Treble bleed mod did not work

[PoPo75]

Hello all,

I have a Washburn Idol WI-66. It came stock with real Seymour Duncan's, ’59 reissue and a Custom(not Duncan designed) pickups and also what Washburn calls VCC. Which is kind of like a rotary coil tap using the "tone" pot as the tap instead of a switch. Much like Seymour Duncan spin-a split.

Spin-a-split here: Wiring Diagram

When I first played it I noticed when the volume was turned down it sounded like the tone control was also turned down. Which was weird considering the tone controls were not tone controls. Anyway, I decided to remove the VCC and install the Seymour Duncan Spin-s-split and also put in the treble bleed mod.

Unfortunately the problem is still there. I have never had this problem before. I've swapped out many pick ups in my life and this is a first. I do, however, have little experience with Seymour Duncan's. I do have a Pearly Gates that sounds amazing. Same wiring set up with no issues. Throughout my life I've used primarily DiMarzio pickups.

My question is is this problem common with Seymour Duncan pickups? Aside from the numeric value is there a certain type of capacitor or resistor that should be used for the treble bleed mod? I used ones I bought at radio shack. Could it be the pots? I'm using all 500k pots.

What is sad is at this point my $29 Dragonfire pickups sound 10 times better than the Seymour Duncan's in this Washburn.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[David Schwab]

Probably the wrong pickups for that guitar.

How did you wire the Duncans?

Also what did you mean the treble bleed mod didn't work? Didn't work how?

[Mark Hammer]

Are the VCC and Spin-a-split simply a resurrection of the (now patent expired) Peavey T-60 tone control? That control pans between single coil, both coils (middle setting) and both coils with treble cut.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t29257/

[PoPo75]

OK. Looking back at Seymour Duncan's treble bleed mod diagram I think I used the wrong Cap. Seymour calls for a .002 cap. The one I used has the marking "473" on it. Which I think means .047 uF. If I'm wrong please let me know. I'm going to head to the radio shack and pick up the right stuff today.

[Mark Hammer]

Yep, 473 is 47 and 3 zeroes, which is 47,000pf, commonly referred to as 47 nanofarads or .047uf. If you are using that to bypass the volume pot, then a greast deal of your guitar signal will treat the volume pot as largely non-existent. A much smaller value (like 2200pf) will target that bypass on the top end only.

[PoPo75]

Thanks!! I will report back when I change it out. Also, the spin-a-split kind of acts like a volume control for whatever coil of the humbucker you want to control. I have it to turn "off" the inner coil of the pickup. Seems to work pretty well. The VCC was some type of variation on that but it didn't actually turn off either of the coils so I don't know what it really did. The VCC used a tone pot that had six poles stacked 3 on top and three on the bottom. I like the way the one coil being completely off sounds better.

[PoPo75]

Got back from radio shack. Stupid question here:

In seymours treble bleed mod it shows a .002 cap. I could only find a .001. I'm going to give it a shot.

[Mark Hammer]

.001 can work. If memory serves, Rat Shack sells caps in packs of two, right?

If you don't get much benefit from .001, a pair of those in parallel will get you the equivalent of .002.

[PoPo75]

Got it!!! Total 100% difference. Lesson learned. Double check the values of the components before installing them.

New question regarding the spin-a-split. Just out of curiosity. When the old tone control is at "0" I am still getting some output at the "dead" coil.

Anyone have any idea of why this would happen?

Here is the diagram for the spin-a-split:

Wiring Diagram

I did however change it up a bit to get the inner coil to be the one that was adjustable. I did red=hot, green/black to the spin-a-split and white and bare to ground.

Thanks for all your replies!!

[g1]

When the old tone control is at "0" I am still getting some output at the "dead" coil.

Anyone have any idea of why this would happen?

Possibly the pot is not quite 0 ohms when it is turned down to full off position. Short the 2 used terminals on the "old tone" pot together and see if it makes a difference. If that kills the output of the "dead coil", then the pot is the problem, maybe cleaning it would help.

[David Schwab]

OK. Looking back at Seymour Duncan's treble bleed mod diagram I think I used the wrong Cap. Seymour calls for a .002 cap. The one I used has the marking "473" on it. Which I think means .047 uF. If I'm wrong please let me know. I'm going to head to the radio shack and pick up the right stuff today.

That's why it didn't work. If you use a larger value cap it will pass mids and bass along with treble.