0:16 - Why You Should Know This / What You Need 1:01 - Testing Inside the Guitar 2:47 - Vintage-Style Braided Wiring 3:51 - Modern Wiring - 2 Conductor 4:20 - 4-Conductor
The Trogly's Guitar Show: how do you set up a multimeter that has adjustable ohm resistance for testing the pickups?. My presents are x1k and x10 and then there is an adjustable potentiometer that says 0 ohm adjust. Also my meter is the old needle type and not digital.
If you have really high output pickups got to the 200ohm setting. Seymour duncan also have a chart with a lot of different manufacture colours for the wires
Thank you! I always measured them at the pots. This of course is more involved. I planned on saying this no matter what you did today. You always put out a great video every day. I don't know how you find the time, I'm just glad you do and do a great job of it.
I watch your show everyday, and been having trouble figuring out how to test pickups, and I just want to thank you for your time and knowledge. I just started playing, and trying to learn how to fix them if anything was to happen. I bought a cheap 10 dollar guitar, and I can’t get it to play through the amp. Only guitar with a humbucker
Can you show people how to test pots to make sure they are up to standards too? I keep a bunch of them and even test the new ones to match them before assembly and installing.
Good morning friend, I turn to you for a consultation, I just bought some used texas special pickups, they look like new, I have already checked photos and everything corresponds that they are original, but as for the ohms they are well below what the manufacturer specifies, Neck 5.6K, Medium 6K, and Bridge 6.3K (I already used 2 multimeters in case there was a measurement error), while the manufacturer specifies that they must be 6.2K 6.5K 6.7K, will they take turns or would we suspect they are false? I appreciate your valuable comment, best regards!
Wow I didn't realize you could buy a multimeter that cheap these days ! Those Klein wire strippers are the best imo & still made in Chicago I believe .
Thank you for the simple answer. I was thinking how can I check which pickup is not working and whether it is the input jack, switch, etc. I was going to de-solder everything until I thought there has to be an easier way. Then, I was going to cut a guitar cord in order to attach each wire to the black and red. Good thing all it took were some alligator clips. It took me two seconds to figure out I had a dead pickup. I changed it and now it works fine.
Cool. This is important info. I have a telecaster and I want to install better pickups on it. This information is what I needed to help me know if I should do that.
Love these videos Trogly! Watched your video the other day on the silver burst custom and let me say is I bought a guitar like that (even with my own money!) my mom would kill me haha. Keep up the great work!
Although you briefly touched on it, your viewers should know that testing pickups that are installed puts the volume pot in parallel with the pickup, and that lowers the reading by about .2 to .4 .ohms (even with pots set at 10). The only way to get a 100% accurate reading is take the pickups out of the guitar.
Thank you for this informative video. The reason I'm on RUclips looking for this info is I have a guitar with a HSS set up while playing I heard static so I moved my switch and the sound was good on my two single coil pickups but there was no sound coming from the humbucker. I did the ohm test with the cable inserted into the guitar and touched the multimeter leads to the other end of the cable. Both single coils gave a reading but there was no reading on the humbucker. I'm not entirely certain if it's the pickup or the switch. What do you think my next step should be? This is a new guitar I bought on ebay, unfortunately it's past the return date. I asked the seller about a warranty, he relayed my question along with contact info to the manufacturer, still waiting for a response.
I have some Gibson USA humbuckers that are 4 wire but have the small white connector on them. How do I test those without removing that connector? Thanks.....
thanks for the video. On my LP copy the bridge pickup looks like it's out of order. It read's 1 on my multimeter. The funny thing is when it the selector to treble and all knobs to zero, I can open up the bridge volume and tone and I get sound. It's not all there but it's not all dead either. Where should I troubleshoot from here?
I replaced all the pots and rewired everything using braded wire. Not sure why but when I test the resistance of the pickups using a plug in chord I get 8.37 ohms for the bridge pickup and 14.02 ohms for the neck pickup. When I measured just the pickup with the back off I get 7.82. Why am I getting such a high reading? is there something going on with the wiring at the plug in? The switch wiring looks to be good. Thanks for any help.
Very useful info, thanks. Just a thought, would it be better to use a shorter guitar patch cable to get a more accurate reading for pups still inside the guitar?
Thanks, the video is some kind of helpful.... but I have here an old Dimarzio PU. It has a black and a white wire, surrounded by a braided cable. How can I check the resistance on this variation?
Will this also work IF the selector switch is NOT connected so as to test if the wiring to the pots is all there with the leads going to what em will ultimately be connected to the soon-to-be new switchcraft selector? I just wanna make sure that all the wiring is good to the pots up to the selector connections.
what about a humbucker with 3 wires? One black, one red and one green. I get separate readings of about 4.3 kohms on the red and green when connected to the black but it doesn't increase to the expected 8 kohms when connected together?
I coil split my humbuckers and I was spending some time deciding if it sounded different than before Wish I had a multimeter to have a before and after or know how it is right now Damn it, going on Amazon tonight
Actually a great video because I was wondering about this Epiphone Slasher Pick up with 1 Red wire . I guess I hope the guitar cord works because I'm not disassembling just to take some Ohm reading .
Epiphone Les Paul bridge pickup works good neck pickup no sound, when i performed this test with multi-meter the bridge pickup read 6.34 and the neck pickup read 1 ?????? any ideas?? Oh and the middle setting read 6.34???
So day maybe you can do a video on the modern day pots CTS and the pots of the 1950's and 1960,s? I buy the most exact pots I can. The tone is never much of an adjustment and same thing with the volume. I do both modern and vintage wiring. The vintage is a little bit brighter.
My bridge pickup reads around 15k and my neck pickup reads only around 7k is that ok? By the way I test the pickup installed using guitar jack and a multimeter
This is really well done, but did I miss something? You don't really explain what the problems could be...,what's the flip side to all these correct readings? No reading means dead pick-up...,etc, etc?
I'm sitting here watching this and I'm like, "Hmm, I just bought a multimeter, and I have a row of guitars hanging here next to me, let's try this out." Measured a guitar with SD Antiquities, then one with SD 59s and everything was fine. Then went to another guitar and I got no result. WTF? Moved to the neck, it read just fine. Flipped back to the bridge, nothing. At first I thought something had gone wrong, and then I realized the pickup has an output greater than 20K (It's a Bare Knuckle Warpig) and I had to change the meter to 200K. Then it read just fine.
Wow. Yesterday i sent u a message on facebook. I was checking some pickups on one of my guitars and eatching a video of yours. While i was doing that i thought, i wondrr why trogly dont check hos pickups and syaye the readings on his video logs. It would be good for documenting the guitars while logging them
When doing this I seem to be getting double what I expect. My reading is showing 14 or 15. Any ideas? I'm on the 20k Ohm setting on the multimeter. The pickups I'm measuring are Duncan JB.
If my bridge pickup measures 9,5k out of the circuit and and 6,5k in the circuit (measured with the jack cable, every knob at 10) what could be the issue ???
I have one question, why middle position on 3 way switch on my Les Paul sounds almost the same as just neck (rhythm) pickup? Neck pickup is 8K ohms, and bridge is 15K ohms, but it's 90% sound like neck pickup alone, so I never use it
Does your neck pickup sound louder than neck? It might just overpower the bridge pickup in the middle position. You can raise your bridge pickup higher or lower the neck one, or both. It seems like your pickups has different wire, the bridge has thinner wire inside, hence higher resistance, but the same output (and maybe darker tonality that might suit the bridge position better).
@@peterosipov400 I solved problem, my neck pickup had awful muddy sound and because of it, middle position had that awful sound as well, so I took apart neck humbucker to see what's wrong, take magnet out, and realized it was weak as hell, barely attracted metals, so I attach it to a strong neodymium magnet and leave them overnight together, to restore its magnetism back..next day magnet was pretty strong and when I put it all back in guitar, sound was amazing, like never before..middle position also great
![ATEEZ(에이티즈) - [GOLDEN HOUR : Part.2] Preview](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X4PfgRPBUVo/mqdefault.jpg)
0:16 - Why You Should Know This / What You Need
1:01 - Testing Inside the Guitar
2:47 - Vintage-Style Braided Wiring
3:51 - Modern Wiring - 2 Conductor
4:20 - 4-Conductor
The Trogly's Guitar Show: how do you set up a multimeter that has adjustable ohm resistance for testing the pickups?. My presents are x1k and x10 and then there is an adjustable potentiometer that says 0 ohm adjust. Also my meter is the old needle type and not digital.
