Humbucker Installation

[AR999]

I actually went back and did the wiring myself when I put in the 500k pots, I'm out of town, so I'll have to wait to double check if I wired the blue or red to the hot, I honestly don't remember. the guitar sounds great as is, I did leave the .47 in for now, because I currently like the way it sounds, as far as out of phase, I'm a little different than 99% of Rick players, I treat them more like a Gibson, I love the way 330s and 360s look, but I Dislike single coil pickups, so the more the guitar has a tight crunchy tone the better. I've been playing for almost 30 years now and I have never used the neck pickup on any of my guitars, not even the middle position , so unless I sell the guitar it wouldn't even matter to me if the neck pickup was even wired. So with that in mind, if I did in fact solder the red and blue wires incorrectly, would it make any difference in tone if I am using the bridge pickup, does it even make a difference if I like the sound, because phase wouldn't be an issue correct?

[aceonbass]

If you only run the bridge pickup all the time, then it will sound fine, but you'll never know what you're missing if you don't wire it correctly and try other pickup combos. So your tech didn't use the right pots AND wired it wrong..

[AR999]

Well, I was going to wire it myself, but as a gift my wife thought it would be nice for me not to have to do it myself as I have very limited room to work at home. Mistake! Anyway, I can switch the red and blue wires after the holidays, no problem, so I might as well, but I'm still giving the .47 a week or so before a put in the .22 ( I have plenty orange drops in my tool box) right now it sounds more like an ES-335, a little "meatier" tone than what most Rick guys are used to, now honestly I should have just done the project myself from the start. As far as missing anything, I'll probably never use a pickup configuration that incorporates a pickup that generates 60 cycle hum, I play through a 100 watt Marshall( and like no noise when I'm not playing) , so humbuckers are a must. All my other guitars are Gibsons, and I turn the neck volume all the way down and use the pickup selector as more of a kill switch on about half of them, when I need a change of volume or tone, I'm good with the pickup volume knob. If it weren't for the HB-1, I probably wouldn't be using a Rick again, but I will switch the wires when I get home just for the sake of it being technically correct. Don't get me wrong, I love Rickenackers and my guitar, I just like all my guitars a certain way, hey, there's nothing stock about Lemmy's bass!

[Badanovski]

there's nothing stock about Lemmy's bass!

Hey the headstock shape is still stock!!!!

[AR999]

^^^^^

[aceonbass]

When an HB1 is combined with single coil pickup, it will eliminate the single coil pickups hum.

[AR999]

I will definitely take your advice and make sure the blue/red wires are correctly wired, because even if I don't utilize the options, it would be dumb not to have them at my disposal for a five minute wiring job. So thanks for the information! It will be put to good use.

[AR999]

I know this thread is almost a month old, but I have a question about installation of the HB-1 in my 360... In my 330 I reconfigured the controls into a Les Paul configuration, so that the humbucker I installed in the bridge wired directly to the bridge volume pot and the switch, but with my 360, I'm not moving all the wiring around, because the bridge pickup is soldered to the bass volume pot, does it need to be changed to a 500K along with the treble pot as I am doing for the humbucker?, or does the signal just use the back of that pot as a contact point? I hope this makes sense....

To summarize, do I need to swap out the bass volume pot, or just the treble pots for use with the humbucker?

I already wired the replacement pickups in, a toaster in the neck and the HB-1 at the bridge, but I finally got a couple 500K CTS pots for the humbucker, so I'm ready to make the swap, I just want to make it as simple and clean as possible.

Thanks for all your help so far!

Allan

[AR999]

Nevermind, I got it all squared away and now everything is well in Rick world.

[jakeboy]

Strangely enough, Ric 650s come stock with HB1 buckers and 250K pots.....my 650 came alive after I swapped in 500k pots.
It was a DAKOTA and I wish I had it back....

[aceonbass]

Mark.......All the 250K pots I ever over paid for from RIC ($10 each!) actually measured closer to 180K! That's 30% outta spec on the low side, so I'm not surprised your 650 came alive. Woulda sounded even better with a .01-.022 cap in there replacing the stock .047 cap.