Gibson Conundrum

ninjaking67

ninjaking67

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All,

I have a bit of a head scratcher here and I am hoping one of you smart, more experienced ( and good looking) folks might be able to help me sort it out.

I recently purchased a used 2018 Gibson SG Standard for a decent price in relatively good condition. It is equipped with the ‘61 Rhythm No Lead pickups and uses the PCB and quick connect system. I also stumbled upon a Dave Allen Powerage bridge pickup that I wish to install. It is a single conductor with braided shield. Not a problem! Should be easy as pie, right?

Wrong! After doing my research and finding out that the red conductor of the Gibson pickups is the hot, I went ahead and clipped the quick connector off the stock pickup. I then soldered the hot from the new pickup to the red of the connector and the braided shield to the bare shield wire of the connector as recommended on the official Gibson forum.

The result was no sound from the bridge pickup. I rechecked all my connections and reread the information. Everything was as recommended. As a test, I moved the neck pickup and connected it to the bridge location on the PCB. The neck pickup worked fine in the bridge location. WTF!

A closer examination found that the colour coding of the neck pickup is different than that of the bridge pickup. Both are the factory Gibson pickups. Double WTF! As can be seen in the attached photos, the bridge connector is coded red, black, white, green, shield. The neck is white, green, red, black, shield.

As a test, I connected the new bridge pickup with the hot to the WHITE of the bridge connector and shield to bare shield. Lo and behold, it worked.

My question to you all is this: Why in the F’in Hell would Gibson have different colour coding for each pickup? They are clearly labeled neck and bridge on the PCB and on the pickup leads to prevent mixing them up. Is this a factory error or is it standard practice. I don’t have another guitar with the PCB to compare with.
 
Are you sure of the Powerage pickup leads ?

Two of the leads on the quick connect must just short together, like the spliced leads on a 4 conductor hb.
If you can figure that out, and the 2 that should be spliced on the Powerage, you are halfway there.

connect the quick connect and meter the leads. 1 should ground, 1 should go to the vol, 2 should short.
I think - as I have no experience with those quick connects except for cutting them off.

EDIT: the Powerage has only hot and ground/shield
 
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Im a Gibson guy thru and thru, but this is some genuine bullshit on their behalf. Why they chose this random as hell pattern is anyone's guess and if they were going to go against pretty much the universal standard; then at least leave a detailed schematic of each of their random decisions.

Furthermore, the quick connect system is a joke in my opinion and really Gibson just copping out on taking the mere minutes to actually hardwire their electronics as they have done for what, 85+ years or better?

I will say this, as unfortunately honest as it is: the era sometime around 2006 to about 2019 is spotty at best for Gibson quality control. It has cleaned up A LOT in comparison since then but there are still problems daily with them. Allegedly, crafters were sick and tired of being overworked, underpaid and blamed for problems beyond their control in financial gains; so, quality went to dog poop on a lot of guitars as a sort of protest to the company before the big change over from bankruptcy in late 2018 ( unfortunately the very year of your guitar).

That's not saying the quality of the instrument itself was always bad, as sometimes it was lack of concern in the electronics department and hardware areas. Basically, the guitars were excellent from the build but once it got near the final product, crafters just threw whatever at them and half assed it. Other times, it was junky grades of wood and piss poor paint and finishing. Really a crapshoot at that time. Many however, came out flawless. All depended on the mood of the crafter that particular day and the only ones who suffered were the customers

Really a blackeye on a legendary company that has unfortunately stigmatized the entire brand itself. But in any event, hope yours works out my friend!
 
I agree. Makes no sense to me either.
The modern or 50's wiring wont matter as it is past the pickup connector on the board.

To add to what I said, metering the pins on the board, 2 pair will likely shorted together - the series connection for the 2 hb coils is one pair.
The other pair is the shield and ground - meter those to ground on the board to verify which pair is which.
That will leave the hot pin, which should respond to turning the volume pot with one meter lead on the pin and the other to ground .

Again, I have not done this with those pcb boards, but the circuits should be the same as plain old pots, switch, jack.
 
My 60s Tribute LP came with that circuit board and quick connects. The first thing I did was rip that crap out and wire it up normal. I replaced all the pots and so I could keep the original harness intact if I ever wanted to put it back I also replaced the jack and the switch. Then I was able to swap any pickups anytime with no problems.
 
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