So close to 17K!!! Man I remember subbing to his channel over a year ago and see all the improvements and changes it’s just so crazy
Almost at 190k damn
Now at 261K in 2023
If you have really high output pickups got to the 200ohm setting. Seymour duncan also have a chart with a lot of different manufacture colours for the wires
Thank you! I always measured them at the pots. This of course is more involved. I planned on saying this no matter what you did today. You always put out a great video every day. I don't know how you find the time, I'm just glad you do and do a great job of it.
I watch your show everyday, and been having trouble figuring out how to test pickups, and I just want to thank you for your time and knowledge. I just started playing, and trying to learn how to fix them if anything was to happen. I bought a cheap 10 dollar guitar, and I can’t get it to play through the amp. Only guitar with a humbucker
This was a great explanation of the multimeter and real world examples of how to check the pickups. Thanks so much! I'm already using your tips!
Thanks, Austin. Do you have any knowledge of how to test EMG pickups too?
Thank you so much for this. No one else showed how to do it in the guitar. Nice to see one of your spotlight specials again.
Great, answered my question of how to measure those Gibson pickups with only one wire sticking out. Thanks for the video.
Thank you. I used to know this and I can’t believe I forgot it. Thanks for the refresher course
With the 4 lead humbuckers you could also check the resistance of each coil. Good for narrowing down where a potential problem could be.
Can you show people how to test pots to make sure they are up to standards too? I keep a bunch of them and even test the new ones to match them before assembly and installing.
Good morning friend, I turn to you for a consultation, I just bought some used texas special pickups, they look like new, I have already checked photos and everything corresponds that they are original, but as for the ohms they are well below what the manufacturer specifies, Neck 5.6K, Medium 6K, and Bridge 6.3K (I already used 2 multimeters in case there was a measurement error), while the manufacturer specifies that they must be 6.2K 6.5K 6.7K, will they take turns or would we suspect they are false? I appreciate your valuable comment, best regards!
What a simple and important learning video for guitar enthusiasts!!
Thank you so much for the informative video. I never saw anyone check Ohms without removing the pickups, using a cable, makes it so much easier!!
I made that Gavitt wire for guitars and amps for five years. Everyone from Fender and Gibson to Mojotone, Wolf Tone, Seymour Duncan etc etc etc
Finally someone who shows CLOSEUPS. Thanks Trogly
Really informative video. A video on how you clean and polish your guitars would be appreciated too. Love your channel. 🇦🇺
Wow I didn't realize you could buy a multimeter that cheap these days ! Those Klein wire strippers are the best imo & still made in Chicago I believe .
Great information
Me like Kevin below always did from pots never thought of using the cable dah!
Keep em coming and as always Thanks great video's
Good tip. Save me a bit of messing about taking off the scratchplate. Cheers.
Excellent, thanks! I was just testing some '57 Customs and this was rather helpful.
Hey good video Austin, I pickuped some good info.
Thank you for the simple answer. I was thinking how can I check which pickup is not working and whether it is the input jack, switch, etc. I was going to de-solder everything until I thought there has to be an easier way. Then, I was going to cut a guitar cord in order to attach each wire to the black and red. Good thing all it took were some alligator clips. It took me two seconds to figure out I had a dead pickup. I changed it and now it works fine.
Cool. This is important info. I have a telecaster and I want to install better pickups on it. This information is what I needed to help me know if I should do that.
Thanks for the video please do one in depths of why you want to check a guitar under black light
Thank you simplicity very easy to understand!
Wait!...why should we have a black light? @5:25.
Thanks for the information :)
Love these videos Trogly! Watched your video the other day on the silver burst custom and let me say is I bought a guitar like that (even with my own money!) my mom would kill me haha. Keep up the great work!
Although you briefly touched on it, your viewers should know that testing pickups that are installed puts the volume pot in parallel with the pickup, and that lowers the reading by about .2 to .4 .ohms (even with pots set at 10). The only way to get a 100% accurate reading is take the pickups out of the guitar.
