Grateful Dead Music Forum

I have a Carvin DC400W that I want routed for a Super II in the middle position. It has a 25" scale like a PRS. I know Jerry split the middle pickup north on a 25.5" scale. Would the shorter scale necessitate the middle pickup being active on the bridge side when split?

As I understand you need to figure out where the harmonics are in relation to the pickup placement. I'd guess if going from 25.5 to 24.5 you'd go South. That smaller movement would be interesting.

It's an alder and walnut body guitar with a maple thru-neck. It's a bit on the dark side as it is. The only thing I have to judge it by right now are the stock, Carvin neck and bridge pickups. The bridge sounds pretty good split. The neck, in my opinion, is way too dark sounding. Abolutely no low end cut.

Granted, the Super II is probably a brighter pickup in general. But, given the above observations, I'm tempted to have it split toward the bridge.
But, then again, Jerry split north. Is walnut and a half of an inch of scale enough to compensate for?

I'm not a do-it-yourself kind of guy. I need to tell the luthier what to do. Hence my inquiry to those here who may know best.

What if you tried it one way and didn't like it, just rotated the pickup?

ace

[quote="mkaufman"]What if you tried it one way and didn't like it, just rotated the pickup?

ace[/quote


Hmmm.....If there are 3 humbuckers, there would be no phase issues? Am I correct?
I apologize in advance. I am not very astute with DIY guitar electronics work.
I'd rather get it right from the start.

Physical rotating the pickup changes nothing electronically. It only changes the position of the active coil when the humbucker is split.

So, it will sound different. Also, if you pair it it with another pickup (ie: position 2 or 4), the pairing will sound different. Maybe not significantly different...

ace

Gotcha. Do you have an opinion on which way I should try first?

I installed a middle pickup on a PRS Santana. If I remember correctly it was an even shorter scale than the standard PRS 25" scale. I ended up moving all the pickups to get them closer to Jerry specs. Because this was a 22 fret guitar I moved the neck pickup closer to the bridge to compensate. Waldo has posted some measurements of how far the pickups on Tiger are from the nut. I used these measurements but adjusted them proportionally to the shorter scale length and mounted the pickups accordingly. If you don't move all the pickups, you could try this approach to see which coil to activate.

Waldo's measurement says the length between the nut and center of the middle pickup on Jerry's guitar is 22.25".
Mine would be 21.625".
A difference of .625".

There is slightly less than .75" between the centers of the two coils of a Super 2.

So, that would mean splitting toward the bridge would be closer.

Am I thinking this through properly?

From my experience, in your situation splitting so the bridge side is active would likely work best. But every instrument has its variables beyond simple measurements. I'd try it that way and see how it sounds. It's easy enough to reverse if you don't like it.

You can use a on/on/on mini toggle for north or south or humbucker instead of a on/on so you have the choice of which coil is active. A couple of member here have done this.

I have not done it this way and do not remember how to wire it this way, but if you do some research, I'm sure you can find out.

Maybe someone here who has done it that way has a diagram to share.

hippieguy1954 wrote:You can use a on/on/on mini toggle for north or south or humbucker instead of a on/on so you have the choice of which coil is active. A couple of member here have done this.

I have not done it this way and do not remember how to wire it this way, but if you do some research, I'm sure you can find out.

Maybe someone here who has done it that way has a diagram to share.

That's what I did with my PRS Custom 24 (on/on/on = Neck/Hum/Bridge). I mainly stick with the bridge side tap for the Jerry tone; there's some subtle differences using the neck side tap that are cool for a slightly different tone.

Thanks for the replies. I dropped the guitar off this afternoon. I decided to go with the bridge side split. I wanted to utilize the existing "phase" switch as the middle pickup splitter. It's just a single on/off. I'm having the weird Carvin active electronics pulled out while we're at it. All that stuff seems to do is pick up radio signals. I always played that guitar in passive mode.

I spent the afternoon playing the new guitar with an ensemble. In this case, splitting the middle pickup toward the bridge was the right choice. Good advice. Thanks.


Barry

Great. Good choice. Glad it's sounding good for you. Now you can add the Fender 5-way pup selector and the Wald TPC-1