Petrucci BFR Pickup change with problems

[meckintosh]

Hi Folks,

I`m facing a problem and hope that you maybe can help me out here...

I own a "Black Sugar" BFR Petrucci and really enjoy it....but the pickups are just not my cup of tea.
So I decided to put some Bareknuckles in it.
Everything is smooth and easy until I hit the 3-Way Switch that`s controlling the Humbuckers. The lower one, not the upper one for the Piezo.

It seems that I can`t get it to work anyway i solder the pickups to it.
So I decieded to take it out and use conventional switch.
Sure, that thing works, but the guitar feels somehow dull and lifeless now.
I hat the pickups in another guitar before and ... man the ran like a crazy horse.
In the Petrucci they seemed to transform to a lame donkey ... not good.

What did I do wrong??

 

[koogie2k]

Could be several reasons. I am not going to try and diagnose over the 'Net what I "think" might be the problem. I would take it to the dealer or an experienced luthier and have them fix it. There is too much going on inside one of those for me or anyone else to try and figure out. If the luthier or dealer cannot help you...maybe customer service can. But, go to the dealer/luthier first.

 

[Sticky1973]

I'd definately get in touch with Tim at Bare Knuckle, too. Perhaps they could help with wiring and PU height guides.

If you are comfortable using the soldering iron, isolate the wiring of the new stuff first.

That axe will roar when fixed.

 

[meckintosh]

The problem is .. the dealer/luthier was the one who put `em in for me and he doesn`t know why/how/what is happening...

 

[Mark-NL]

So basically the dealer F-ed up, since he apparently didn't quite know what he was doing? Seems to me that he should fix it.

 

[beej]

The Petrucci switch is a 4P3T switch, not your standard 3-way switch. (It selects one coil from each pickup in the position, requires some extra lugs for the switching.)

There's no way for us to tell you why it doesn't work right, we can't see what you've done and don't have the guitar in front of us. I'd email EBMM for a copy of the wiring diagram to see how it's supposed to be wired and make sure you know the wire colours for the new p'ups and how they differ from the Dimarzios.

Shouldn't really be too bad to figure this out. But if your tech can't figure it out then you really need to find someone with more experience, imo.

Good luck!

 

[straycat113]

Beej has given you the best advice possible as it is obvious your tech was not aware that the switch is a 4P3T and wired it as if it was a regular 3-way. Just because he is not familiar with this does not mean he is incompetent that is for you to decide, but as beej stated your first task should be to call CS and get a diagram for the wiring and then you can decide if you want to take it back to him or not.