I purchased a used Fender "alternate reality" 12-string as an affordable, giggable alternative to the real thing. The vintage ones have gotten fairly expensive of late. In fairness, they are very cool guitars, used by legends from Jimmy Page (that's one on "Living Loving Maid" and of course "Stairway to Heaven" ) to Peter Buck. Yes, the early REM albums are (producer) Mitch Easter's Fender 12. And btw on "Murmur" he used Mitch's Ampeg Gemini II. So much for legend.
Anyhow, I found a Lake Placid Blue one on Reverb and went for it. It played ok, but the neck angle wasn't great so I addressed that first. As built, you need to remove the neck to adjust the truss rod, or the neck angle, like an old Telecaster. I was able to just loosen the strings a lot to get the access I needed. 12-string sets are pricey and burning one up every time you need to tweak the guitar would stink.
The angle of the strings from the nut to the bridge compared to the fretboard was too steep for good action. When this is an issue, I always start with a really small shim. You'd be surprised at what a difference they make. Stew Mac makes nice wooden shims that fit Fenders perfectly. I popped in a .25 deg shim, (yes, 1/4 of 1 degree) tightened up the neck, set the action & intonation and it was much much better. Like butter, compared to where we started. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with the guitar; these are assembly line instruments, they aren't built by luthiers. You should expect them to need a tweak to be at their best. This is why it is really good to learn how to tweak it yourself. Learn what you like, and how to get it.
Next up, the bridge pickup was not great sounding. I like to listen to the guitar acoustically and then put my ear on the horn to listen to the natural resonance. This gives me an idea of what it can sound like. And in this case we were pretty far off. The guitar itself sounded pretty great; the electric sound was really not doing it justice. The guitar also seemed to have a 'scratchy' sound to it I couldn't quite place. I ordered a Curtis Novak bridge pickup (they make a model to fit these newer guitars) and waited.
You always remove the screws around the perimeter of the pick guard, but the XII has several extra that have to come out as well. Don't remove the pickup screws. Always keep track of any locations that have screws which are a different length or size etc. Usually they will all be the same, but just be careful.
When the pickup came, I loosened up the strings, removed the pick guard and installed the new bridge pickup. I found a big part of the scratchy noise - the hot lead on the volume pot had never been soldered! It happens. You can also see the star ground in this pic - all those black wires connected to the back of the volume potentiometer.
So I fixed that and put the guitar back together. It sounded much better, but was picking up a lot of buzz. It stopped buzzing when I touched the strings or the bridge; but touching the control plate made no difference. What this told me was that the bridge ground had come loose. The ground plate and the bridge should both be at ground, so touching either should do the same thing on any normal day. I had done the basic test, making sure the pickups were connected properly and in phase using a screwdriver - just plug it into an amp, tap the pickups gently and listen to the thud. This is a good basic test to make sure you're ready to put the guitar back together. If the pickups are out of phase, the thud will be quieter with both pickups engaged. But I did not notice the extra buzz. Oops.
Giving the pickups the tap test before buttoning up the guitar
I loosened up the strings, again, removed the pick guard and the control panel and sure enough, a black wire running from the back of the volume pot up a hole towards the bridge was disconnected. Most guitars use what is called a "star ground" where all the ground leads will solder to the rear of the volume pot. This is pretty good practice. (see above) These leads will nearly always be black so it's easy to see and easy to trace. I definitely had a bad ground, it probably pulled out when i swapped the pickups. To fix this issue I would need to completely remove the bridge. Argh.
Our separated bridge ground pulled easily out of its hole. No bueno.
Where it feeds into
On the XII, there is a trim ring that comes off, and then 5 mounting screws. You might not need to remove the trim ring, I haven't tried it. I had to move two of the saddles to get to the mounting screws meaning I got to re-do my intonation when I was done. Lifting the bridge is a little funky because half your strings come through the body and the other half top load. So to get the bridge to lift you need to guide those strings that feed through. No big deal, but something to keep in mind as you go.
Trim ring off; you can see where I have moved the saddles to get to the mounting screws for the bridge (A string and G string)
Underneath the bridge is an angled hole where that ground wire feeds up. The idea on a hardtail bridge like these is to have a stripped section of wire that is squished up against the bridge to make the ground connection. A P Bass has the same setup for example. You don't want any insulated wire squished under the bridge, just some of the stripped conductors, so it's thin and doesn't interfere with the bridge being tight against the body. If you want to be hardcore you can scuff up the bottom of the bridge plate and solder the wire. Just make sure it lines up with the rout for the ground wire so you don't need to remove any more wood.
Position the wire, screw the bridge down with the closest screw to hold it together and then check continuity with your DMM or VOM before you go any farther. It should be less than an ohm when you measure between the bridge and ground if it making a good connection. If it isn't connected (eg: open), pop it off and try again. They can move around. You can tape them down to the back of the bridge with a small bit of painters tape if you like. Once it is happy, re-assemble the guitar, tune up and fix the intonation.
The guitar is much happier with the new pickup and solid wiring. I think the finishing touch will be a treble bleed across the volume pot to keep the guitar from losing so much high end when the volume gets turned down. I want it to stay jangly even when it is not on "10".
Good background article on Guitar grounding: https://www.fralinpickups.com/2018/11/12/understanding-guitar-grounding
Follow Up: Treble Bleed trials
I have installed a .002 cap and a 130k resistor between the high end and the wiper of the volume pot on the guitar. The Seymour Duncan site calls this the "parallel" type.
It is still a bit brighter at full volume but a lot less muffled at other settings. Much more balanced. I am going to live with it a while and see if it needs "more" something.
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