Bypassing the Powerchip?

[18is9]

Hi! Oh man this forum looks awesome!

I have a refined Fly Deluxe from around 2005, and the output is hissy. There is static white noise coming out regardless of any vol / tone setting. It is audible in high-gain settings, not with a clean amp. The level is a tad stronger than a normal passive pickup, say a Duncan 59, but the problem is that while with normal passive wiring the noise goes down as you turn the volume down, with the parker the hiss stays the same and makes the vol pot useless in any other than max setting.

First of all, is this normal? Is the Fishman Powerchip preamp supposed to be dead silent? Should I just buy a new one and replace it?

Second, I don't really need the possibility to mix piezo and magnetic pickups. Would it be easy / possible to wire the system in a way that I would have direct magnetic or piezo-only setting so that the preamp would be bypassed completely for the magnetic pickups using the standard components there? I have basic understanding of the electronics and soldering, but the powerchip makes everything difficult.

EDIT: Is it the second wiring diagram in the Wiring diagrams in this forum ?

EDIT2: Well, I just followed the diagrams and at least the magnetics are now passive and the piezo should be on the other stereo channel. I don't have a proper cable to test it out. Could it be modified to mono so that the magnetic vs piezo could be selected with the switch without having the blend option inbetween?

[vjmanzo]

hi @18is9, glad you're part of this forum! Welcome!

No piezo system I've ever come across is dead-quiet, and at high-gain, you will definitely hear some noise. That being said, piezo systems (the pre-amp specifically) can get pretty noisy due to issues with the battery dying (or draining due to component failure). You have a few options to replace the Fishman Powerchip with a new one or the Graphtech Ghost, and since your Fly is refined (2003+), the wiring is point-to-point, which is easier to work with than the flex ribbon cable.

To clarify (mostly for posterity's sake): the magnetic pickups are passive, they are not active; running them through the Fishman or host preamp does not make them active. Running them through the Fishman preamp only buffers them in the active preamp so that you can adjust the relative levels of the magnetic pickups to the piezo system via the blue trim pot on the Fishman Powerchip. It's the Fishman Powerchip that handles the split-channel switching. There is no "blend" between the mags and piezo in the sense of the way the Fly Bass has a blend between its two pickups, but, instead there are only different routing configurations, which are made possible by the active circuitry in the Fishman Powerchip.

The "Point-to-point with Passive Electronics" wiring diagram in the Parker Fly Electronics and Wiring Guides section shows one way of having the magnetic pickups run to the output jack unaffected by the Fishman Powerchip. Among other things, this route would allow you to still get sound out of the magnetic pickups even if the Fishman Powerchip is not powered. Are you saying in your "Edit2" note that you performed this mod?

Let me just also clarify, gently, that stereo, by definition, means a single stream of two-channel audio; the magnetic pickups are mono, and the piezo pickups are mono, so despite the nomenclature in the manual or elsewhere, the Fly is more appropriately consider to be "dual mono" where, via the Powerchip, the mono signals can be transmitted through a TRS cable as two separate signals. I believe there is a wiring guide called " Point-to-point with Active Electronics" that allows you to "toggle" between the stock electronics path where the mags go through the Powerchip, and way so that the mags completely bypass the Powerchip.

Hope this helps! Keep us posted!

[18is9]

Hi! Thanks for the reply. I did the "Point-to-point with Passive Electronics" as you referred, and it did what it was supposed to do (kick the Powerchip out from the magnetic signal path). It works now so that with a mono cable I can only get the magnetick pickups signal, and with TRS, yes, the other channel has the piezo signal but no magnetic pickup signal and the other has the magnetic signal but no piezo. I tested it with an 3.5mm-to-RCA cable and some plug converters. I'm happy with this setting, I mostly play high gain music and there is no hiss, and now I have an option to use the piezos in the rare occasions if I wish.

To be clear, "Point-to-point with Active Electronics" from this forum was how my Fly was set up before I did anything. There the magnetic pickups run through the piezo preamp system in all the settings. I think that this wiring is meant for those who want to rewire their prerefined Flys to point-to-point.

An ultimate setup for me would be that with the 3-way switch the "magnetic only" setting would be passive and bypass the Powerchip, and "piezo only" would give you the piezo signal, and the middle position would sum them both. An I mean now to a cable with a mono plug. But I think I can live with the current setting now .

[vjmanzo]

So glad this worked for you! Thanks for the info!

To be clear, "Point-to-point with Active Electronics" from this forum was how my Fly was set up before I did anything. There the magnetic pickups run through the piezo preamp system in all the settings. I think that this wiring is meant for those who want to rewire their prerefined Flys to point-to-point.

Thanks for confirming this!

An ultimate setup for me would be that with the 3-way switch the "magnetic only" setting would be passive and bypass the Powerchip, and "piezo only" would give you the piezo signal, and the middle position would sum them both.

That would be cool! There were some players on the only forum that used a toggle switch between the “bypassed mode” you now have now and the original “through the Powerchip” mode that the Fly comes with originally.

Glad this all worked out for you!

[WKG]

So glad this worked for you! Thanks for the info!

To be clear, "Point-to-point with Active Electronics" from this forum was how my Fly was set up before I did anything. There the magnetic pickups run through the piezo preamp system in all the settings. I think that this wiring is meant for those who want to rewire their prerefined Flys to point-to-point.

Thanks for confirming this!

An ultimate setup for me would be that with the 3-way switch the "magnetic only" setting would be passive and bypass the Powerchip, and "piezo only" would give you the piezo signal, and the middle position would sum them both.

That would be cool! There were some players on the only forum that used a toggle switch between the “bypassed mode” you now have now and the original “through the Powerchip” mode that the Fly comes with originally.

Glad this all worked out for you!

I am dealing with the same issue with my 2005 mojo fly. Did you use the stock switches or did you upgrade them?

I looked at the passive diagram but had a hard time figuring out the actual switch wiring. I know some people have used the DiMarzio EP1111 4pdt and were able to solve the passive mag & piezo issue but the only diagram is the one for the Ghost preamp, not the Fishman.

I sent you a PM too...

[18is9]

Hi! Sorry for the late reply, I have not logged in for a couple of weeks... Anyway, all stock for me I think, at least I did not change any of the posts or switches, and I think mine is with the Ghost preamp. It took some time to figure all out from the schematics.

How is it going, did you solve the problem?

[mmmguitar]

Just bumping this old thread to say that I posted a diagram for bypassing the Powerchip here.

#PiezoIssues

#SwitchReplacement