Fralin sounds thin--troubleshooting

[lpcarter]

Just won a set of noise canceling fralins on eBay. Jazz. The bridge sounds like its running thru a filter..much quieter. Any ideas? Is the pup bad? Neck sounds great...

[Precisionb87]

It sounds like the two coils of the bridge pickup are wired out of phase. The previous owner possible tampered with them.
Open up both the neck and bridge pickups and inspect them side-by-side. Examine coil directions of both pickups, as well as the wiring between the coils of each. They should be identical. Hope that helps.
-P

[lpcarter]

Thank you. I'll post back on this as soon as i can

[Bobster]

lpcarter,

Do you mean humbucking when you say noise canceling?

The easiest way to test for a phase issue is to reverse the leads on one of the two pickups. You will know instantly if that resolved it.

Does the bridge pickup act the same when solo'd? If so, it's not likely a phase issue. You will REALLY notice phase issues when both pickups are run full up and the tone is maxxed.

Bob

[lpcarter]

It's a split coil jazz pup. Neck and bridge are wired the same way, it's only the bridge that's giving me problems. Here's a pic of the bridge pup.

[lpcarter]

Ok so the pics may be hard to see. The wires match-- where the ground is, crossover etc. doesn't appear to be tampered with. Then my pots are the same, black to ground, white to hot

[lpcarter]

a buddy suggested that possibly it's a bad cap. the tone still functions, but possibly it's messing with the first pot?

[eloann]

Try wiring the pickup directly to the output jack. If it sounds good there's something wrong in the electronics, if not it's in the pickup.

[Bobster]

you can do that or reverse the pickups to see if the problem stays in the same position or moves.

[lpcarter]

Pup sounds the same straight into jack. Next i should try reversing the poles? Black and white wires?

[lpcarter]

And by that I mean on pup. I tried reversing white and black on the pot, no change

[lpcarter]

Ok so I tried switching everything on the pup itself. No change. The tone knob acts as volume to the pup, but as tone to the neck. Wiring IS correct. Any clues? I may have to send me back, mega bummer.

[Bobster]

Based on your last updates, it sounds like there is something wrong with that pickup.

I would return it.

Bob

[lpcarter]

If anyone is happening to search this topic--Bob was right. The pickup ended having a broken magnetic wire. I sent it back to Lindy, he simply unwound the pickup a few hundred rotations (negligible) and boom! All was well.

[SGD Lutherie]

A broken coil usually ends up sounding thing and scratchy. The reason you still get sound is the windings are capacitively coupled, so in affect, you are playing though a small value cap, which removes the low frequencies.

A split coil can't be out-of-phase with itself because none of the strings pass over both coils.