Hi folks, I am currently re-wiring a very lovely Kramer 650G for a friend. I managed to source a wiring diagram from the Kramer forums. However, I'm a bit confused by the wiring diagram posted there for a few
reasons. Before I go ahead and solder everything in place I want to
ensure everything is correct and I understand WHY it's correct. Here's
the wiring diagram from the forums.
What's confusing me is 3 way selector wires running to the outer lug of
the VOL pot and the pickup hot wire to middle lug on the VOL pots. All
wiring I've done in the past has the pickup hot to the outer lug and
output to pickup toggle on the middle lug (output). They appear switched
around in this diagram. Can I ask why? Is it because of the 1nf cap
bridging the two?
Secondly, the 22nf cap runs from different lugs for each VOL pot, again,
should this be consistent? One is run from middle lug, the outer from
an outer lug. Again, is this correct? And can someone explain the
reasoning for it not being consistent?
Just want to use this as a learning exercise to gain more understanding
as opposed to blindly following wiring diagrams. Thanks in advance. I've seen some photos of the wiring on this model and the above diagram seems to check out bar the slight discrepancy on the 22nf tone cap not being middle lug on both pots.
Standards Seymour Duncan 2 humbucker wiring for comparison, which is part of the reason for me double checking! Any input from more learned people appreciated!
Comments
Reversing the wiring as they've done gives "independent" volume controls - ie you can turn one right down without the other being muted in the middle switch position - but why would you want to do that? If you want to turn one pickup off, that's what the switch is for...
The reverse volume pot wiring also makes the treble loss as you turn the volume controls down far worse without the 1nF treble-pass cap, but then stops the treble-pass working correctly - it makes the result quite shrill instead - it's really a bad scheme all round.
The 22nF caps can be connected to either the pickup terminals ("modern" wiring) which works better with the treble-pass cap, or to the middle terminals ("50s" wiring) which can work better without the treble-pass cap. If you want to use the treble-pass caps, connect them to the pickup terminals.
I would also use a much smaller value than 1nF for the treble-pass caps - that will be unnaturally bright as you turn the volumes down instead of simply retaining treble. I would use 220pF or 180pF.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
For what it’s worth, Rickenbackers are wired this way round too, it’s one of the bugbears with them and I think one of the main reasons most Rick players don’t use the controls much!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
This was certainly true of the Seymour Duncan on-line wiring diagrams section after the website redesign approximately ten years ago. SD Inc. contracted a outside firm to "modernize" their Support section. Unfortunately, the results were frustrating for all. Navigation became an endless round of selection menus. If this process found you a diagram, the odds were fifty fifty that there would be a howling error in it.
The SD forum was awash with newbie questions along the lines of, "I wired up my pickups EXACTLY in accordance with the on-line diagram but it doesn't work. Please help."
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein