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2 hum 4 way Tele switch

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  • 2 hum 4 way Tele switch

    Hi folks--weird wiring question for y'all.

    I'm attempting to install two 4-conductor humbuckers (Black Winters) using a 4 way Tele switch, with individual coil splits to isolate the screw coils on demand. The switch positions are (1) Bridge Only (2) Bridge + Neck parallel (3) Neck Only (4) Bridge + Neck Series. 1 vol, 1 tone, both push-pull DPDT 500k pots.

    Got everything wired up, and everything works great except for one setting. When I split the neck pickup in (4), the bridge pickup drops out. That makes sense, since I'm shorting everything after the first neck coil to ground, but I can't figure out if there's a way to switch the conductors around so that I get series wiring from the neck screw coil to the bridge screw coil in (4) with my neck and bridge coils split.

    Just to save you the typing, I really like the clean sound the BW's generate as single screw coils, and wanted to be able to cover Tele-style tones as well as the more usual BW fare. Sort of a Tele from Hell approach. I like the sounds thus far, but would like to hear the series tone from the two screw coils.

    Thanks much!

  • #2
    Re: 2 hum 4 way Tele switch

    If you have 2 pickups in series, the typical shorting a coil to ground will indeed be problematic. All I could think of in that case would be to short the unused coil to itself, so there is through connection for the second pickup.

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    • #3
      Re: 2 hum 4 way Tele switch

      Originally posted by AlexR View Post
      If you have 2 pickups in series, the typical shorting a coil to ground will indeed be problematic. All I could think of in that case would be to short the unused coil to itself, so there is through connection for the second pickup.
      Thanks. Did some research with that as my starting point, found a possible solution that I'll be trying. Apparently what I'm trying to do is this:

      https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-fxdz...924488.jpg?c=2

      From what I can understand, rather than just sending the north coil to ground, this setup sends the pickup output to the blade switch through the pot, where either one or two coils are active. The current setup just sends the pickup output to ground when the pot is pulled, this selects between one and two coil operation before the output goes to the switch. Will report back if this gets me anywhere.

      Appreciate the lead,

      Matt

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      • #4
        Re: 2 hum 4 way Tele switch

        Just reporting back--worked great. Guitar now has ability to run the following, using two Black Winter 4-conductor humbuckers and two push-pull pots (1 Vol, 1 Tone):

        (1a) Bridge Humbucker
        (1b) Bridge South (screw) Coil
        (2a) Bridge Humbucker + Neck Humbucker (Parallel)
        (2b) Bridge South Coil + Neck Humbucker (Parallel)
        (2c) Bridge Humbucker + Neck South Coil (Parallel)
        (2d) Bridge South Coil + Neck South (screw) Coil (Parallel)
        (3a) Neck Humbucker
        (3b) Neck South Coil
        (4a) Bridge Humbucker + Neck Humbucker (Series)
        (4b) Bridge South Coil + Neck Humbucker (Series)
        (4c) Bridge Humbucker + Neck South Coil (Series)
        (4d) Bridge South Coil + Neck South Coil (Series)


        12 possible configurations overall. Liking what I'm getting, both clean and very high gain (BW's not my favorite for "on the edge" tones, but either extreme is great). Would definitely recommend this to anybody looking for a way to wring some new sounds out of high-output humbuckers.

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        • #5
          Re: 2 hum 4 way Tele switch

          Glad you got it sorted

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