The ESP Guitar Company

First thing, open the control cover and carefully pull out and reconnect each of the connections of the EMGs and pots into the central block. Do it one at a time.

See what changes that makes.

I did that, however the wiring used for this assembley is all soldered. They didn't use the solderless kit for the wiring, which i would prefer anyway, but is now going to make diagnosing things a bit more complicated. Are there any values that anyone knows of, that I could use my multimeter to test? The reason i noticed the lack of gain immediately, is because my main rhythm patch has compression and a noise gate, which my other 2 main guitars react perfectly to. One of which has an emg 707, the other is an m80m with the single Lundgren. However, this MH1007 was noticable right away that it was lacking output, for the way it was reacting to the noise gate and compression. Even the 207 Horizon model that this MH was replacing had more gain, and it had passive dimarzios. Im just not convinced that THIS is the output of this guitar. There has got to be something in the wiring that is holding it back. Im guessing that its either the input jack, or the leads from the battery.

The most common place for issues that I've found on a soldered EMG setup is at the switch. Try flicking the switch back and forth a bunch of times and see if that has any affect.

I end up having to resolder the connections on the jacks that come with the ESP guitars eventually. I'm not sure if it's bad plating on the switch, or something in how the switch was made, but I suspect it's just corrosion. Heating the solder joint usually fixes the problem.

But your guess of the jack is also a pretty good thought. Again a quick look at the solder joints and where the connector makes connection with the jack might give you a better idea.

The switch seemed fine to me, although i will mess with it a little to see if there is any difference. Every other time I've wired up EMG's, it was for a single bridge Hum, and 1 Volume pot. So, having the switch in this setup is new to me, for an EMG setup. I will check it out for sure, and try heating up the solder joints. I've soldered up a coil spliting 5 ways before in the past on other guitars with passive pickups, so this isn't out of the realm of my ability, thank god. lol. I just didn't want to dig too far into this new guitar without asking a few questions first. I VERY much appreciate the response!!! I will let you know my findings.

Ok, haven’t found the actual issue yet,  it I did notice that when the 3way selector is in the bridge position, it is the lowest gain out of all the selections. So, it’s either the switch or the power lead from the bridge pickup. I will dig further when I get home from work. 

try plugging in a cable in the jack, turn all the knobs to full loudness, and measure the resistance across the tip/ring on the free end of the jack for each of the three switch positions. in the bridge and neck position it should be about about 17 kohms. in the middle position it should be about 13 kohms.

Ok, I looked up a couple things about the wiring for the 3way. There should be wire connecting post 1&2, 2&6, and 6&5.  From what I’m looking at, there is nothing connecting post 2&6. Could this be the issue? 

Daniel P. wrote:

Ok, I looked up a couple things about the wiring for the 3way. There should be wire connecting post 1&2, 2&6, and 6&5.  From what I’m looking at, there is nothing connecting post 2&6. Could this be the issue? 

And post 4 and 8 ARE bridged?!?! Is this a bogus wiring setup for the switch, or is this ok? I know there are quite a few different ways to wire emgs, and like I said, I’ve only done emg single bridge pickup installations in the past. 

Maybe, but that my brain tells me that would likely only affect the center position. I never quite understood the blade switch wiring.

You can see they've also bridged 8 to 4, so they've obviously done something different in the wiring of the switch.

hmmm, resistance readings are definitely outside of the range I would expect from an emg 81/85, BUT, it is possible that the seven string pickups have a different shunt resistance than the six string pickups which is what I was basing it off of. someone else would have to verify.

switch wiring looks fine. there's more than one way to wire a 3-way or a 5-way of this style.

try disconnecting the pickups and taking a resistance reading across the connector pins that would normally connect to the bare wire (middle) and the hot wire (white).

while both pickups are disconnected take a resistance reading across the jack with the volume pot turned all the way up, like you did before. this will tell you if the volume pot is the correct value/is wired correctly.

Well, I got the solderless kit, and the 3way tele from emg. Wouldn't you know it, same issue.   After my gig next friday, Im going to swap out the 707 from my RG, and see if I'm just hallucinating. I would have never guessed that the emg pickup was faulty, but we will see.