Metropoulos Forum

I just installed my first pickup on my own. I installed a DM Air Zone in a cheap superstrat style guitar with a FR. It has two humbuckers - the Air Zone went in the bridge position.

There is a volume control and a tone control with a coil tap feature.

My question is this: When the pot is pushed in, I get a low strat-style hum. When I pull the pot out, the hum is gone.

Do I have something backwards? Honestly, both sound fine but what's confusing me is it seems the noiser position (pot pushed in) seems beefier than the one with the pot pulled out. In other words, the hum is telling me it's in split mode but the sound is telling me otherwise.

Any advice (specific to this question or otherwise) relating to wiring guitar pickups would be much appreciated!

bman5150 wrote:I just installed my first pickup on my own. I installed a DM Air Zone in a cheap superstrat style guitar with a FR. It has two humbuckers - the Air Zone went in the bridge position.

There is a volume control and a tone control with a coil tap feature.

My question is this: When the pot is pushed in, I get a low strat-style hum. When I pull the pot out, the hum is gone.

Do I have something backwards? Honestly, both sound fine but what's confusing me is it seems the noiser position (pot pushed in) seems beefier than the one with the pot pulled out. In other words, the hum is telling me it's in split mode but the sound is telling me otherwise.

Any advice (specific to this question or otherwise) relating to wiring guitar pickups would be much appreciated!

It sure sounds like you've got something wrong in the way its wired.

On a DiMarzio, the black and white wires should be tied together and connected to the push pull switch, which when pulled out, should ground those two wires.
When viewing the switch pot upside down (knob shaft pointing toward the floor), the "lower lug" of whichever side of the switch you use is connected (grounded) to the pot can, and the black and white wires are connected to the middle lug, of course, using the lug on the same side of the switch as the grounded lug. The "upper lug" is not connected to anything.


The green wire and the bare (shield) wire are tied together and grounded, and the red wire is hot.

Here is a link to the PDF of that:
http://www.dimarzio.com/sites/default/f ... tsplit.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Is that how its wired up?



PS-You didnt mention if you coil tapped BOTH pickups, or just one. It doesnt really matter though. You just use the other side of the switch lugs for the 2nd pickup if you're tapping them both... you just need to know the pickups wiring scheme if its something other than a DiMarzio.