4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch also?

[Bloomworks]

Hey Everyone,

I'm putting together a Telecaster:
Swamp Ash Body, Maple/Rosewood neck.
Duncan Alnico II Pro Tele Lead bridge pickup
Either a Jazz or '59 or Alnico II Pro Humbucker in the Neck position.

I would like to have the standard 4 way switch mod, but with a Push-Pull switch to coil split the Neck Humbucker.

Haven't found any diagrams for this scenario yet. Anyone have any ideas?

Basically this wiring diagram, but with the push-pull:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/wiring...s,neck-h,bridge-s,1-volume,1-tone,4-way-blade

Thanks so much!!

 

[AlexR]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Well done. Those sort of things are just essentially combining two diagrams.

Once you realise many of the diagrams are simply modular, it makes designing your own wiring so much less complicated.

edit - should you wish to do series parallel as your neck pickup switching, the hot and ground outputs from the p-p go to the black and green wires on the switch respectively.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Thanks man! I hear that. I never found a diagram with this combination of ideas. I think it's going to be an excellent, and easy to use, wiring scheme. Getting the last parts today!!

 

[AlexR]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

I've made a few of my own guitars....many of them with unique switches and knob configurations. It just a matter of tracing how the signal gets from pickup to jack that you can see what and where certain controls fit into the schematic.

One build recently is this carved top Jazzmaster. I have 3 slider switches plus a 3-way and 2 knobs. It was mainly what to do with the 3 sliders that was of interest, as the latter 2 control types were stock JM type.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Looks really great! Did you build it from scratch? Or did you order the body and paint job? Very cool choice of extra switches. That will give you more possibilities than the standard Jazzmaster wiring.

My Tele was given to me and I re-finished the body and changed the neck pickup and the wiring scheme. It had a sunburst where the black edge paint was 2" or more wide. Didn't look that great. It's now stained burnt sienna with Tru-Oil finish over it (23 coats).

To answer your very helpful edit, because I have a 4-way switch I'm going to have the two pickups in series on one of the settings. Perhaps you meant I could have the humbucker by itself in series/parallel with the push-pull switch. All interesting stuff. I'm going to leave it as in the diagram for now and explore those sounds with my students and on some gigs, etc, etc.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Wow, that is actually a cool wiring diagram. Thanks for sharing with us!

 

[AlexR]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Looks really great! Did you build it from scratch? Or did you order the body and paint job? Very cool choice of extra switches. That will give you more possibilities than the standard Jazzmaster wiring.

My Tele was given to me and I re-finished the body and changed the neck pickup and the wiring scheme. It had a sunburst where the black edge paint was 2" or more wide. Didn't look that great. It's now stained burnt sienna with Tru-Oil finish over it (23 coats).

To answer your very helpful edit, because I have a 4-way switch I'm going to have the two pickups in series on one of the settings. Perhaps you meant I could have the humbucker by itself in series/parallel with the push-pull switch. All interesting stuff. I'm going to leave it as in the diagram for now and explore those sounds with my students and on some gigs, etc, etc.

Yep.....humbucker itself in series parallel. All you do here is to have your lower output humbucker option being hum cancelling as well. The tone is slightly different, perhaps a little less brittle than split.

The JM is a full scratch build, and unique as far as I know. Its a set neck/carved top with maple/alder for the body. Its also semihollow with 2 chambers top and bottom. Its a 'twin' of a strat I did very similarly. Both have bubinga fretboards, both are chambered, and both are set neck with an access type heel.
I think mine will have an OOP switch, plus a bass cut and cocked way type treble cut (a Tele esquire mod). These cut options will work on whatever pickup is selected.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Cool, looks great!

Here are some pictures of the project so far. The ugly sunburst, then sanded to white, then stained to a burnt sienna color, then a Tru-Oil finish, then neck re-attached to the body:

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

@Mincer, You're Welcome! Glad you like the diagram. My pleasure to share it! It was a bit of a research project, but it came out great and I learned some new things.

 

[AlexR]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Yep, thats certainly a better finish than the 'first day with the spraygun' sunburst.

After a few coats of truoil I tend to apply a coat using some fine wet/dry paper. The grit takes some of the tops off and mixes this with some liquid oil and tends to really smooth out the surface. It looks like an ash body, which that step will really help with.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Well, hopefully someone has a great idea for me. I wired up my Tele per the wiring scheme above, in this thread, and all I get is the neck pickup on all 4 settings. The push/pull works very well. I also checked the leads on the bridge pickup, they are fine, the pickup is good. I'm at a loss. Anyone?

 

[Mincer]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Throw up some pics of the wiring- I am sure someone will spot something that went wrong.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

So, the diagram I originally posted didn't actually work when I wired it up! I ended up with the Neck Pickup on all 4 settings, and no Bridge Pickup ever. It turns out that, in my effort to have a reverse control plate, I wired the 4-way switch backwards front-to-back and side-to-side! After some troubleshooting, I figured it out. Here is the correct wiring diagram for the scheme I wanted to have. Enjoy!

 

[Gstring]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Bloomworks..Thanks for sharing. Am glad you are happy with the result.

I have experimented with various multi tone Telecaster wirings with various pick up combinations. I (and some fellow players) are not great enthusiast of the 4 way on a Tele, preferring the slightly more ease of flick of the 3 way.

I have a multi tone HB neck Tele. It has 2 push pulls giving series and out of phase and a mini on-on-on between the pots giving split ,parallel and series for the HB. Just another variation on a theme and have to admit quite a bit of wire is in the relatively small cavity. Works well though.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Sounds great! Really cool! I like the 4-way, and it doesn't bother me because I wired it so that Pos 1 is the Bridge pickup alone, and Pos 4 is the Neck pickup alone. That took me quite a while to have correct. There aren't that many diagrams for the 4-way switch out there.

 

[spector_red]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Oh man.. your wiring diagram is like striking gold for me. I'm just about to build a tele with humbucker in the neck and single coil Bridge, and these options with push/pull, coil split look like the business.

I have some questions:

1) This is reverse wiring, as in, the Volume control is closest to the neck, tone in the middle, and then 4 way selector closest to jack cup?
2) When I look at the wiring diagram , and I'm soldering it together, the lug with the green wire from Humbucker, is the side of the 4 way with the spring or the side without the spring?
3) I'm assuming the 220k is the treble bleed?
4) I'm curious as to what's the thinking behind going with the 0.022 cap instead of the usual 0.47?

Hope my questions makes sense.

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Hi spector_red,

Glad my wiring diagram can help you! It was quite a thing to figure it out!

Your questions:
1) Yes, it is a reverse control plate with the volume near the pickups, then the tone in the middle, and the 4 way switch closest to the output jack. (I wasn't able to reverse the positions of the parts of the diagram.)

2) Which way you face the spring on the switch doesn't matter, as it's the same electrically on both sides. However, it is supposedly traditional to face the spring to the outside edge of the body.

3) I don't actually know why the resistor is there. I looked at a million diagrams and that seemed to be a good thing to have in there. I think it mellows some highs off the bridge pickup. It's not a treble bleed, because that would go on the volume pot, on the in and out lugs.

4) As to the cap value, I tried a few different caps and this value gave me the best taper on the tone control. But, it's a simple matter to make a test cable and clip in a few different caps for your wiring. Depending on which pickups you have, I would check a few different caps just in case.

Good luck with your wiring project. Hopefully I saved you a bunch of hours of work!

Sincerely,

Steve

 

[spector_red]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

I have finally got around to wiring this up. First attempt didn't work, as I was confusing the orientation of the switch trying to wire it up at 2am. Got up fresh the next morning, had a good look and another attempt, this time successful. I also configured it so that when the tone switch is pulled up, I get the split hum bucker, instead of having it split when pushed down.

There's no treble bleed - which did not go un-noticed. I was going to solder in the cap/resistor , but found a suggested alternative to just solder a connection between the tone outside lug and the volume middle, which I believe comes from the same concept as 50s Les Paul wiring. This works beautifully.

I gotta say, I couldn't be happier with this wiring! This is my first humbucker equipped Telecaster, and I'm still getting used to it. Its like my brain is so used to the traditional single coil neck and combined sound, it surprises me when its not there. So to be able to split the pick and still get all the traditional Tele sounds is really handy.

I also really like the selection order of the switching. Its very intuitive and makes sense. Kudos to Steve (Bloomworks) for figuring out and sharing. Alot of other diagrams have some of these options, but the cycling through order of whats selected was not very intuitive. Thank you for sharing!

I have not tried wiring in the 220k resistor yet. Waiting on some paper in oil caps to arrive where I will play around with different values. I got some sprague orange caps in for now. I'll also try the 220k resistor then.

The other thing I havent figured out yet is exactly what I'm hearing in each position?

Not split:
Bridge
Bridge and Neck (parallel)
Bridge and Neck (series)
Neck

Split:
Bridge (single coil)
Bridge and Neck (single coil) parallel ?
?
?

 

[Bloomworks]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

Hello spector_red,

Awesome! Glad you found my diagram to be useful. It was a bit of a job to figure it out.

I'm pretty sure the split settings are as follows:

Split:
Bridge (single coil)
Bridge and Neck (single coil) parallel
Bridge and Neck (single coil) series
Neck (single coil)

However, with the switch pulled up, the parallel and series settings seem to be the same in terms of volume and tone. Also, for some unknown reason, you get a small amount of the neck pickup in the bridge only setting when you pull up on the switch. However, I like the sound of it, so it's cool!

Enjoy.

 

[ClearlyBlurry]

Re: 4 Way Switch, Telecaster, HB neck, SC Bridge, possible to have Push-Pull switch a

So, the diagram I originally posted didn't actually work when I wired it up! I ended up with the Neck Pickup on all 4 settings, and no Bridge Pickup ever. It turns out that, in my effort to have a reverse control plate, I wired the 4-way switch backwards front-to-back and side-to-side! After some troubleshooting, I figured it out. Here is the correct wiring diagram for the scheme I wanted to have. Enjoy!

View attachment 82268

Hey everybody! I had to create a an account because this wiring diagram is exactly what I’m looking for! My question is is there a version of this exact diagram but not for a reverse control plate? What what I have to do differently to make that work… Thanks advance for any responses!