Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

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Guitarman555
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Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Fri Jan 25, 2019 1:13 am

Hey, a friend of mine got a problem on his all original vintage 63 jag (or end of 62 with a wide C neck), that he bought recently. I had his guitar at home for a while, guitar plays really nice, but in comparison to jazzy or strat is tone even on lead circuit much more on lower frequencees and is surprisilngly very thick and warm.(eg. on princeton at volume 5, I have jazzmaster nearly same high and low. On jag, it is got to be 8 high to 5 - 4 low). I haven´t played a vintage jaguar so no idea if this should be like this. But this is not the case. In general guitar feels great.

But switches setup is different than it shoud be.

1. Circuit upper switch is vice versa - up is lead circuit, down is rythm, which is by the way more practical, because eg. with my Jazzy I usually switch incidentally when playing rythm by right hand to rythm. So this is not the case, but maybe an improvement from some previous owner.
2. Main circuit is really weird:
when all 3 switches (neck, bridge, phase reverse) are down, it still plays.
when I put together bridge+reverse, guitar is silent, so that means that reverse plays only with neck

Do you have any experience with that? Maybe people used to change set up like this for a reason? We don´t have any experience with jags, only with jazzmasters. Thanks!

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:28 am

Any thoughts appreciated, thanks!

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Bradley-Jazz » Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:23 am

<t>Does it sound different with both pickups “off” than with both on? If it sounds thicker, it’s probably had the common series switching mod done to it.<br/>

http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... ies+wiring
<br/>
As for the strangle switch, thats more of a puzzle. Does it change the tone at all? If not maybe it’s been wired as a kill switch?</t>

Mysterious....
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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 10:04 am

Bradley-Jazz wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 5:23 am
<t>Does it sound different with both pickups “off” than with both on? If it sounds thicker, it’s probably had the common series switching mod done to it.<br/>

http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... ies+wiring
<br/>
As for the strangle switch, thats more of a puzzle. Does it change the tone at all? If not maybe it’s been wired as a kill switch?</t>

Mysterious....
When both pickups are off as far as I remember, sound is different, less loud and thin.
With strangle on and neck pickup on, tone gets very thin and quite agressive, and less loud. I believe it could be the awaited middle cut of the strain switch.
Only kill switch combination making guitar silent is when bridge and strangle are both on. Maybe also when all 3 are on(I have to double check this 3combination).

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sat Jan 26, 2019 1:54 pm

I forgot to mention that in general signal from this jag to amp is significantly higher volume than .y jazzmaster.

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sun Jan 27, 2019 8:55 am

Hey offset guys, any other thoughts? Cheers

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Embenny » Sun Jan 27, 2019 10:47 am

You could do a couple of things to definitely determine what's happening:

1) Go through each switch permutation and gently touch a magnet with a screwdriver to determine which pickups are active. If the loudest and thickest tone has both pickups active, that's a good sign they're wired in series in that switch position.

2) Go through each switch permutation with a multimeter to determine the resistance. This is even better for determining single coil, series, and parallel wiring because the resistances are so different (parallel being about half of a single coil and series being about double).

The third switch isn't a phase reverse normally by the way, it's just a high-pass capacitor.
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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:20 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Sun Jan 27, 2019 10:47 am
You could do a couple of things to definitely determine what's happening:

1) Go through each switch permutation and gently touch a magnet with a screwdriver to determine which pickups are active. If the loudest and thickest tone has both pickups active, that's a good sign they're wired in series in that switch position.

2) Go through each switch permutation with a multimeter to determine the resistance. This is even better for determining single coil, series, and parallel wiring because the resistances are so different (parallel being about half of a single coil and series being about double).

The third switch isn't a phase reverse normally by the way, it's just a high-pass capacitor.
Hey, many thanks to you. I wanted to precise both poins:
1. As far as I remember, if you touch a pickup magnet with a screwdriver, it is always the magnetic power, no matter the pickup or guitar is plug-in. But maybe the power increases by swithing the pickup on...?
2. "parallel as half of a single coil" - what kind of single coil as benchmark - can measure eg my telecaster single coil as benchmark?
Many thanks to you

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Embenny » Sun Jan 27, 2019 2:00 pm

Oh sorry, I should have specified:

1) I meant to touch the polepieces while the guitar is plugged in to an amp. If a pickup is "on", you hear a noise through the amp when you touch the polepiece with something metal.

2) It depends on the resistance of the pickups themselves. There are equations to describe it, but basically, a single jaguar pickup will be around 6-7kohm. Parallel will be around 3-3.5kohms and series would be around 12-14kohms.
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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 12:00 am

mbene085 wrote:
Sun Jan 27, 2019 2:00 pm
Oh sorry, I should have specified:

1) I meant to touch the polepieces while the guitar is plugged in to an amp. If a pickup is "on", you hear a noise through the amp when you touch the polepiece with something metal.

2) It depends on the resistance of the pickups themselves. There are equations to describe it, but basically, a single jaguar pickup will be around 6-7kohm. Parallel will be around 3-3.5kohms and series would be around 12-14kohms.
Number 1 clear now.
Number two: where exactly do you measure the resistance of pickups (I mean where do you touch wires?) Many thanks to you and sorry for too many questions!

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Embenny » Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:11 am

No problem at all. The easiest way to do it is to turn all knobs to "10" (maximum), plug in a patch cord to the guitar (a short one is ideal) and then touch your multimeter probes one each to the two separate metal parts - the tip and the sleeve. They're separated by a black line, you can touch anywhere on either side of that line, it doesn't matter which one is positive and which is negative on your multimeter.
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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:14 am

mbene085 wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:11 am
No problem at all. The easiest way to do it is to turn all knobs to "10" (maximum), plug in a patch cord to the guitar (a short one is ideal) and then touch your multimeter probes one each to the two separate metal parts - the tip and the sleeve. They're separated by a black line, you can touch anywhere on either side of that line, it doesn't matter which one is positive and which is negative on your multimeter.
Ok, perfect, so resistance is possible to measure on the output of guitar throug a short guitar cable, I understand. Many thanks to you again, i am gonna borrow a multimetre during the weekend and will let you know about the result :)

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Tue Jan 29, 2019 2:55 pm

mbene085 wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:11 am
No problem at all. The easiest way to do it is to turn all knobs to "10" (maximum), plug in a patch cord to the guitar (a short one is ideal) and then touch your multimeter probes one each to the two separate metal parts - the tip and the sleeve. They're separated by a black line, you can touch anywhere on either side of that line, it doesn't matter which one is positive and which is negative on your multimeter.
Hey, so for number one only screwdriver cheking:
The most volume has neck pickup, less volume both pickups, and the bridge is the less quite(Iam gonna push bridge pickup higher to be louder). The strangle switch makes all pickups more narrower. I found out that somebody probably just changed the 3switch pannel mirrorwise, that means that everything is opposite. From up view when you are playing guitar: on left is strangle (should be at right), middle is the bridge pickups, on the right is the neck pickup. When strangle switch is on, it is quite more buzzing(a lower buzzing frequence is added to the normal buzzing). I don t know if this should be like that. All swithes work on/off oposite than in standard settings. Means that closer to strings is switch off, more far from strings is switch on. So in my opinion it is the standard paralel setting, that used to be in original jags in pre cbs 1960´s, right?

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sun Feb 03, 2019 8:32 am

mbene085 wrote:
Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:11 am
No problem at all. The easiest way to do it is to turn all knobs to "10" (maximum), plug in a patch cord to the guitar (a short one is ideal) and then touch your multimeter probes one each to the two separate metal parts - the tip and the sleeve. They're separated by a black line, you can touch anywhere on either side of that line, it doesn't matter which one is positive and which is negative on your multimeter.
Hey, so finally I measured the resistance on pickup, with strangle off: 7,1 Kohm bridge pickup, the neck pickup is 6,8 kOhm. When both pickups together, it is 3,6 OHm.
All combinations with strangle measure infinite resistance, like it wouldn´t be connected at all. But it plays well even on strangle, only the sound is always more agressive and thinner.

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Re: Very weird Jag 1963 switch set up

Post by Guitarman555 » Sun Feb 03, 2019 1:30 pm

What I ´ve just found out is, that the rythm circuit has exactly the same tone as neck pickup. No matter if with tone full or zero, in both tone positions the coulour and volume of the rythm is same with neck pickup.
Another thing that I did not expect is, that the volume control doesn´t work same as in jazzmasters volume with capacitor, in jazzy case while you low down volume, the brightnes goes down. Here in this jag it doesn´t work like that, it is still approximately same bright. Let know what you think about that thanks!

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