Weird bridge pickup sound - Bill N' Becky L500XL

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TheSleep

TheSleep

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I took my guitar in recently to change the stock pickups in my Washburn 333 and I put a Bill N' Becky L500XL in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan '59 Bridge pickup in the neck. For some reason the bridge pickup sounds horrendous. Idk what it is but it almost sounds like some weird single coil chime thing going on. Also some tones that are normally heavily distorted just seem flat and muffled? I recorded a quick clip where it was most prominent on the fretboard. I can't for the life of me figure out what is making this sound and my only guess is that maybe the bridge pickup is not wired correctly.

Here's a few clips:

Bill N' Becky Clean

Bill N' Becky Distorted

I took a look at the pots and stuff but nothing I can wrap my head around. It's lookin pretty gnarly in there. I'll link some pics below if you're interested.

Pickup selector switch

Pots

Pots closer - is that a capacitor?

Pots closer 2

Ground?

Man I was so stoked to play this thing today but just left me bummed. :( I'll hit up the tech who set it up tomorrow and see what he says, but would love to hear your guys' thoughts.
 
Have the blue and black to the ground, the white to the hot, and green red solder together?

It look like this, with this colors?
bill-lawrence-usa-l-500-xl-bill-beckie-637977.jpg
 
Sorry about that fellas, here are the pics incase they're not showing up:

IMG_6635.jpg

IMG_6639.jpg

IMG_6638.jpg

IMG_6631.jpg

IMG_6633.jpg
 
Luca79 said:
Have the blue and black to the ground, the white to the hot, and green red solder together?

It look like this, with this colors?
bill-lawrence-usa-l-500-xl-bill-beckie-637977.jpg
Click to expand...

It looks like he has the green and the white wires together from what I see. It's definitely the same wires as the one you showed there.

Edit:

Just poked around a bit more and I'm starting to think this thing might just be wired all outta whack. I've found so far that if the tone knob is all the way up you can still hear a bit of the neck pickup even when the neck pickups volume knob is all the way down. When bringing the tone knob down all the way the neck pickup is no longer heard. Coincidentally when bringing the bridge volume up and the tone and volume all the way down the sound is more full with just the highs cut.
 
Last edited:
The sticker on the back of your pickup says "L500L". That's your problem right there. The right pickup to get from Becky for the Dime vibe is the "L500XL".

The L and the XL don't sound the same.
 
JohnnyGtar said:
The sticker on the back of your pickup says "L500L". That's your problem right there. The right pickup to get from Becky for the Dime vibe is the "L500XL".

The L and the XL don't sound the same.
Click to expand...

That's Luca79's pic I have an L500XL but the wiring is still the same.
 
Was the first pic i found for reference....The L version is high output too; had them all.
 
Can't say for sure, but it seems like it may have been wired up in parallel instead of series. Parallel wiring will produce a single coil like sound.

Double check the leads are wired correctly for series.
White=hot - solder to hot lug
Black & Blue=ground - wire together and solder to back of pot
Red & Green=connects the coils together - solder together and tape/shrink wrap
 
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