3 pickup Les Paul 6 way switch, one position sounds “thin?”

paulnb57

Wired up my 3 pickup Les Paul refurb yesterday (there will be a full reveal later) I used a Freeway prewired 6way switch…

With the switch in the forward position its normal 2 pickup LP all good
In the rear position it gives Neck and Middle together / Middle / Middle and Bridge together

Neck and Middle together is quite thin and trebly, which surprised me, anyone any idea why that might be?

I did wonder if one pickup might be out of phase, but the other 5 selections are fine

3 Humbuckers, all 2 core wire

I can live with it and its a “different” sound, but I just wondered why it is so?

Cheers!

ICBM

That’s odd - if neck+bridge and middle+bridge sound normal, then neither neck or middle can be out of phase. To be absolutely sure, do you have a multimeter? You can check pickup polarity by which way the pickup resistance changes when you touch the poles with something steel.

Personally I would wire the middle volume control normally too, there’s no need to have it ‘independent’ when you can turn the middle pickup off with the switch (which is the reason for doing it that way with a standard switch).

paulnb57

ICBM said:

That’s odd - if neck+bridge and middle+bridge sound normal, then neither neck or middle can be out of phase. To be absolutely sure, do you have a multimeter? You can check pickup polarity by which way the pickup resistance changes when you touch the poles with something steel.

Personally I would wire the middle volume control normally too, there’s no need to have it ‘independent’ when you can turn the middle pickup off with the switch (which is the reason for doing it that way with a standard switch).

Thanks!
How would I change the middle pickup wiring to “normal?”

ICBM

paulnb57 said:

How would I change the middle pickup wiring to “normal?”

Swap the pickup and switch wires on the volume pot.

paulnb57

ICBM said:

paulnb57 said:

How would I change the middle pickup wiring to “normal?”

Swap the pickup and switch wires on the volume pot.

Thank you!

paulnb57

paulnb57 said:

ICBM said:

paulnb57 said:

How would I change the middle pickup wiring to “normal?”

Swap the pickup and switch wires on the volume pot.

Thank you!

Did the middle pot swap around and it has to have a bit of middle volume to have any output, cant remember if that was on which switch selections now (!) so reverted back to how it was…l
Interestingly the “thin” sound when neck and middle together is selected, if I roll off the volume, just a little on either pickup, the “thinness” goes away and the 2 pickups sound how I would expect….so any easy fix really just roll one pot off a touch and all is well….still clueless as to why it does it?

Pots are CTS 500k

ICBM

paulnb57 said:

Did the middle pot swap around and it has to have a bit of middle volume to have any output, cant remember if that was on which switch selections now (!) so reverted back to how it was…l

Interestingly the “thin” sound when neck and middle together is selected, if I roll off the volume, just a little on either pickup, the “thinness” goes away and the 2 pickups sound how I would expect….so any easy fix really just roll one pot off a touch and all is well….still clueless as to why it does it?

That means the switch is not fully disconnecting the middle pickup even when it's supposed to.

The 'independent' wiring is certainly necessary when you're adding a middle pickup to the stock Les Paul wiring exactly for that reason, but shouldn't be if you can do it with a switch.

Do you have a schematic for the Freeway? I'm wondering if it's doing some of the switching by lifting the ground to the pickup not the hot - that could allow signal to leak through and produce a sort of out-of-phase effect. That would also possibly explain the result of backing off the volumes slightly.

paulnb57

ICBM said:

paulnb57 said:

Did the middle pot swap around and it has to have a bit of middle volume to have any output, cant remember if that was on which switch selections now (!) so reverted back to how it was…l

Interestingly the “thin” sound when neck and middle together is selected, if I roll off the volume, just a little on either pickup, the “thinness” goes away and the 2 pickups sound how I would expect….so any easy fix really just roll one pot off a touch and all is well….still clueless as to why it does it?

That means the switch is not fully disconnecting the middle pickup even when it's supposed to.

The 'independent' wiring is certainly necessary when you're adding a middle pickup to the stock Les Paul wiring exactly for that reason, but shouldn't be if you can do it with a switch.

Do you have a schematic for the Freeway? I'm wondering if it's doing some of the switching by lifting the ground to the pickup not the hot - that could allow signal to leak through and produce a sort of out-of-phase effect. That would also possibly explain the result of backing off the volumes slightly.

The prewired switch appears slightly different to all the others, there is no switch schematic schematic, only what I shared above, I guess Ill just have to put up with it

paulnb57

@ICBM I found this Im guessing the way the switch works is the same for the basic and pre wired, the prewired appears to have different method of soldering the wires to the switch

Dave_Mc

You could try emailing Freeway- any time I contacted them they were really helpful indeed. They should be able to tell you what @ICBM wants to know about how the switch works.

paulnb57

Dave_Mc said:

You could try emailing Freeway- any time I contacted them they were really helpful indeed. They should be able to tell you what @ICBM wants to know about how the switch works.

Cheers Dave, Ill give it a go (although I emailed them a week ago asking if I could get a Gold switch securing nut and have had no reply…)

Dave_Mc

paulnb57 said:

Dave_Mc said:

You could try emailing Freeway- any time I contacted them they were really helpful indeed. They should be able to tell you what @ICBM wants to know about how the switch works.

Cheers Dave, Ill give it a go (although I emailed them a week ago asking if I could get a Gold switch securing nut and have had no reply…)

Ah sorry to hear that, I probably should've said that I hadn't needed to contact them for a while! It's probably a couple of years since I have.

paulnb57

Dave_Mc said:

paulnb57 said:

Dave_Mc said:

You could try emailing Freeway- any time I contacted them they were really helpful indeed. They should be able to tell you what @ICBM wants to know about how the switch works.

Cheers Dave, Ill give it a go (although I emailed them a week ago asking if I could get a Gold switch securing nut and have had no reply…)

Ah sorry to hear that, I probably should've said that I hadn't needed to contact them for a while! It's probably a couple of years since I have.

Ive messaged and asked for their thoughts…..and a new nut…..
2 chances!

Dave_Mc

paulnb57 said:

Dave_Mc said:

paulnb57 said:

Dave_Mc said:

You could try emailing Freeway- any time I contacted them they were really helpful indeed. They should be able to tell you what @ICBM wants to know about how the switch works.

Cheers Dave, Ill give it a go (although I emailed them a week ago asking if I could get a Gold switch securing nut and have had no reply…)

Ah sorry to hear that, I probably should've said that I hadn't needed to contact them for a while! It's probably a couple of years since I have.

Ive messaged and asked for their thoughts…..and a new nut…..
2 chances!

Good luck! 

paulnb57

Jack Shit on the tellybox last night, so I pulled all three pickups out, checked the switch wiring etc and replaced them all from the parts stash, what a faff!
Result? Exactly the same issue, so I guess its not the pickups….chances are there will be nothing worth watching tonight so yet more faff, putting the gold ones back…..