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How challenging is it to change humbuckers? Do I need to seek out a tech, or attempt on my own?
I have an archtop with a single humbucker, probably a KA, that I’d like to change to a CC humbucker.
Thanks!
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07-17-2022 05:23 PM
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Depends on your skill, but not very challenging. You need to be able to solder obviously. A bit trickier in a hollow body if you want to preserve the cable on the pickup you remove, then you need to take the full harness out through the pickup hole, solder, and then put back. If you dont care about the old pickup you can cut the old cable and splice the new pickup cable on the leads that go to tone and volume.
Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
Lack of experience can be compensated with patience for this task
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I couldn’t find decent YouTube videos for archtop humbucker changes. I’m okay with a soldering iron though. Originally Posted by JohanAbrandt
So to release the harness, it’s necessary to remove the volume and tone knobs, and then the nuts that secure them?
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I assume you’re asking about a set pickup, not a floater. Replacing a single humbucker with another of identical standard design, shape, size, screw spacing etc is easy if you have decent mechanical skills and work habits.
You have to be able to solder and unsolder well, because cold or physically weak joints are the commonest cause of output problems. You need to be meticulous in covering or otherwise protecting the instrument and its parts. And you have to be very careful not to lose any of the little pieces, like washers and nuts around the pot shafts, screws and springs for the pickup mounts, etc.
Assuming the above will not pose a problem, your other task is to use locators to help get the parts back in their holes from inside the guitar. I usually tie long strands of heavy dental floss around the shafts, jack, etc and tie the free ends to soft objects like foam or rubber rolls. I usually remove the entire electrical assembly as a unit, do what I need to do, then reinstall it.
DO NOT FORGET about the string ground wire! You’ll need to know exactly where it is connected (usually to the tailpiece through a hole in the side under the mounting flange and to a ground on the jack or the back of one of the pots). The ground wire is often long enough to let you pull the harness out without breaking it, but you should not count on this. Use a mirror or inspection scope to find out exactly what you’re facing. You may have to loosen or remove the tailpiece and remove / replace the wire in the hole.
I’ve never had a CC, but it looks to me like it will require enlargement of the opening in the top at each end, to accommodate the pointed ends. If so, you should probably pay a luthier to do it, especially since there’s no surround on most and you will see the wood every time you look at the guitar.
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Thanks! It’s a standard Pete Biltoft CC Humbucker that’s the same size as a regular humbucker.
it’s got 3 wires, which I presume the red is hot, while the black and silver are ground?
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Check with Biltoft. There is no standard wiring scheme or color code, and I’ve never had one of his pickups. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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Good advice. Pete will be a great help. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
I will be curious to hear your impressions of this p/u. A Biltoft floating CC is going on my Campellone.
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If you have any noise or issues after or during install you can go to the Seymour Duncan forum and ask. It doesn’t matter it’s not a SD pickup.
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Nice. I’ve had the floating model. I truly liked it, which is why I want to sample this humbucker. Originally Posted by Mark M.
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This seems to be a decent intro Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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If you are in the habit of swapping pickups use tiny cable connectors for the wire ends instead of soldering the ends onto the potentiometers. You'd have to solder a pigtail with female connectors to the pots just once- in an embrace of diversity let's just call them projection-receptacle connectors. Male-Female is so heteronormative and exclusionary.
Changing pickups becomes an unplug-plug exercise.
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Just be sure to use good ones and keep them clean. Even a tiny amount of oxidation between the genders will add series capacitance to the junction that will act as a high pass filter. This can audibly reduce bass in the pickup's ouitput signal. It's the same effect you get from the capacitance in cables. Oxidation can also affect the output signal by adding series resistance, but this is usually negligible until it's bad enough to cause a gross reduction in signal level. Originally Posted by Jabberwocky
You also need to be very careful with the fine wires. Bending them a few times can cause weakness and partial fracture the same way that bending a coat hanger back and forth wil break it. Make sure there's a solid mechanical connection between wire and connector. The wire ends and the connectors have to be clean to assure a good solder joint. Use fine clamps or forceps to hold everything steady while soldering and to act as heat sinks proteciting the wires and insulation.
Treat these joints and connectors gently to avoid losing your output from a broken one in the middle of a gig or recording.
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That sounds dangerous. Best to just give that bad boy to me! Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
Thanks! It’s a standard Pete Biltoft CC Humbucker that’s the same size as a regular humbucker.
it’s got 3 wires, which I presume the red is hot, while the black and silver are ground?
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That's the technique I use. Originally Posted by JohanAbrandt
Semi-hollows are the worst, and Heritage is harder than Gibson. There is lots of room with a full archtop.
You'll do fine. The best advice I have is to protect the top during the whole process. As long as you don't do any damage to it, the worst case scenario is that you bundle up everything and take it to your tech.