Thank you for this informative video. The reason I'm on RUclips looking for this info is I have a guitar with a HSS set up while playing I heard static so I moved my switch and the sound was good on my two single coil pickups but there was no sound coming from the humbucker. I did the ohm test with the cable inserted into the guitar and touched the multimeter leads to the other end of the cable. Both single coils gave a reading but there was no reading on the humbucker. I'm not entirely certain if it's the pickup or the switch. What do you think my next step should be? This is a new guitar I bought on ebay, unfortunately it's past the return date. I asked the seller about a warranty, he relayed my question along with contact info to the manufacturer, still waiting for a response.
Wow, I was just about to look up how to do this, and then you upload this. Too spooky man. Where have you hidden the cameras?
Do you get reading if the pickup has no magnet? Got this strat asymetric mini humbucker the other half just have metal poles
I have some Gibson USA humbuckers that are 4 wire but have the small white connector on them. How do I test those without removing that connector? Thanks.....
When you said it looks like a ground because it is, it sounded like the Neature Walk videos. I loled.
Helpful video, thank you
Thank you
I have a question how about the active pickups ?
It can test also like what you deno? Thank you i hope you answer :)
Thanks Austin! Keep up the good work!
thanks for the video. On my LP copy the bridge pickup looks like it's out of order. It read's 1 on my multimeter.
The funny thing is when it the selector to treble and all knobs to zero, I can open up the bridge volume and tone and I get sound.
It's not all there but it's not all dead either. Where should I troubleshoot from here?
You mentioned a blacklight for inspection?? Can you explain what the purpose of that is?
I replaced all the pots and rewired everything using braded wire. Not sure why but when I test the resistance of the pickups using a plug in chord I get 8.37 ohms for the bridge pickup and 14.02 ohms for the neck pickup. When I measured just the pickup with the back off I get 7.82. Why am I getting such a high reading? is there something going on with the wiring at the plug in? The switch wiring looks to be good. Thanks for any help.
Very useful info, thanks. Just a thought, would it be better to use a shorter guitar patch cable to get a more accurate reading for pups still inside the guitar?
please dont call them pups
Thanks, the video is some kind of helpful.... but I have here an old Dimarzio PU. It has a black and a white wire, surrounded by a braided cable. How can I check the resistance on this variation?
Will this also work IF the selector switch is NOT connected so as to test if the wiring to the pots is all there with the leads going to what em will ultimately be connected to the soon-to-be new switchcraft selector? I just wanna make sure that all the wiring is good to the pots up to the selector connections.
Good stuff Austin!
This was incredibly helpful.
I duely appreciate the lesson at this time!
you mentioned a black light. what is it for?
thanks for sharing....why do i need to see guitar under black light....?
This is what I wanna know too
Because the meter is 9volts there's no risk of burning the pick up coil,?
what about a humbucker with 3 wires? One black, one red and one green. I get separate readings of about 4.3 kohms on the red and green when connected to the black but it doesn't increase to the expected 8 kohms when connected together?
Super useful. Thanks, Man!
In testing a single pickup that is installed, if there is no output, how does this method tell you if the issue is the pickup, pot or wiring?
Great video, I learned something new! Thank you for posting this.
Very helpful. Thanks. Btw: I measured my ES 335 which are suppused to be Tim Shaw pickups, and they read at 6.6, does that sound right?
Very helpful, thanks Austin..
But where do the red and black probe leads plug in to the multimeter?
what are the OHMS on your KM Les Paul pickups ?
I coil split my humbuckers and I was spending some time deciding if it sounded different than before
Wish I had a multimeter to have a before and after or know how it is right now
Damn it, going on Amazon tonight
Can you check a piezo or a body pick up in a acoustic the same way?
Actually a great video because I was wondering about this Epiphone Slasher Pick up with 1 Red wire . I guess I hope the guitar cord works because
I'm not disassembling just to take some Ohm reading .
Epiphone Les Paul bridge pickup works good neck pickup no sound, when i performed this test with multi-meter the bridge pickup read 6.34 and the neck pickup read 1 ?????? any ideas?? Oh and the middle setting read 6.34???
Is this the same concept for active pickups because I feel like the preamp makes things different
Great informational video thanks.
As always, very informative. Thank you, Mr. Trogly.
Thanks for the video Trogly!
Awesome should the output number fluctuate? Mine fluctuates a lot 8.70to 8.50 on bridge pickup. Is it defective?
if it fluctuates it's not normal, it could be defective most probably.
I know for the Shaws you put .5 +/- but what is the acceptable general range of pickups in general?
Great video! Thank you for this info!!
What is the purpose of the black light please?
Still super helpful 👍🏼🤘🏼
Great job, very informative!
What if there is a problem with the wiring or jacks ?
Thanks for the Info!!!
So day maybe you can do a video on the modern day pots CTS and the pots of the 1950's and 1960,s? I buy the most exact pots I can. The tone is never much of an adjustment and same thing with the volume. I do both modern and vintage wiring. The vintage is a little bit brighter.
what would be the reading difference, more or less, between measures inside or outside the guitar?
Thanks, great video.
My bridge pickup reads around 15k and my neck pickup reads only around 7k is that ok? By the way I test the pickup installed using guitar jack and a multimeter
Very usefull! Thanks!
Great video!
This is really well done, but did I miss something? You don't really explain what the problems could be...,what's the flip side to all these correct readings? No reading means dead pick-up...,etc, etc?
So how would one test the middle pup on a 1961 LP custom?
My demarzo neck humbucker is reading 38 ohms it should be 15 wtf is wrong what should I do
Thanks! :)😊
Do they read higher or lower installed in the guitar?
I was surprised when I tried both and measurements was lower when installed. I can't explain that tbh
Thanks man. Perfect.
What about testing active pick ups inside the guitar???
Good info thank you
I'm sitting here watching this and I'm like, "Hmm, I just bought a multimeter, and I have a row of guitars hanging here next to me, let's try this out." Measured a guitar with SD Antiquities, then one with SD 59s and everything was fine. Then went to another guitar and I got no result. WTF? Moved to the neck, it read just fine. Flipped back to the bridge, nothing. At first I thought something had gone wrong, and then I realized the pickup has an output greater than 20K (It's a Bare Knuckle Warpig) and I had to change the meter to 200K. Then it read just fine.
Thx, simple and helpful!
Wow. Yesterday i sent u a message on facebook. I was checking some pickups on one of my guitars and eatching a video of yours. While i was doing that i thought, i wondrr why trogly dont check hos pickups and syaye the readings on his video logs. It would be good for documenting the guitars while logging them
When doing this I seem to be getting double what I expect. My reading is showing 14 or 15. Any ideas? I'm on the 20k Ohm setting on the multimeter. The pickups I'm measuring are Duncan JB.
Thats what the JB duncan is supposed to read from what I remember...
Whoa Fix It Felix has a YT channel
Thank you.
Thank you for this
If my bridge pickup measures 9,5k out of the circuit and and 6,5k in the circuit (measured with the jack cable, every knob at 10) what could be the issue ???
Something is wrong.
I have one question, why middle position on 3 way switch on my Les Paul sounds almost the same as just neck (rhythm) pickup?
Neck pickup is 8K ohms, and bridge is 15K ohms, but it's 90% sound like neck pickup alone, so I never use it
Does your neck pickup sound louder than neck? It might just overpower the bridge pickup in the middle position. You can raise your bridge pickup higher or lower the neck one, or both.
It seems like your pickups has different wire, the bridge has thinner wire inside, hence higher resistance, but the same output (and maybe darker tonality that might suit the bridge position better).
@@peterosipov400
I solved problem, my neck pickup had awful muddy sound and because of it, middle position had that awful sound as well, so I took apart neck humbucker to see what's wrong, take magnet out, and realized it was weak as hell, barely attracted metals, so I attach it to a strong neodymium magnet and leave them overnight together, to restore its magnetism back..next day magnet was pretty strong and when I put it all back in guitar, sound was amazing, like never before..middle position also great
Nice. My unknown make humbucker ( middle pickup) just read 13.7k yikes!
Thank you!
my multi meter only shows 4/40/400k for the ohms options
Mine does't show any options?