That's a fascinating piicture, thank you. My guess was a replacement jack miswired but that seems not to be the case. If you're lucky Grace might see it and know straightaway as she's been building the Stickups for decades and quitle possibly made that one.

There was a post recently. I think from Rob Martino, where he was having more than crosstalk problems and it turned out to be debris in the jeck socket bridging contacts -- can't find it now but it stuck in my mind.

Regards

AxS

I didn't think to take a picture when I opened up my Stickup, but there was a thread here with a look at the inside, you could compare your wiring to see if it's been modified - perhaps someone tried to make it mono?

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3680

Looking at the two pictures it's clear your (David's) jack is wired differently. Is it definitely a stereo jack?

AxS

I'm not sure what you are saying.
My 1978 #404 plays just as good as my new railboard.
In fact, I prefer the vintage stick for it's tone.

Yes it's a stereo jack, and the correct bits line up (I fitted a plug while I had the case open, to check).

It's not easy to compare directly but I think the main difference are:

a) On mine each pickup has a separate 'white wire' connection to the relevant pot. On the other there's just one white wire to each pot (I think maybe each pair of pickups are in series?). That change could just be a design refinement? A search suggests that the 'other' might well be from a 1996 Stick (#1030), so 10 years later than mine. If the 'before' image already has a post-production modification on the white then it's been done very neatly, & the same applies to my white wiring.

b) Mine has that odd joining of 4 black wires. It's hard to see the black wires in the other, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing like that join.

I'm interested by the comment "I also wired the ring to the other pole of the switch so that when in mono mode, the ring is connected to ground. If this is not done then the ring "floats" in mono mode and if you're connected to two amps then the melody amp will hum"

That interests me because since I first plugged in I've noticed a hum on one of the stereo channels.

So, I'm wondering if someone has tried to 'hardwire' a mono mode?

I think we need a view from someone with a better understanding of pickup wiring in general, and hopefully Stick pickup wiring in particular?

David,

Connections are poorly visible in your photo. It seems to me that you have 3 red wires connected to the ground of the jack. If this is in this case then it is wrong. Only 2 red wires should be connected to ground (those from the extreme leg of potentiometer, where the white wires are also connected). One red wire connected to the middle leg of one potentiometer should go to jack socket ring and middle red wire from second pot should go on tip.

Hi mahabresq,
Thanks for detailing the routing of those red wires. That's very useful.

I'll be double checking of course, but to the best of my recall that's not the case.

I think the arrangement is that the 'third' of those wires actually goes to a different connection that happens to be 'behind' the ground connection in my photo.

When I open up again I'll try to get a better view. I may also try either teasing out some of the wires to show routing better or try to diagram the routing (maybe both).


That sort of detail is particularly useful. Thanks again.

I checked how my 12 string Stickup is wired. Here's a picture with some hopefully helpful drawing added.

There are two pairs of white leads, one for each pickup, connecting the coils on each side of the magnet, and then black wires go from the other two terminals on the pickups to pin 1 and 3 on the pots.

The only interconnection between the two pickups are through the ground from pins 3 on both pots, that goes to the ground pin on the jack (two red wires).

The middle terminal on each pot goes to tip and ring of the jack, respectively.

To add a little confusion, maybe the colours black/white have been changed; this pickup is from a 1998 instrument.

David, the more I look at your picture, the more it seems clear that your bass and melody sides are connected together through those 4 black wires ending in a common point - the blue tape.

That has to be why your volume knobs interact in the strange way they do.

The white and black are interchanged between your pickup and mine, but apart from that, I think the only difference is that my whites are in two separate pairs.

I believe the fix for you is to separate those black wires, so that the black leads from each pickup are connected, but not connected between the separate sides.

Hi AndersGoran,
Very useful image thank you.

I've been highly suspicious of that right from the moment I saw it. It's a very neat job (the blue is 'heat shrink' tube, rather than tape).

The two pairs of joined wires (white/cream in your case) look much more sensible.


I'm very inclined to agree. I hope to have the pickup open again this afternoon for further investigation...