Humbucker not bucking hum

[gball]

The Vintage Bass pickup in my SE245 has suddenly started to pick up wicked mains hum. As bad as a single coil. Sounds great, has just started humming, and the bridge pickup remains as quiet as ever (It's a Tremonti).

Any ideas? Should I just pop her open and see if something came loose?

 

[justmund]

As a test can you tap on each of the coil polepieces (call it north/south) with something metal? You should get an audible pop through the amp when you touch both sets of polepieces. Don't forget to turn the amp down first!

 

[gball]

Tried that. The slug coil is noticeably quieter than the screw coil. Not sure if this is because is has less winds, which could also account for the noise.

 

[justmund]

Nah you can't really tell much from that test apart from which coil is active (not grounded).

I've never seen inside a SE245 but I would assume the pickups didn't have a tap wire? If they did I would be thinking that wire is shorted to ground somewhere but if it doesn't, it might be a dead pickup...

 

[gball]

Nah you can't really tell much from that test apart from which coil is active (not grounded).

I've never seen inside a SE245 but I would assume the pickups didn't have a tap wire? If they did I would be thinking that wire is shorted to ground somewhere but if it doesn't, it might be a dead pickup...

They're US-made Vintage Bass and Tremonti Treble pickups that I installed without coil splits so for the Vintage, since its a 3-conductor, both hot leads are soldered to the volume pot lead together. Grounding does not seem to be a problem. If it is something inside the pickup is there an easy (or hard) way to check?

Maybe the thing was humming from day 1 and i never noticed.

 

[John Beef]

They're US-made Vintage Bass and Tremonti Treble pickups that I installed without coil splits so for the Vintage, since its a 3-conductor, both hot leads are soldered to the volume pot lead together. Grounding does not seem to be a problem. If it is something inside the pickup is there an easy (or hard) way to check?

Maybe the thing was humming from day 1 and i never noticed.

PRS pickup wiring can be funky. However, there will never be two hots. I am fairly sure that with a VB pickup, the white is hot, the red is the split wire, and black is ground. If you have soldered both the red and the white to the volume pot, de-solder the red wire (leave the white attached) and tape it off and it should work correctly.

 

[gball]

PRS pickup wiring can be funky. However, there will never be two hots. I am fairly sure that with a VB pickup, the white is hot, the red is the split wire, and black is ground. If you have soldered both the red and the white to the volume pot, de-solder the red wire (leave the white attached) and tape it off and it should work correctly.

So it seems I am running it in coil tapped mode at the moment then? I guess I am a genius for not noticing it sooner (I installed these pickups months ago).

Will disconnect the red and let you know what happens. Thanks man

 

[gball]

That was it JB. Working perfectly and sounds fantastic. Really lows my mind that I not only installed it wrong, but it took me months to figure it out. I wasn't playing that guitar every dY but I should have noticed it was operating as a single coil! I'm losing it.

 

[justmund]

My bad for not reading your OP better! Don't worry too much about the wiring thing, sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees! I also drove myself nuts once trying to work out 4 conductor PRS pickups, on 3 conductor the white wire is the tap but on 4 conductor it's the hot. Uhh what?

 

[gball]

Thanks all. I guess I've installed so many other brands of pickup over the years that it never occurred to me that there would be any other way!

It's a testament to how good the Vintage Bass sounds though: It was better sounding in single-coil mode than the Korean 245 pickup it replaced. Now, as a full humbucker, it sounds ridiculous.

 

[John Beef]

Right on, glad I could help!!
:beer: