Length of the Pickup's Hookup Wire (Lead)

[GuitarAttack Forum]

I do a lot of pickup repair, and I actually prefer the interactions with people concerning repairs over building new pickups to put in stores.  People are usually very happy when I repair their pickups and it works like new.

One trend I want to address is the desire for many to snip/cut the hookup wire (aka lead) of the pickup to the absolute minimum length before soldering into the guitar. This is regularly seen with both single and humbucker pickups.

The challenge is if they ever want to put the pickup in another guitar, or sell the pickup, this modification tends to cause a lot of problems.

While you have me to replace the lead with a brand new one and make the pickup as good as new, it can be expensive particularly if there is a cover soldered to the pickup's base or it is an old single coil with brittle magnet wire on the coil.

Safety Tip - if you have the room in the guitar to keep the hookup wire at or close the stock length, I recommend keeping it that way.

In my opinion and experience, clipping that inch or two (centimeter or two) from the end of the hookup wire does absolutely nothing to the tone or power of the pickup.

However, you may have a different experience. Let me know what you think.

John

[dnic]

Thanks for this John. I think I have been guilty of this in the past. Less likely to cut it back very much any more. I think one reason people cut it as short as possible is because of noise. But it's shielded wire so shouldn't be a problem.

[GuitarAttack Forum]

Dane -- Think about this: In a 1959 Les Paul Standard, the current goes from the pickup to the volume pot. From there it goes to the switch on the upper bout of the guitar. From the switch it goes all the way back to the output jack.

The current from the pickup travels a long way to get the output jack. I think that extra few inches of pickup lead is probably worth saving.

Concur with the noise; that is worth considering.

John

[antares]

John I think the confusion derives partly from marketing hype; "Average", "Mean", "Peak" "PMPO", "RMS" and nowadays I see they are using something like "lufs" (which I imagine is about as useful as "nits" is for illumination.)

PMPO is the other side of the same coin that sees pocket 'phone chargers being advertised at anything up to 100,000 mAh (and occasionally more) which is abject stupidity. The problem reached its zenith when computers were sold without soundcards and you had to purchase a multi-media upgrade. This was a CD drive, sound card and loudspeakers. Some wag decided to grade them as PMPO and the industry embraced it with glee, gaily selling tin pot plastic desktop loudspeakers as being (eg) 1,200 watts Peak Music Power Output.

If everyone was to use RMS (itself a confusion because technically it is "Square Mean Root" as opposed to "Root Mean Square") then there would exist an almost level playing field and folks could compare apples with apples.

I wrote "partly" above because there would still remain the issue regarding the varying loudspeaker and audio output transformer efficiencies, not to mention relative enclosure volumes, but on a numbers level at least, we could actually compare quoted RMS values.

Bill Lawrence was very wise. You can go to pretty much any online forum and encounter folks trading blows over pickup winding resistances along the lines of might is right.

[Deleted]

Depending on the guitar that I am building, I will most time leave the full length of the hook-up wire. This can be done easily when you are dealing with a chambered body or a semi hallow body. By pushing the wire out of the way.

 In some of the small chambers I make, it is better to cut to size. So I don't use up a lot of space.

 The problem I have had in the past is when someone would bring me a guitar and want me to fix their pickups or make them work so that they can be used, after they or someone had cut the lead wires off at the pickup. What the heck? Why do people do that? I have fixed a lot of pickups with short, short leads.

 One thing I like to do in my builds now is to put a 3way LP switch in the same cavity as the volume and tone controls. For me again it works out easier.

I do not like to run wire from the upper wing though the channels down to the control cavity. Just seems to a lot of wasted wire.

 But if I have to run wire in a long distance. I end up twisting my wires together from the switch on through the body. I have even used shrink tubing on wires to hold them all together. Makes for a nice clean installation. I have gotten into the mood of seeing how clean I can make it all look!

[Deleted]

Been talking to a friend of mine that has a guitar that for some reason developed a lot of noise.

 One of the things I have found that may cause this is that the ground wire that goes to the bridge has lost contact. A lot of guitars that I have worked on in the past, I found that for what ever reason the wire and the metal get corrosion between them. It will need to be cleaned off. The bridge and the wire.

 Another thing I have found that the ground wire will in bed itself into the wood a pull away from the bridge.

 So here is what I do to help fix it.

 Clean the bridge.

 Clean the wire and add some solder to the wire. Sometimes I make a little ball of solder on the wire.

 I use copper shielding tape, but one can also use aluminum tape. Put that onto the body where the wire and the bridge will touch.

 That should fix it for a long time.

Of course only do this after you have checked every thing else out. Like wires that have gotten disconnected by some reason or another. Like on the output/input jack.

On some guitars I have even found broken wires. The brake is inside the wire casing.  Those will dive you nits to find.

And sometimes I have found wires on the pickups have somehow come off. A lot of times I solder them back on and everything is fine.

