I have now come full circle

[Chistopher]

When I first started wiring up my own guitars I tried to go with the most flexible wiring possible, everything else be damned. Nothing from the factory had the versatility I wanted, so I added fancy knobs and switches. Then I narrowed down to the 5 most useful knobs I could put on a superswitch, and then a bass and tone control.

Now all my guitars except one have the factory wiring scheme, because I simply don't use that many sounds. I'm even debating right now by a new Strat just to experiment with an old school 3-way switch, master volume, and a single tone control that effects the neck and middle.

Has anyone else found themselves going from super crazy wiring back to normal ones?

 

[Mincer]

I think after years of experimenting, I know what I like now. I'd rather just get back to playing. There are generally 5 sounds I like which take 1 move to get to, and I use those for everything.

 

[Blille]

Yup. I think it makes sense to experiment and understand what you want. I could do with three positions (four in HH) and a volume control. I have guitars with a bunch of switches that never get used.

 

[beaubrummels]

I got the most use out of flexible wiring when I was sitting in with a lot of people, doing session work, pick up gigs, and I was frequently dealing with unpredictable backlines (couldn't always bring my own amp, sometimes filling in for someone using their set up, or playing a bad room with poor sound quality). All that switching just enabled me to maintain my own sound when faced with a variety of unpredictable amps and venues.

 

[Securb]

I think Swiss Army wiring is great because it allows us to experiment and then settle down into what we really like/use. I would say 75% of the time, I use the bridge humbucker. The rest of the time, it is neck hum full, neck split, or both hums out of phase. Outside of those settings, there is not much more I need.

 

[NegativeEase]

When I first started wiring up my own guitars I tried to go with the most flexible wiring possible, everything else be damned. Nothing from the factory had the versatility I wanted, so I added fancy knobs and switches. Then I narrowed down to the 5 most useful knobs I could put on a superswitch, and then a bass and tone control.

Now all my guitars except one have the factory wiring scheme, because I simply don't use that many sounds. I'm even debating right now by a new Strat just to experiment with an old school 3-way switch, master volume, and a single tone control that effects the neck and middle.

Has anyone else found themselves going from super crazy wiring back to normal ones?

I have 2 that are wired to "do every combo possible" and I used to mod everything

. -those types of guitars for me are for recording ideas and such -for playing live I think they are annoying.

 

[Gtrjunior]

Yes, I used to always wire pickups for coil splitting. Then I moved on to series/parallel. And tbh, never used either option. Now i pretty much just have them wired in series and flip between bridge and neck.
Boom….done.

 

[weepingminotaur]

Flexibility is great, but I'm also realizing that I don't need a lot of what's out there. I'm mostly a bridge humbucker guy, but I do use neck single coil and neck/middle for neo-soul sounds and bridge split for funk.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

I have a Tele and two Strats, all loaded with single coils. I don't need my humbucker guitars to sound like them.

 

[JOLLY]

Honesty, I could probably get by with just a single humbucker guitar with one volume knob, and the volume knob would just be to turn it down when I'm not playing.

 

[Artie]

I think Swiss Army wiring is great because it allows us to experiment and then settle down into what we really like/use.

Yup. I experiment for myself, and to be able to help in the forum. But I usually go back to the basics.

Honesty, I could probably get by with just a single humbucker guitar with one volume knob, and the volume knob would just be to turn it down when I'm not playing.

Yup again. My most used guitar is my Peavey Rockmaster with the Perpetual Burn in the bridge. One pup, one knob. Close to being my cheapest guitar.

 

[GuitarStv]

I've done some pretty complicated wiring schemes that I ended up wiring for simpler ones. There are really very few sounds that I want to use a lot.

 

[Frater106]

I wired my ‘07 Wine Red Epi Les Paul Custom with Triple Shot pickup rings and two push-pull volume knobs that do in/out-of-phase and series-parallel. My new Jerry Cantrell Wino LPC has the stock wiring, though and I don’t feel the need to change it. I don’t really use all those options that much. To see someone really get the most out of fancy switching, watch Jimmy Page’s live solos. He could get so many tones out of a Les Paul that it is just ridiculous!

 

[Demanic]

Most of my stuff is three way. A few five way. One guitar has Triple Shots. I do think that I'm going to put a five way switch into my DXMG so I can have outside coils in parallel, or inside coils in series.

 

[GuitarStv]

The thing is . . . there comes a point where it's easier to change the tone with your fingers than by twiddling knobs and flicking switches.

Like if my neck pickup sounds boomy, I move my picking hand back a bit further towards the bridge. Tone adjusted. If I want a snappier attack when doing funk rhythm I relax the hold on my pick and angle it so it slides differently than I would for regular lead playing. Tone adjusted. This works best with single coil pickups for me, because I find it's always easier to back the tone off and to kill highs than try to add them . . . but you can probably make it work for any pickup and amp combo.

 

[NegativeEase]

The thing is . . . there comes a point where it's easier to change the tone with your fingers than by twiddling knobs and flicking switches.

Like if my neck pickup sounds boomy, I move my picking hand back a bit further towards the bridge. Tone adjusted. If I want a snappier attack when doing funk rhythm I relax the hold on my pick and angle it so it slides differently than I would for regular lead playing. Tone adjusted. This works best with single coil pickups for me, because I find it's always easier to back the tone off and to kill highs than try to add them . . . but you can probably make it work for any pickup and amp combo.

You are not wrong, but few here are ready to accept the power of the tone control from your fingas!


to further this -I move between picking and hybrid picking and full fingers on different passages in the same song to further control the tone,the attack, the sustain, the vibe etc.

 

[Chistopher]

Even simple stuff like adjusting how hard you hit the individual strings can make a difference. Too much bass? Don't hit the E and A strings as hard.

 

[Aceman]

I have a couple Swiss Army switchers...But I am a 90% Bridge and vol/tone on 10 guy.

I like messing around with them at home, but I've never goofed with live sound like that.

 

[Wolfshead]

Yeah, and the same applies to trying different pickups all the time. I use two settings - bridge or neck pickup, and whatever pickups are in the guitar when I buy it generally stay there.

 

[Seashore]

Simpler is better for me. I'm more comfortable using footswitches and just building my tones out of what I get from the bridge pickup than I am adjusting stuff on the guitar while I'm playing. I guess that's from doing vocals while I play. I have several guitars with the bridge pickup wired straight to the jack (which I really like in darker guitars) and never feel like I'm lacking for sounds. Occasionally when I'm recording I'll be like "oh, the neck pickup would be cool for this part", but it's never a deal breaker.

Having said that, this LP I just got has (among other things) a battery-powered boost on a toggle switch, and there's something appealing about it. It sounds very good. I may try it for my lead parts instead of using an OD, and just have a delay pedal in the loop. Then I won't need my channel switcher (I can just switch to the rolled off neck pickup for clean sounds) and I won't need any of this 4-cable-method stuff, and I can be the mini-board dweeb I've always known I was inside.