Replacing noiseless pups in American Ultra JM

[KurtSmile]

So I'd been looking to join the offset club for years and finally took the plunge when the American Ultra finally introduced noiseless pickups to the jazzmaster lineup; I'm pretty OCD about noise and always liked the tone of my old '04 american delux strat. I love the look, bridge/tremolo, switching capabilities, and feel/playability of the new American Ultra and was able to dial in some really nice tones from my little Princeton-esque amp with a few pedals and was digging it until I started playing a 2018 60th anniversary classic JM with stock MIM single coils through the same setup... it's like a completely different instrument; much hotter output, much brighter (borderline ice pick but easy to tame with tone knob), and so much more articulate and clear and punchy. Going back to the Ultra's noiseless pickups now feels like putting a blanket on the amp and playing with old dead strings, even when using an EQ pedal to try and brighten it back up. I barely play it now, so I figure it's time to replace the pickups, and I'm leaning toward the '65 pure vintage (hopefully should sound different enough from the Classic's pups to set it apart).

My question is, will I have to make any changes to the wiring, or can I just solder the new pups' wires exactly where the old noiseless ones were? I'm decent with a soldering iron but have never replaced pickups, and have no idea whether the S1 switching or out-of-phase circuit change things.

I'm heading out to a cabin in the woods this week to do a little jamming/reading/social distancing and can upload a comparison clip if anyone's interested.

[Larry Mal]

I wonder if the American Ultra has the typical 1 Meg capacitor values in there like Jazzmasters typically do.

https://www.lollarguitars.com/blog/2018 ... ster-tone/

Because if they don't, and you wanted to go to the classic Jazzmaster sound, then sure, you would want to replace those along with the pickups.

But then again, if the American Ultra has 500k valued caps, then maybe you would be able to change only the underlying electronics and enjoy the pickups after that. Might brighten it up a little.

I guess the first thing I would want to know is what is in there now.

Here is another article about Jazzmaster electronics that might help you:

https://mmguitarbar.wordpress.com/2017/ ... et-guitar/

[Larry Mal]

Also, I had to refresh myself on the values of the classic Jazzmaster electronics values- I had forgotten what they exactly were:

To complete your electronics upgrade, you'll ideally include vintage-style 22 AWG cloth wire and higher-quality CTS pots, as opposed to the lesser-quality pots and wiring used in budget models. The pot values and taper, as per vintage specifications, should be:

Lead Circuit volume pot: 1 meg linear taper
Lead Circuit tone pot: 1 meg audio taper
Rhythm Circuit volume pot: 1 meg linear taper
Rhythm Circuit tone pot: 50k linear taper
For the switches and jack, Switchcraft products are the de facto standard

For the capacitors, use the value .033 MFD in the Lead Circuit and .022 MFD in the Rhythm Circuit.

My point with mentioning that is like I say, if you go to the vintage style pickups then you'll want to make sure that the rest of your electronics agree in order to get you that sound you liked from the 60th Anniversary model.

Or, you might just want to find out the values of what you have in there, swap that stuff out, and maybe the humbuckers in your American Ultra might come a little closer to the vintage sound. But, bear in mind that it might not, it might sound a lot worse. But it sounds like something you would have to do anyway potentially.

Because they certainly are humbuckers in there, so it's very possible that Fender put in electronics more appropriate to humbuckers than what Jazzmasters usually have.

Then again, they may not have. But unless you just want to do a full gut and rebuild, I would want to find that out first and foremost what is underneath the hood.

[timtam]

We haven't seen an official wiring diagram from Fender for the Ultra yet, but it's wired very differently, with all different components, according to the diagram from tammyw ...
http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... 6#p1591556

So I too would consider pulling the whole harness and doing a new vintage style one yourself, or from a harness vendor, to take the PV65s (you might find a loaded pickguard that has both). The only quandary would be what to do with the extra pot hole in the pickguard or the side jack hole, depending on whether you keep the stock pickguard (a swap may or may not fit perfectly).

[KurtSmile]

Thanks for all the information. Sounds like this might be a bigger mo than I anticipated. I'll take pics when I take it apart if I encounter anything different than that diagram from tammyw. I'll probably start by just changing the pickups and checking the caps; still hoping to preserve the s1 and phase switching.

[KurtSmile]

Full album here:
https://imgur.com/a/9NdpA50


I've got it all disassembled and took a few pics of the guts; I can't tell what the pot/cap values are by looking (sorry, other than soldering together a build-your-own-clone pedal and taking some physics way back in college I'm a total newb to electronics). Based on the schematic from tammyw, I wonder if the master volume's 250k value is responsible for what I perceive as dark/muted tone. Pure Vintage 65s just arrived in the mail, but I'm just now realizing I'll need to get some pickup foam as the little foam strips now glued into the rout behind the humbuckers are much too thin for real single coils. I'm also disappointed at the lack of shielding, and figure I should probably go at it with some copper tape now that I'm about to invite noise with the single coils, right? I'll try and get the new pickups soldered in in tomorrow and compare. If they don't sound any better I might try swapping out the stock pickups from my 60th Anniversary Classic for the Pure Vintage 65s, and then put the icepick-bright Classics in the ultra just to see how it sounds.

For now, I think it looks/sounds kind of nice playing naked acoustic .