 But leads from the pickup being cut too short can be a problem. I have done a lot of guitars in the past from people, that brought me a guitar wanting used pickups installed only to find out that the leads were cut way too short. Or the leads were cut right at the pickup. Don't know exactly why people will cut the wire right at the pickup.

[dnic]

Nov 16, 2023 9:09:26 GMT -6 @stealthguitar said:

Been talking to a friend of mine that has a guitar that for some reason developed a lot of noise.

 One of the things I have found that may cause this is that the ground wire that goes to the bridge has lost contact. A lot of guitars that I have worked on in the past, I found that for what ever reason the wire and the metal get corrosion between them. It will need to be cleaned off. The bridge and the wire.

 Another thing I have found that the ground wire will in bed itself into the wood a pull away from the bridge.

 So here is what I do to help fix it.

 Clean the bridge.

 Clean the wire and add some solder to the wire. Sometimes I make a little ball of solder on the wire.

 I use copper shielding tape, but one can also use aluminum tape. Put that onto the body where the wire and the bridge will touch.

 That should fix it for a long time.

Of course only do this after you have checked every thing else out. Like wires that have gotten disconnected by some reason or another. Like on the output/input jack.

On some guitars I have even found broken wires. The brake is inside the wire casing.  Those will dive you nits to find.

And sometimes I have found wires on the pickups have somehow come off. A lot of times I solder them back on and everything is fine.

 But leads from the pickup being cut too short can be a problem. I have done a lot of guitars in the past from people, that brought me a guitar wanting used pickups installed only to find out that the leads were cut way too short. Or the leads were cut right at the pickup. Don't know exactly why people will cut the wire right at the pickup.

An easy way to check the bridge ground (earth, Steve) is to meter between the bridge and a pot for continuity. That may be what you do but always do that before pulling the bridge off or even opening up the control cavity. Although I do enjoy poking around a control cavity as much as the next guy.

[Deleted]

I do check out things before I take things apart. Most of the time. But after a while I can almost guess where the problem is. One of two places is the most common.

 Input/output jack or bridge. Sometimes both. The biggest one is the output jack. But on Tele type bridges it is commended that the ground wire is not doing its job.

 But there have been times I have gotten a faults reading. When is that? When there is a break in the wire. I have been driven nuts by wire with a brake. I put the meter on, and it checks out fine. Take the meter off, the problem is still there.

 So what to do then? I have I wire I made up that I can clip onto the bridge and then clip the other end somewhere else in the guitar. If the noise goes away, then I know it's at the bridge. That is of course after I check the input/output jack.

 I cannot count how many guitars I have fixed with wires that have come loose from a jack that has been twisting the wires around because the jack nut had come loose.

That kind of thing, one does not need a meter to show ya what is going on.

 So now when I make a guitar or replace a bridge or pickup in a Tele kind of bridge, I do what I explained before. I put the copper tape in, and I add the solder to the wire. I know it may be an overkill, but hey I never have problems with the bridge ground on my guitars. LOL!

[dnic]

You are not wrong sir. I like to tin the bridge ground wire as well.

[antares]

I was tasked with repairing my last boss's son's bass- no audio output. It was immediately obvious that one of the pots was loose and he'd tried to tighten it. And tightened it. And tightened it. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. The lad had a degree in mathematics too.

[dnic]

Nov 18, 2023 2:13:08 GMT -6 antares said:

I was tasked with repairing my last boss's son's bass- no audio output. It was immediately obvious that one of the pots was loose and he'd tried to tighten it. And tightened it. And tightened it. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. The lad had a degree in mathematics too.

So all the wires were twisted off or twisted together and grounded out. Right?

Education and common sense are not mutually exclusive.

[antares]

Education and common sense are not mutually exclusive.

Actually, I'm wrong there- his other son had the degree in maths, I forget what the bass player's degree was. His other son worked in the Commercial Department. They used to get a daily puzzle off the internet and put it up on a white board. The maths son left the room for some reason and while he was gone I cracked the daily puzzle (it was a geometry problem.) I described the (very convoluted) solution to the others and when the maths degree returned they said "Forget it- Steve has figured it out." He was incredulous at first because he had the maths degree and I was something else. You could watch his face change gradually as he realised I was correct. Unlike the bass playing son, he was a real nice guy, but I was treated with respect in that department thereafter. I'd forgotten all about that until this thread prompted the bass repair. Happy days (if you can forget the song and dance that I was led into by the paper-pushing Boeing engineers.)

[Deleted]

[GuitarAttack Forum]

Nov 18, 2023 2:13:08 GMT -6 antares said:

I was tasked with repairing my last boss's son's bass- no audio output. It was immediately obvious that one of the pots was loose and he'd tried to tighten it. And tightened it. And tightened it. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum. The lad had a degree in mathematics too.

I've seen this a lot. Keeps "guitar techs" in business!

John