Middle pickup & 5th knob blues

[harvey49]

Here's one I hope someone can help with.

I've just completed putting in a Ric HB in the bridge position of my guitar, (the other two are Hi Gains) and decided to do the 5th knob mod for the centre pickup, as per the instructions at: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/music/guitars/rickenbacker/

Well the results aren't what were expected and I'll list them below:

1. If you have the pickup selector switch set for the bridge pickup and set the volume and tone to max position, then roll on some volume from the 5th knob you can notice a change in tone. However, when you nearly get to the maximum setting on the 5th knob, the volume output drops and the tone goes rather tinny.

2. When the selector switch is in the centre position, neck and bridge pickup volumes and tones set to the max and roll the centre volume on, you can detect a change in tone, and there's no change when the 5th knob reaches maximum.

3. When the selector switch is in the neck position, neck pickup volume and tone set to the max and roll the centre volume on, you can't detect any change in tone at all, through the full rotation of the 5th knob to it's maximum.

Has anybody used the above reference to do this conversion and got the same outcome? Were there any tweaks you did to eliminate the problem at full setting of 5th knob in 1. and to get some effect from the 5th knob in 3.?

I should add that guitar started it's life as a two pickup version, is it possible some additional wiring is needed?

Any help or suggestions would be greatfully appreciated

[BlueAngel]

1. It sounds like the humbucker is out of phase with the other pickups. I've never wired one together with a High-Gain, but it was so when I wired one with a Toaster. To fix it, you need to swap the hot and ground wires, but not the shield - undo the heatshrink from the end of the cable, separate the signal wire (blue) from the braid, and reconnect it with the braid to ground, the blue to where the red was, and the red to ground. If possible re-heatshrink it to cover the coil split wire.

2. That sounds right, although it will still be thin sounding if the bridge pickup is out of phase with the neck (which it will be, if it's out of phase with the middle) - then adding the middle pickup won't change it.

3. It sounds like you have the output of the 5th knob connected to the bridge pickup circuit, so it's bypassed when you select the neck pickup. On a Standard guitar you can connect it directly to the jack instead so you have the option of all the sounds, but on a Ric-o-Sound model you will have to choose whether to blend it with either the bridge or neck pickups, you can't do both at the same time.

[harvey49]

Thanks a lot for your reply John, and as soon as I finish this I'll have a go at your mods.

I'll report back how it all turned out.

[harvey49]

Well, absolute success, thanks to John!

After swapping the pickup wires around, I tried the guitar out before doing the other mod, and it worked a treat so there was no need to wire the 5th knob pot directly to the jack - that problem was fixed also!

Very pleased now with the result, so many thanks John for taking the time to respond.

I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron but to quote a friend of mine: .... "electronics is all mirrors and swamp gas!" so I was really at a loss as to what to do to rectify the problem.

One very happy Aussie here!!

[hobbit]

what i would like to know is where did you get a HB pickup...
i need one...

[harvey49]

I got mine through a friend. You might try posting in the WTB section - you never know your luck.