[KurtSmile]

Well, I'm bummed. I managed to solder the Pure Vintages in without hurting myself or damaging anything (haven't touched a soldering iron in a decade) but the neck pickup doesn't work, I'm guessing because of something in the S1 circuit. The neck pickup's black wire connects to a lead on the PCB atop the giant master volume/S1 pot and the white connects to the neck tone pot; I tried reversing them but it changed nothing. I swapped the old noiseless one back in and out a couple times just to make sure I wasn't soldering incorrectly, and each time the noiseless pickup worked fine but the pure vintage was just silent. The bridge one works just fine and is plenty noisy without any shielding.

I guess I haven't ruled out that I got a faulty pure vintage neck pickup, but that seems unlikely. When I have some more time I'll try swapping out the pickups in my 60th anniversary classic JM for the noiseless ones; maybe they'll sound better in the traditional circuit. If so, hopefully I can swap the existing master volume pot (which is apparently 250k) for a 1 meg one while still keeping the s1 switching. If not, I'll just say screw it and swap out all the electronics for a traditional circuit. Maybe I should have just gotten an American Original instead of the ultra...

[Larry Mal]

It's almost certainly not a broken pickup, and that wiring would overwhelm me. Maybe take this as an opportunity to really stimulate the overall economy by buying a new wiring harness and having someone put it all in, or at least that's how I'd go about it.

Of course, you can buy what they call a prewired Jazzmaster harness, which means all you have to do is solder in the ground wire and the pickups.

They always cost a lot.

[timtam]

You should try connecting the neck pickup direct to the output jack (or cable). That will tell you two things ... one that it's still working, and two what it sounds like when not loaded by the 250k pots. So you could actually do that with both pickups to get a sense of what they might sound like less loaded, compared to noiseless/250k. The wires are probably not long enough to run them straight out through the output jack hole (esp since further away on the Ultra). Otherwise you could extend those wires ... or see if you can leave a corner of the pickguard unscrewed and run the pickup wires out under the edge. I'm guessing that you don't have alligator clip test leads, but they would be worth getting for this mod journey. A multimeter is also a vital tool - the simplest quick test of the PV65's would be whether their resistance measures around 6.8 kOhms (ie as spec-ed on the back of the box).
https://darrenriley.com/store/fender-pu ... 992239000/

[KurtSmile]

Again, thanks for all the advice, y'all on this board are amazing. I got the soldering iron back out and have determined the Pure Vintage neck pickup is indeed a dud. I can't connect directly to the Ultra's output jack as it has a silly plastic snap connector to the pickgaurd with no exposed metal, but I tried connecting it to my 60th anniversary classic's output jack and tried again a few times in both the bridge and neck position on the Ultra, and it's just dead silent. I tried putting the Pure Vintage bridge pickup in the Ultra's neck position and it works fine, so fortunately there's nothing weird with the S1 switch/circuitry that makes it incompatible with single coils.

For now, I swapped the Ultra's bridge pickup out for the Pure Vintage and left the noiseless neck pickup in place. I'm an 80% neck, 10% middle, 10% bridge pickup player so this is definitely not the best way for me to compare tone, but the PV does seem to liven it up quite a bit and increased the output/presence, especially compared to the noiseless neck pickup which sounds more muted/dull than ever in comparison (though comparing bridge to neck is obviously limited). When I play my 60th anniv classic though, it still sounds so much brighter and janglier and just more lively and "single coiley" than the ultra even with the Pure Vintage pickup in now. The crazy complicated electronics are overwhelming and I see no way to separate the huge electronics cylinder attached to the 250k volume pot, so I suspect the only way to make this thing sound more vintage-appropriate is to abandon the whole circuit/s1 switching/in-out phase switching and replace with a new harness, but it would have to be totally custom to fit the V-T-T pickgaurd arrangement, and I'm not sure I want to spend hundreds on upgrading a guitar I've fallen out of love with. I think the best next step will be to just swap my beloved 60th anniv classic pickups with the Noiseless pickups to see how both pickup sets change with the other's electronics/hardware. I tried doing that today, but my crappy 25 watt walmart soldering iron doesn't seem to get hot enough do desolder stuff from the Volume pot grounding (I tried everything on this site https://www.tdpri.com/threads/soldering ... gh.879504/ other than getting a higher-wattage iron), so that'll be another project for another day. If the Ultra doesn't sound/feel at least 90% great with the classic's pickups, I think I'm gonna just try to sell or return the Ultra and replace with something much cheaper that's easier to mod and I don't worry about damaging so much. I can always try changing my Classic's pickups out for Kinman Surfmasters if the hum/noise proves too maddening (hoping it will get better with copper tape shielding, just waiting for shipment).

[KurtSmile]

Oh and I also learned something from taking apart the 60th anniv classic even though I totally failed changing pickups due to my wimpy soldering iron: the pickups have cloth wiring. Doubt it has any real effect on tone but the guitar has just risen further in psychological/mojo factor for me. I was under the impression this thing had the same pickups as the MIM classic player series, but the cloth wiring makes me suspect the 60th anniversary model has unique pickups? I love this guitar other than its snapping/buzzing top and bottom saddles, and once I swap the saddles out with Mustang-style ones from an Am Pro bridge I'm trying for on ebay, pretty sure it will be my platonic ideal JM.

[carron]

I suggest you just buy a 1 meg Ohm pot that is compatible with the S1 switching and replace it. Make sure it is linear taper. You can find one with the exact same mini PCB as the stock one and just do the exact same connections.

What is the maximum resistance of that tone potentiometer?. A low value would hugely affect the brightness.