The Electra Forums

About 16 years ago I received my beautiful Omega as a birthday present from my now late mother. I named the guitar "Goldie" because of the finish. Over the years I've played her in studios, gigs, etc... But now I'm starting to notice the sound is starting to become more hollow and less tone-full even on the neck pickup.
I've juggled the idea of changing the pickups but I'm afraid to jump in since I don't understand the wiring on them(The 5 position switch throws me off). I haven't opened it up for that reason.
I'm well versed in electronics but just as a safety net, does anyone know where I can get a wiring diagram for the pickups? Or, is it wired a certain way to where anything on the market won't work?

It shouldn't be a problem to replace the pickups, if you do please be sure to keep the originals with the guitar though.

Here's a diagram of the 5-way selector that appeared on the MPC and Omega models:



It's a little hard to read at first, but compare it with your wiring and you should make sense of it. The main thing to realize is that different pickup makers use different color codes for the pickup wires, so you can't just connect them by color without checking first.

I don't recall offhand, does the Omega have coil tap? if not, you should see three wires from each pickup- positive and negative signal plus one for shield ground.

I'm hoping someone here who has an Omega will speak up and comment on the color codes, cause I don't have that model and I don't want to guess and tell you something wrong.

Thank you immensely for the diagram!

You know what I think I'd do? It may not delight the purist, but I think that rather than desoldering the leads from the 5-way switch, I'd actually cut the lead an inch or so from the switch and then solder teh new connections to that.

Reason being, that way I avoid any chance whatsoever of screwing up the connections at the switch, or forgetting where one went. The stub of colored pickup wires will provide a clear documentation of where they should be connected, and make it easier to re-connect it.

These may not really help but here are some pics of my omega. I ditched the 5 way and the switches and just went for a standard LP set up. I kept all the original stuff if'n I want to go back. Personally I thought the pickups where pretty bad sounding and I didn't get alot of use out of the switches I was torn about the 5 way I may pop it back in there sometime. But it sounds great the way it is now. I never played it before so it was an easy decision to change it, now it gets played all the time.
Anyway hope these help http://www.rivercityamps.com/electrafor ... highlight=

I had bought one of these a long time ago that had replacement pickups and the original wiring all messed up. Back then I converted it to stock LP wiring. It was a GREAT guitar.

That being said - if the pickups are like those in a regular MPC model - They are like a standard 2 conductor humbucking pickup except with a seperated ground wire. So your typical old school Gibson or Vintage 2 conductor humbucker pickups won't work because their shield/ground is integrated into one of the pickup leads. These particular electra MPC humbuckers are only full humbuckers and do not "coil tap" or have a single coil option.

You will need to start by tracing and labeling the electra pickup wires to see which red, white, and ground goes to neck and bridge pickup (the pickup you want to change). They use the same color wires for the jumper wires - so you have red-white-and ground wires all over the place inside the guitar. If the pickups are already disconnected or changed, you may have to get a wiring diagram and trace it out. That should not be needed if you start with a stock guitar.

Many inexpensive pickups will have multiple conductors and a separated shield/ground wire. You can wire ANY 3 or 4 conductor humbucking pickup that has a separate ground wire. You wire it like a regular humbucker according to your mfg. directions except put your ground wire with the ground wire of the electra pickup, put your one lead of your humbucker to the white of the electra, and one lead of your humbucker to the red of the electra. Switch it in the middle position of the 5-way switch. Both pickups should be on and "in phase". In other words - it should sound right. If it sound like you have a wah pedal on or too thin - it is out of phase - and you should swap the wires connected to where the red and white wires were connected to reverse the phase.

So using a seymour duncan 4-conductor pickup as an example (if I remember this correctly): I think on a seymour duncan your black and green leads are used for a standard full humbucker wiring. They will go to where the red and white electra pickup leads connect for the pickup you are replacing. If out of phase (in position 3 of the 5-way switch), swap the black and green wire connected locations. On duncans the red and white leads connect the two coils into a humbucker pickup and are wired/soldered together and taped off.

You can do the same using dimarzio pickups as well, except you must follow dimarzio's wiring color scheme for their pickups.

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Thorny