guitarflyer54 Posted May 23, 2009 Report Share Posted May 23, 2009 Hi, I have an Ibanez S470 with 2 Dimarzio D' Activator Necks and a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro in the middle. The middle PU hums in the 2,3,& 4 positions. I checked both coils with a meter and they are OK. Then I pulled the PU to check connections and no problems. I noticed a ground lug screwed to the body inside the middle PU cavity so I taped it and also the bottom of the PU. No change. Could this ground lug be causing some line interference or something? I'm thinking about moving the ground lug but I'm not sure that is the problem and don't know where to relocate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted May 23, 2009 Report Share Posted May 23, 2009 (edited) Hi, I have an Ibanez S470 with 2 Dimarzio D' Activator Necks and a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro in the middle. The middle PU hums in the 2,3,& 4 positions. I checked both coils with a meter and they are OK. Then I pulled the PU to check connections and no problems. I noticed a ground lug screwed to the body inside the middle PU cavity so I taped it and also the bottom of the PU. No change. Could this ground lug be causing some line interference or something? I'm thinking about moving the ground lug but I'm not sure that is the problem and don't know where to relocate it. It sounds like it's not wired properly/conventionally. I believe that you should have a split humbucker at positions 2 & 4 and single coil in position 3, which is where you would expect to hear some amount of hum. That's how my S470FM is wired, anyway. Edited May 23, 2009 by Paul Marossy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitarflyer54 Posted May 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 Hi, I have an Ibanez S470 with 2 Dimarzio D' Activator Necks and a Virtual Vintage 54 Pro in the middle. The middle PU hums in the 2,3,& 4 positions. I checked both coils with a meter and they are OK. Then I pulled the PU to check connections and no problems. I noticed a ground lug screwed to the body inside the middle PU cavity so I taped it and also the bottom of the PU. No change. Could this ground lug be causing some line interference or something? I'm thinking about moving the ground lug but I'm not sure that is the problem and don't know where to relocate it. It sounds like it's not wired properly/conventionally. I believe that you should have a split humbucker at positions 2 & 4 and single coil in position 3, which is where you would expect to hear some amount of hum. That's how my S470FM is wired, anyway. Hi Paul, The Dimarzio Virtual Vintage 54 Pro is a stack HB/noiseless PU so there should be very minimal/no hum at all. I have a Strat with the same pickups(3 VV54Ps)and it is quiet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 (edited) Hi Paul, The Dimarzio Virtual Vintage 54 Pro is a stack HB/noiseless PU so there should be very minimal/no hum at all. I have a Strat with the same pickups(3 VV54Ps)and it is quiet. Ah, so that would be unusual to have a hum then, wouldn't it? I guess I should have looked at the topic title a little closer. OK, so how many wires does it have then? If it's more than two, maybe it's not connected properly for use in your Ibanez. On the Fender "Hot Noiseless" pickups I put in one of my guitars there is only two wires, so if they are out of phase, you just reverse the wires. But I didn't have a problem with hum at all. Is it a brand new pickup? Maybe it is faulty or something. Edited May 24, 2009 by Paul Marossy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psw Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 Perhaps what is happening is that the middle pickup is quiet (how does it sound with the middle only if that is a selection?)...but the selector is splitting the HB's. Likely it was set up to be HB'ing with one of the HB's split and the middle pickup (like a strat in 2 and 4 position)...now that you have got a noiseless (which is also an HB) you will have lost that effect when split and the others may be making noise if that makes sense. Otherwise, if your VV SC has 4 conductor wiring, you may have connected it wrong so it is only operating on one coil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted May 24, 2009 Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 Perhaps what is happening is that the middle pickup is quiet (how does it sound with the middle only if that is a selection?)...but the selector is splitting the HB's. Likely it was set up to be HB'ing with one of the HB's split and the middle pickup (like a strat in 2 and 4 position)...now that you have got a noiseless (which is also an HB) you will have lost that effect when split and the others may be making noise if that makes sense. Otherwise, if your VV SC has 4 conductor wiring, you may have connected it wrong so it is only operating on one coil. Yeah, what Pete says makes sense. But then why would it hum in position 3? It shouldn't be doing that if this were the case. Weird... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitarflyer54 Posted May 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2009 (edited) This is the drawing I used. I checked each connection against the drawing before proceeding to the next one. Edited May 24, 2009 by guitarflyer54 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 (edited) Did you install them per this document? http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/virtual_vintage2.pdf How many wires does your pickup have? And how did you connect them to your pickup switch? It appears to me from looking at this diagram, http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/virtual_vintage2.pdf , that you have a red, green, white, black and bare wire. Did you wire it per this wiring diagram? All I can think of is that you must have somehow defeated the humbucking feature of the pickup because it shouldn't be humming. Edited May 25, 2009 by Paul Marossy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitarflyer54 Posted May 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 Did you install them per this document? http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/virtual_vintage2.pdf How many wires does your pickup have? And how did you connect them to your pickup switch? Dimarzio Virtual Vintage & Area PUs have no bare wire, just the 4 colored wires. Looking at the drawing in my previous post, RED to the + side, jumpered on terminals 2,3&4 on the switch. BLACK & WHITE to the - side, GREEN to star ground(back of volume pot). It appears to me from looking at this diagram, http://www.dimarzio.com//media/diagrams/virtual_vintage2.pdf , that you have a red, green, white, black and bare wire. Did you wire it per this wiring diagram? Yes I did. All I can think of is that you must have somehow defeated the humbucking feature of the pickup because it shouldn't be humming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Marossy Posted May 25, 2009 Report Share Posted May 25, 2009 (edited) Hmm... not sure why it would be humming then. Maybe when installed in an Ibanez those wires need to be switched around? I put a DiMarzio FRED in one of my Ibanez guitars once and I had to try a lot of different things before it worked as it should - without being out of phase and wired like a humbucker. I took it out of that guitar, though, so I can't look at how I wired it. EDIT: I found a wiring diagram that I made for my Ibanez a long time ago. It's not exactly how it ended up being wired, but from my notes on it it at least tells me that when I connected it per DiMarzio's instructions, it was not a true humbucker. When I first wired it, it was actually two pickups wired in parallel. I had to wire it differently than the DiMarzio instructions. I'm pretty sure that the black & white wires where not connected together when I finally got it working as it should work. Edited May 25, 2009 by Paul Marossy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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