Hum with the volume lowered (newly installed pickups and wiring)

imalrightjack

@ICBM - again, seem to have that sorted.  Although still getting a bit of intermittency/crackling on the bridge pot.  The terminal actually seems a tad wobbly and there's a lot of solder gather at its base - which appears to be against plastic

Is it correct that if either pickup is rolled all the way back that the middle switch will not work?  I.e. it relies on at least some signal from both pickups?  Not that you'd ever want to do it, just wondering how it works.

ICBM

imalrightjack said:

@ICBM - again, seem to have that sorted.  Although still getting a bit of intermittency/crackling on the bridge pot.

Sounds like it needs some contact cleaner in it. Heating it too many times may have disturbed some of the grease and got it on the track.

imalrightjack said:

Is it correct that if either pickup is rolled all the way back that the middle switch will not work?  I.e. it relies on at least some signal from both pickups?

Yes - although what's happening is that the pot which is turned right down is grounding the output - and hence also the other one, when the switch is in the middle. This is why it doesn't hum - with the 'independent' wiring, the output is left floating and acts as an aerial.

imalrightjack said:

Not that you'd ever want to do it

That's why I don't understand the point of the 'independent' wiring either. There's no need to ever do it, because if you want to turn one pickup off, the switch does that.

The other problem is that it muddies the tone as you turn the volume down because it progressively lowers the effective pot resistance - eg with a 500K Log pot, if the volume is set to 5 the effective pot resistance is between 50K-150K depending on the exact taper… very muddy.

The only time it's necessary is on a Rickenbacker with the stereo wiring, where the 'normal' wiring would leave one output as an open circuit when the switch was open, which would cause even worse noise problems. But Rickenbackers are just weird . For everything else, use Gibson wiring.

imalrightjack

Thanks, @ICBM.  All working fine now  

Now to find out if this Kemper is really as shite as I first thought...

mike_l

The Kemper isn't shite.

Having seen Queensryche last tour, where both Parker and Michael used them, they sound fantastic.

imalrightjack

mike_l said:

The Kemper isn't shite.

Having seen Queensryche last tour, where both Parker and Michael used them, they sound fantastic.

My patience is shite. But having another go today

mike_l

Go slow and get one right before starting on the next one.

imalrightjack

mike_l said:

Go slow and get one right before starting on the next one.

Good advice.  Plus, plenty of coffee.  All sorted and sounding great!

mike_l

Excellent.