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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Stack pu has gone honky

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1/2/1998 3:16 PM

Stack pu has gone honky

Hey,

I have a tele that I replaced the stock pus with a set of the stacked SD tele pus. It sounded great for the last 8 months but now the bridge pu has gotten very honky like it is out of phase with itself or something equally weird. I thought maybe one of the leads had a break in it that was cutting out the bass frequencies but I have cut some of the wire back and resoldered eveything and it still sounds weird. The neck sounds fine so its not in the jack, cable, or amp. I have a friend who put SD in his 3001 rick a few years ago. It sounded fine when I heard it then , but I was playing it last month and the bridge pu seemed to have this same problem. nasally and no low end. Does anyone have any ideas, is this common in SD stack pus. Mine are less than a year old, should they be under warranty.

Thanks for any and all help.

Paul

1/4/1998 11:50 AM
anonymous	I figured out the problem, if anyone else has a similar problem. The top coil in the stacked pu had a broken winding. Somehow the bottom coil still worked. I unwound the tomp coil until i found the break, about 75ft or so and resolderd the lead. It still has about the same resistance as the bottom coil and sounds great again Paul

1/7/1998 3:28 AM

Paul:

    Have you checked out the "Power Linkage" for the SD stacks? It links the two coils together like a regular single coil pickup for a lot hotter output (altho you lose the hum-cancelling effect). The DPDT wiring diagram they include with the pickup DOESN'T mention that the switch will put it out of phase with the other pickup, but I got around that by using a 4PDT (3PDT?) mini-toggle to keep the phasing correct.
    From your second post, I would assume that the hum-cancelling linkage must be parallel (and not series, like a PAF-style humbucker) and the "honky" tone was the sound produced by only one of the two coils (the sound of one coil clapping...?)

    I don't know if you'd object to adding two holes to the control plate for the mini-toggles, but the switches make the SD stack pickups that much more versatile- like the best of both worlds. Hum-cancelling when you need it; hotter output when you don't. (I got the Vintage stack for the bridge pickup so I like the option of a hotter sound by flicking a switch.)

Glad to hear that you found and corrected the problem!

Steve Ahola

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