Dimarzio Split P-In Squier VM P bass=feedback for days

[splitcoilsenior]

Alright so my friends and myself put in these http://accessories.musiciansfriend.c...ass?sku=302265 in my Squier Vm P bass. Now we had to use some of the old wiring and the same pots that I already had in the bass (stock). We thought it was all set to go put i plugged into an amp and I got massive Feedback!!! What could the problem be

[msiner]

What does your wiring look like, did you follow the instructions or a specific diagram? I think with the Split-P you are supposed to connect the two pickups in parallel, not series like normal P pickups. Also, through the feedback, can you actually get sound from the strings or are you just getting noise?

[splitcoilsenior]

I get feedback when im not playing,but when im touching the strings im fine

[msiner]

Originally Posted by splitcoilsenior

I get feedback when im not playing,but when im touching the strings im fine

That sounds more like a grounding problem. Is it feedback or hum? There is a big difference there. You might not have the pickups properly connected to the jack ground, but possibly did connect them to the bridge ground. I think you should draw out a wiring diagram to debug this problem. If you can post your diagram here, you could probably get some pretty expert opinions to help you out.

[splitcoilsenior]

Well we had to use a diagram off of a semour duncan site, and i dont remember it, and I'm a bit new to some terms of bass like the difference betweeen feedback and hum, but i get like a very cracly noice coming out of it constantly when im not playing or touching a metal part of the bass

[Gintaras]

Originally Posted by msiner

That sounds more like a grounding problem. Is it feedback or hum? There is a big difference there. You might not have the pickups properly connected to the jack ground, but possibly did connect them to the bridge ground. I think you should draw out a wiring diagram to debug this problem. If you can post your diagram here, you could probably get some pretty expert opinions to help you out.

Agree that it sound like a grounding problem. Sounds like one of the ground wires is not connected or a bad solder connection. I have done this twice. Once it was a bad soldering of the ground wire to the pot and the second time was not a good contact to the bridge ground wire.

[Steveaux]

Originally Posted by splitcoilsenior

Well we had to use a diagram off of a semour duncan site, and i dont remember it, and I'm a bit new to some terms of bass like the difference betweeen feedback and hum, but i get like a very cracly noice coming out of it constantly when im not playing or touching a metal part of the bass

Did you use the Duncan color scheme and match the wire colors to those already soldered to the pots? This won't work.

Duncan uses White for Hot, Black for ground. This is a common color sceme.

DiMarzio = "Red is Hot, Green is Ground, Black & White together".

[msiner]

Here are the installation notes for the Split-P:

Basic Wiring:
Solder the BLACK and WHITE wires from the Split P™
together. Cover this solder connection with tape to prevent it from
touching any part of the circuit. Solder the RED wire to the hot
connection in the circuit. This will be the same place in the circuit the
original pickup's hot wire was soldered to. Solder the GREEN wire to
ground. In most cases, this connection is made to the back of a
control.
If the Split P™ is being installed in a 2 pickup bass and the pickups
are out of phase with each other, solder the GREEN wire to hot and
the RED wire to ground.

So I was wrong about the parallel wiring. Does this sound like what you did? The color differences between Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio are important.

[NortyFiner]

Could the fact that the DiMarzio pickup is a hotter and more sensitive pickup have something to do with it?