Guys who do this a lot make tools to seat the pots from the inside and can more easily reinstall the jack. But if you have a few extra minutes and are adventurous, give it a go.
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I’ve decided it requires more experience than I have. Better to pay a tech. It can’t cost that much, can it?
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Depends on where you are. Hollows and semis tend to have a surcharge because it’s a pain. Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
I’m not sure if anybody mentioned this yet but there is a an easier yet improper way to swap swap them. You cut short the wires of the current pickup and solder the new one to the cables of the old pickup. Your old pickup now has short cables but you save money from the installation.
I admit I’ve done it in the past
if you do it, just don’t tell anybody and definitely don’t tell them I told you lol
This video shows that. You don’t need to cut them ultrashort like he does but you get the idea.
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First of all, that only works if the number of wires and their functions are either identical for both or if you know exactly how the existing pickups are wired to the pots, switch(es) and jack so you can properly connect the new one(s). There is no standard for # of wires or their color codes. For example, many humbuckers have 5 conductors - but a Benedetto B only has 3, and one is a coil split. Originally Posted by blille
Second, you now have to solder extension wires to the old one(s) for use in another guitar (or do the same thing to another guitar if using the old as replacement).
Third, if you do this you have to be sure you have a solid mechanical connection between the ends being soldered - do not rely on the solder to hold them together. Use heat shrink insulating tubing to cover each joint. It has to be threaded over the longer wire of each pair to be joined if you twist them in line and over both if you twist the ends together the way you would to use a wire nut. Make sure the heat shrink tubes are well away from the solder joint because the heat of soldering will shrink them tightly around the insulation if they’re too close to the joint.
This is a shoddy way to do the job. It’s not that hard to do it right.
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Rich Severson just cuts the lead when he changes the pickup, he confessed this in one of his videos! Originally Posted by blille
Depends on where you are. Hollows and semis tend to have a surcharge because it’s a pain.
I’m not sure if anybody mentioned this yet but there is a an easier yet improper way to swap swap them. You cut short the wires of the current pickup and solder the new one to the cables of the old pickup. Your old pickup now has short cables but you save money from the installation.
I admit I’ve done it in the past if you do it, just don’t tell anybody and definitely don’t tell them I told you lol
This video shows that. You don’t need to cut them ultrashort like he does but you get the idea.
I have done it the easy way and the hard way. Nowadays I’ll do the hard way only when the pots need to be changed.
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Which leads to the question: sure you don’t need to change the pots?
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I don't know whether the capacitor should be changed or the resistance of the pots. Biltoft may have suggestions.
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I went through 6-7 pickup changes two years ago, noted here somewhere. So I would advise against the whole pull the harness thing, as the first step.
You may find you want to go back to the original pup, it’s far easier to have done a cable splice than a harness redo. Once you’re satisfied then if it helps you sleep at night sure redo the harness. But a proper splice, described above, makes electrons happy.
But the question is, are you taking an approach that is founded in electronics engineering, or driven by cork sniffing. Last I checked corks aren’t conducive.
As to sound, for most of us our ears are ‘well aged’, so we boomers are beyond the ability of truly critical analysis. Sad but true.
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Like I said, not the best way to do it. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
That said, don’t really agree with the wire color concerns. As long as you know what pickup brand you had and what you’re putting in you’re good. Unless you’re dealing with braided shield pickups it’s trivial to “convert” a four conductor pickup into two by soldering the middle ones. You would need to do it anyway if you replaced the whole harness.
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That's all true, but it only applies if the wiring scheme is the same for old and new pickups. The vast majority of amateurs who decide to do things like this themselves haven't a clue about all this. And it's only trivial if you know the correct color coding for both the old and new pickup(s), because the "middle ones" are often different colors in different pickups. Originally Posted by blille
You can't rely on the wiring diagrams that come with new pickups, and you can't rely on what you see on the internet. My Benedetto B7 came with a wiring diagram that showed a 4+ground scheme. The Seymour Duncan web page on Benedetto pickups also showed a 4+ground scheme but with a different color code - and SD makes these pickups. But my brand new one only has black & white wires plus a bare ground, so I called Benedetto. The B pickups were switched from 5 to 3 conductors in 2005! They sent me the Bravo wiring diagram, which correctly shows 3 conductors.
And here's just a sampling of the many currently used humbucker wiring diagrams and color codes:
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My concern with taking the shortcut method is there’s a coil tap on the archtop’s tone knob. Seems more complicated than simply splicing and soldering.
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It’s really still splicing and soldering particularly because you’re not going to be able to split a CC since it’s a single coil even if it’s in a humbucker housing. But I get you may not want to have a dumb non working pull pot functionality Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop
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