DiMarzio Forum
DimarzioForum.Com => The Pickup Place => Topic started by: Hairmail on May 19, 2016, 12:40:46 PM
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I recently installed a chopper and an old dimarzio/hamer humbucker into my kramer pacer.
The bridge unit sounds great but whenever I switch on the neck unit there's a very noticeable drop in both output and sustain and the pickup sounds very nasal. Basically what I'm getting is nothing like the descriptions of the pickup I'm reading in the forums and the website. The pickups are wired to a single 500k volume pot.
I have this niggling feeling that its either wired in parallel or maybe out of phase but I think something may be wrong with the wiring. I've also noted that the pickup is super close to the strings though I don't think that should change anything.
Any help is appreciated.
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First, back the pickup off at least a nickel's width away from the strings. Is it a 3-position switch? If so, does it sound weak in the middle position? If so, it is probably out of phase. If it also sounds thin in the neck position, something is wired wrong. Even wired in parallel, the Chopper shouldn't sound really thin and nasal. Is it grounded correctly? What value volume and tone pots are you using?
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First, back the pickup off at least a nickel's width away from the strings. Is it a 3-position switch? If so, does it sound weak in the middle position? If so, it is probably out of phase. If it also sounds thin in the neck position, something is wired wrong. Even wired in parallel, the Chopper shouldn't sound really thin and nasal. Is it grounded correctly? What value volume and tone pots are you using?
Agree 100%
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So its definitely not that its out of phase. I'm pretty sure the wiring is right as well after checking again.
The guitar uses 2 on/off switches for the pickups and when both are on in parallel it sounds fine. I have a feeling it might just be an output mismatch the more I play around with it. The bridge unit comes in at around 10.4k and I wasn't really expecting the chopper to be as low output and single-coil-y as I thought it would.
The only other thing I can think of is the pickup being too close to the strings(the chopper is a fair bit taller than the standard singles that were originally on it) but I'd have trouble with that cause the singlecoils on this thing are direct mounted.
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Take a look at my measurements here : http://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/7127/ngd-chopper-strats-neck-position
Chopper with vol to 10 should be about 9 Kohm in series. In parallel I guess near 2.25 Kohm.
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The Chopper is not low output so if a Chopper in the neck position cannot keep up with a 10k humbucker in the bridge, something is wrong. I would take a multimeter and double check the pickup and the wiring.
One question: do you get more hum when only the Chopper is engaged (compared to the humbucker)? If so, that would also be an indication of something wrong.
Good luck,
Stephan