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Rank: Newbie
Groups: Member
Joined: 2/6/2009
Posts: 8
Location: Canada
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Hey folks, I bought myself a nice black SAS32ex a couple of months ago, my first ibanez ever!!
plays like butter, it's great. But I'm not super thrilled about the stock pickups. I got a Seymour Duncan Custom 5 Trembucker and a Jazz neck model to put in the axe, but I want to know exactly what kind of wiring was used in this pretty confusing electronics cavity.
I'm no stranger to guitar electronics, in fact I've previously built my own guitar from scratch and it works perfectly, plays amazingly, sounds divine, plus i've operated on my Strat replacing the single coils with Dimarzio humbuckers and it sounds like a mean, raunchy chicago-blues monster
I would like to use the same circuit design that Ibanez used on this sas32ex, seeing as it works quite well. but without knowing the colour codes for the wires, it's anyone's guess as to what's going on especially since:
a) bridge pickup has 5 leads coming from it; Blue going to 3 way switch, red, white and thin black soldered to push/pull section of tone pot, thick black grounded.
b) neck pickup has 5 leads white going to 3 way switch, yellow, orange and blue all going to push/pull section of volume pot, thick black grounded.
5 leads?! I have never even heard of a 5-conductor humbucker!!!
The rest of the circuit is pretty self explanatory, leads going from 3 way switch to volume pot, lead from volume to tone, lead from volume to jack, and the grounds of course.
But I desperately need these colour codes so I can figure out what's going on. I've emailed Ibanez US support several days ago and they have yet to get back to me, and no wiring schematic exists on the website for this 2008 model. The Canadian authorized dealer is in freaking Montreal. I really don't want to have to call them and have to labour over possible misunderstandings on the phone.
This lack of customer or tech support is not boding well for my first Ibanez experience. :(
Can ANYONE help me??
thanks,
-Ryan
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 4,612
Location: United Kingdom
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The bridge and neck pickups are THREE coil pickups (i'm assuming it's a HH configured guitar). Hence the five leads. The two coils visible from the top of the guitar are wired in series humbucking wiring (pretty standard for humbuckers). However, there is a third coil directly below the back coil. Essentially a stacked humbucker (just like those stacked humbuckers that look like single coils that some people replace their single coils with). The two coils, stacked on top of each other, at the back are wired in parallel to give a hum cancelling single coil tone, for those stratty type sounds. It's because people don't understand this that they keep referring to the SAS as having a coil tap. The SAS does NOT have a coil tap. Pulling up on the volume knob (or is it the tone) coil taps nothing, there are always two of the three coils on at all times. This system is called the tru-duo system. Since your not using a replacement pickup with this capability, i'd suggest finding a diagram for a similar setup to the one you want and applying that to the guitar instead. Simply ignore the old wiring of the bridge pickup (don't even bother trying to figure it out). Might want to get rid of that push/pull pot as well.
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Rank: Newbie
Groups: Member
Joined: 2/6/2009
Posts: 8
Location: Canada
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bah, as far as i'm concerned, I just turned my guitar from a decent middle of the line axe to a top notch one (sound wise)
The novelty of having a stacked single coil is kind of wasted on me since I don't really use single coil tones at all, but damn, I love the playability and craftsmanship on this guitar. also the fact that there's no heel whatsoever, just a smoothed out neck joint that looks like a neck-through, makes me pants-happy.
Also, I was kinda conned when I originally bought it...i asked dude at the music store about the pickups, and he was like "uhhh... I think those are the ibanez versions of EMGs" I doubted it since I didn't see a battery cavity anywhere, but I played it through a couple amps and it sounded decent so I got it.
But seriously, the new SD pickups do wonders for my tone.
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 7/18/2008
Posts: 953
Location: Sweden, Vasteras
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the right amp does loads for tone, it's mostly EQ anyways. theoretically, if you had a modeling-amp like a line6 something, you could get good sounds out of a low-end Rg-model.
no sticker on the guitar? usually there's something to indicate that they were true-duo pups.
'08 Ibanez RG2570Z | Vital Gold | stock DiMarzio/IBZ pups
'05 Ibanez RG321MH | Weathered Black | stock INF3/4 pups
'03 Ibanez RG1550M | Black | Stock V7 / S1 / V8
'98 Ibanez RG570 | Red stain on veneer | DiMarzio Breed Neck & Bridge, Strat Single
'96 Ibanez S540FM | Trans Turquoise | Neck: SD TB-2, Mid: Stock QMS1, Bridge: SD TB-15
'95 Ibanez SR885 | 5-string Bass | Black |
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 4,612
Location: United Kingdom
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Personally, i don't need single coil tones either. If i had a tru duo system, i'd rewire the stacked humbucker part to be wired in series, just like the top two (side by side) coils, to give me two variations of a meaty humbucker tone. Whats more, i'd flip the pickup around 180 degrees so that the stacked coils were now sitting further away from the bridge. That way, pulling up the volume pot would give you an even deeper palm muted, serial wired, meaty humbucker tone.
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Rank: Newbie
Groups: Member
Joined: 11/6/2009
Posts: 1
Location: marion oh
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Ouija wrote:Personally, i don't need single coil tones either. If i had a tru duo system, i'd rewire the stacked humbucker part to be wired in series, just like the top two (side by side) coils, to give me two variations of a meaty humbucker tone. Whats more, i'd flip the pickup around 180 degrees so that the stacked coils were now sitting further away from the bridge. That way, pulling up the volume pot would give you an even deeper palm muted, serial wired, meaty humbucker tone. ok i'm with you there but which wires would you swap in order to do that???
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Rank: Advanced Member
Groups: Member
Joined: 8/27/2006
Posts: 4,612
Location: United Kingdom
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Lol. Wouldn't know because i don't have one (never seen the wiring for a tru-duo alas, nor what color is representative of which coil).
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