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Joined:
December 2023
Posts: 7
Location: Brisbane, Australia | Hello everyone!
My name is Alex, I'm from Brisbane Australia. I've always been fascinated with Ovations electric guitars, specifically of course the Breadwinner. Several years ago I found one for sale locally very cheap, because it had all the original finished striped, and all of the original electronics (including the pickguard) were gone and replaced with generic stuff. But still! it was a breadwinner and I promptly painted it black and went through various pickup and custom pickguards, even making my own preamp for it and everything. But since it was completely stripped of its originality, I never completely gelled with it. Off it went.
Flash forward to a month ago, I was rocking a 76 Shergold Masquerader (big Shergold/Hayman fan too) but it wasn't fitting the bill (great playing guitars but the pickups leave something to be desired) and not wanting to modify it, I decided I needed something else. Out of nowhere I found a Black Breadwinner in Melbourne for a great price, and it was completely stock (apart from the knobs) with the original case. I did the deal and got the guitar, man I was happy to find a stock black version!!
Having never tried one with the original electronics before, I went through and calibrated the Neck Pickup volume and Out of Phase level, I love the sound of the bridge pickup, the neck pickup is great to and the even the notch mode has it uses. Only thing I wasn't to fond of was the out of phase sound with both pickups. It was a bit too quacky like it had a cocked wah engaged on it. I decided to try a more traditional in phase pickup configuration.
I examined the wiring and simply swapped the neck pickup + and - around on the PCB. Plugged it in and it was certainly a much more usable sound with both pickups now, but a new issue arose. After figuring out which version of the preamp I had from tracing my PCB, I examined the schematic and found that when the pickup selector switch is in the Rear position, it engages an extra resistor to ground from the second gain stage, boosting the output more only in that position, I guess to compensate for the loss of signal with the out of phase sound. A simple mod fixed this though, and is easily reversible. I simply de soldered the leg of the 100k resistor from the switch so it wont engage when the switch is in that position. Now on all settings the sound is very balanced volume wise and all pickup positions to me are much more usable.
I'll add some photos of the resistor to disconnect if you want to perform this mod.
Thanks!
Alex
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Joined:
December 2023
Posts: 7
Location: Brisbane, Australia | 
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Joined:
December 2001
Posts: 7222
Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Welcome. Nice axe. I've made you a full member and moved this post to the General Forums where more folks have access to respond. | |
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Joined:
October 2005
Posts: 4044
Location: Utah | Very nice! | |
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Joined:
December 2023
Posts: 7
Location: Brisbane, Australia | Little extra here, on the case for this guitar was a metal plate, implying that this was a genuine dealer import to Australia, so it seems this guitar has spent most of its life here!
Edited by Nihillandvoid66 2024-01-03 8:34 PM
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My 75 Breadwinner and my modifications (in phase pickup mod)