3 sets of full sized HB's and three sets of Minis. If you're going to buy from them I'd stick with a vintage wind. At least you'll have the normal frequency response. If you're on a budget, you can find Semour Designed Duncans on EBay all over the place for $25 each. http://www.ebay.com/bhp/duncan-designed You can buy a pair of EMG passive pups here for 45. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Steinberger-...-/281565720300 I just don't think the Artec hot wounds are a step up from what you already have. I'll tell you what is a great pickup for the price are these. I'd buy this one myself in 2 second, but I don't have a guitar to put it in at the moment and I've already over spent this month on things I needed. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mighty-Mite-...item2a477317ec They shouldn't be mistaken with their Motherbuckers or any of their other hot wound pickups. I only see these come up like once a year or so. Very hard to find. I have two of these in two different guitars and they produce a classic tone that's hard to find. I tried a set of their hot wound and pulled them back out a day later. Total crap tone and nothing but distortion. The creams were popular back in the 80's and are hard to find now for some reason, MM doesn't sell direct to the public but they do make some great stuff. I love their tuners too. 18:1 ration smooth as silk. Better then any Grovers, Shallers I have for quality. I do allot of building and buy allot of parts so I've tried many of the standard items being sold. I usually seek out the biggest bang for the buck and spend the money where its needed most. You can get burned badly if you go too cheap on pickups though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ewizard Posted February 12, 2015 Members Share Posted February 12, 2015 Wiring in a .022 cap to the volume pot will increase your issue. I have not heard those pickups ( the ones in your guitar ) but I would find it hard to believe that it sounds that bassy and muddy? If you want to clean the tone up for testing purposes simply remove the tone circuit all together. This will ensure that there is no bleed to ground and reduces reference to ground further brightening things up. The bad volume pot may be half the battle? Try replacing it with a new one. The treble bleed that WRGKMC mentions is an optional circuit. It's not standard on most guitars. There is typically never any caps directly connected to the volume pot. Doing so turns it into a tone control. Now the treble bleed circuit that you can add to the volume pot will help retain highs when you roll the volume pot down, but it comes with some down sides. Unless you have a special pot that breaks connection when turned fully off, there will always be a small amount of signal even with the pot all the way down. Also the ratio is difficult to get just so. The combination of the treble bleed circuit and the volume pot can mean that you could have too much highs getting past when you finally get the level low enough to clean up the way you want? I myself do not like treble bleed circuits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted February 12, 2015 Members Share Posted February 12, 2015 Unless you have a special pot that breaks connection when turned fully off' date=' there will always be a small amount of signal even with the pot all the way down. [/quote'] With the volume turned off, the hot and ground are shorted, so there shouldn't be any bleed or any signal. With the volume turned up 100% there is no bleed either. To balance the bleed you would use a resistor in parallel to the cap. You shouldn't have to mess with the pots taper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ewizard Posted February 23, 2015 Members Share Posted February 23, 2015 Perhaps I had a weird pot or two? I tried it once and with the volume all the way down I was still having signal passed. Took the mod out and it was fine. This was also done in a multi volume guitar, so that may have also been it? I do know that it will mess with the pots taper as you get closer to 0. So if you run close to zero you may want to balance it with the extra resistor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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