Sterling JP50 pickups changed, volume drop in middle position

[YasAB]

I had for several years a JP50 with the stock pickups. I replaced them lately with the DiMarzio Crunch Lab / Liquifire and added a push-pull on the tone knob for coil splitting.

In the pushed configuration, the middle position has a volume drop that is noticeable in comparison with the neck or bridge pickup alone, but usable. Before the pickup change, the volume drop was hardly noticeable.

In the pulled configuration, the middle position has a big volume drop in comparison with the inner coils alone. The sound is very thin(think small microcube with tone all the way to treble), which I find great for certain sounds, but the volume drop makes this position unusable live.

I now have these configurations:

***polarity is indicated for each pickup

Pushed (same configuration before pickups switch) : neck full HB(South start->finish to North finish->start) / full neck HB(South start->finish to North finish->start) in parallel with full bridge HB(North start->finish to south finish->start) / full bridge HB(North start->finish to south finish->start)

Pulled: neck inner coil (south start->finish) / neck inner coil (south start->finish) in parallel with bridge inner coil (north start->finish) / bridge inner coil (north start->finish)


I am pretty sure the wiring is done correctly. Is it because of one of these reasons?
A) Original tone pot was 530K Audio, new one with push/pull switch is 467K Audio
B) Inner coils used for coil tap, which may be weaker on the crunch lab (because it is a bar and not pole pieces)
C) It is normal because the DiMarzio pickups are designed like this.

I want some advice before unsoldering the pickups and trying different things:
1) Invert the red and green wires on the pickup switch for one pickup (example: changing the current path north to south by south to north)
2) Changing coil tap for outer coils instead of inner coils, or using outer coil on neck pickup and inner coil on bridge pickup)
3) Changing the middle position for series instead of parallel (would that make the middle position a volume boost instead?)

EDIT: I suspect it may be this: neck pickup is south to north and bridge pickup is north to south. This was the original wiring in the JP50 (someone have a wiring diagram so I can confirm?) This diagram shows north to south for both pickups. Guitar Wiring Diagram 2 Humbuckers/3-Way Toggle Switch/1 Volume/0Tone/000

Thanks for your advice or thoughts. If you need wiring diagrams, I can post some.

Anthony

 

[DrKev]

DiMarzio have the wiring diagrams online, did you use them?

Wiring Diagrams | DiMarzio

 

[Lou]

Not unusual. The volume drops quite a bit when the pickups are split.

 

[PeteDuBaldo]

If you email DiMarzio (tech @ dimarzio.com) they will help you with the wiring. I would certainly recommend this because if you want both of the inside coils to turn on in the middle (pulled) position then the wiring gets real funky and those diagrams are not really easy to find in their archives. Essentially you are using the north coil from one bucker and the south coil from the other, and you need to wire them differently from one another (you don't simply tie black and white together on both)

Email them with your pickup combination and desired switching for each position.

Also, parallel combinations will always give you a slightly lower output than series combinations.

 

[beej]

My first thought when I read "The sound is very thin" is that you've wired the two coils in parallel, but out of phase.

I'd check your wiring again and make sure you've wired up the coils in-phase. I'd do what Pete suggests and email Dimarzio for help.

 

[DrKev]

Yup, listen to beej and Pete but remember, as Lou says, even correctly wired two single coils in parallel can be a lot quieter than a humbucker, or two humbuckers in parallel. I had a HH guitar 20 years ago that I got rid of for that reason. I couldn't live with the volume drop.