Most useful / interesting alternative wiring schemes

[zizyphus]

Hey team!

Just thought it might be nice to share same interesting wiring schemes we've all used to get the toneezzzz. Hopefully, we can learn something from each other, and potentially used each others' tricks to our own ends.

Here are a few I use often, that I wish someone had taught me 20 years ago:

-Small resistor for partial coil splitting, to avoid thin sounding split humbuckers (I've even used multiple different resistor values on a 3-way toggle to have varies shades of coil splitting for a given humbucker)
-Dual gang pots - great for wiring a strat with 2 volume knobs and 1 tone knob.
-Dual function tone knobs (bass cut / treble cut) - either by wiring a Fender TBX tone control appropriately, or with a push/pull
-Phase switching, when combined with the above mods. While out-of-phase tones are not everyone's bag, a "partial" out of phase tone can be beautiful, i.e., when one of the pickups has its volume rolled down slightly, or its bass cut (which reduces the phase cancellation and actually introduces more bass back into the out-of-phase tone)
-In-series / out of phase - I have this set up on a Baja tele, and this is a pretty rad tone

I've tried things like the Freeway switch, but I've usually come back to more intuitive controls like the above.

What have you all tried?

 

[Mincer]

I have tried Triple Shots, and all manner of push/push pots and mini switches. I've gone down to 5 sounds I will use all the time, and take me 1 move to get to. I hard wire that to a Super Switch, and I'm set.

 

[Chistopher]

BriGuy has a pretty cool wiring. SSS volume, 3 way pickup selector rotary knob, 3 way single/series/parallel rotary knob

 

[uOpt]

In-series is very cool if you are also out-of-phase.

I would also mention a Q-filter instead of one tone control.

 

[justFred]

The Bill Lawrence 5-Way Telecaster Circuit
Positions 4 and 5 add an interesting element to the CBS era Telecaster’s sound.

 

[Artie]

I might end up making a few posts in this thread. I think my favorite, with a dual-humbucker guitar, is making the middle position the stud coil of the bridge, in series with, the screw coil of the neck, to make a virtual 3rd middle humbucker. Great tone because you get a little warmth of the neck, with a little bite from the bridge.

 

[Chistopher]

Also I like the Dick Dale wiring. 3-way switch on a Strat with a switch to convert the neck and the middle positions both to neck and middle. No volume.

It inspired me to do a similar wiring on my Strat. 3-way with a neck-on switch

 

[Artie]

I just "googled" that. Looks interesting, but I think you meant "no tone."

 

[Chistopher]

I just "googled" that. Looks interesting, but I think you meant "no tone."

Aw man, you're right

 

[Artie]

I might try that on one of my Strats. Or at least, my own variation of it.

 

[Chistopher]

Yeah, I tend to be very "less is more" when it comes to 3 pickup guitar wirings

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I like the idea of a bridge-direct-to-jack switch. I may be looking into one once I source a long shaft 250K push pull pot.

 

[zizyphus]

I like the idea of a bridge-direct-to-jack switch. I may be looking into one once I source a long shaft 250K push pull pot.

I find this quite useful, though I’d strongly recommend that if you do it, you use a push/push not push/pull (or just an easy-to-flip switch)

I use blower switches as “channel switch” between clean and dirty - roll the volume off fo your clean tone, then jump to 11 for dirty

 

[zizyphus]

I might end up making a few posts in this thread. I think my favorite, with a dual-humbucker guitar, is making the middle position the stud coil of the bridge, in series with, the screw coil of the neck, to make a virtual 3rd middle humbucker. Great tone because you get a little warmth of the neck, with a little bite from the bridge.

Interesting! How would you do this?

I can imaging it working with a push/pull of some kind, but I’m not sure how you would do it in the middle position of a 3-way

 

[zizyphus]

Also I like the Dick Dale wiring. 3-way switch on a Strat with a switch to convert the neck and the middle positions both to neck and middle. No volume.

It inspired me to do a similar wiring on my Strat. 3-way with a neck-on switch

Neck-on is quite useful. The so-called “7 sound strat” - love it

I have both of my strats wired this way, with 2 volumes knobs and 1 tone, and with another push/pull that puts the neck/ middle in series

 

[Chistopher]

Neck-on is quite useful. The so-called “7 sound strat” - love it

I have both of my strats wired this way, with 2 volumes knobs and 1 tone, and with another push/pull that puts the neck/ middle in series

Well then I guess you could say I have a 5 - sound Strat. I'm not a big fan of 5 way switches. So I have neck, middle, bridge, neck/middle, neck/bridge

 

[Artie]

Interesting! How would you do this?

I can imaging it working with a push/pull of some kind, but I’m not sure how you would do it in the middle position of a 3-way

Yup. It's do-able with a standard 3-way. Gimme a sec to search my archives.

I found it, but it reminded me that it must be done with a guitar that uses a Fender style 3-way. It would require a custom built LP style toggle. (Which I have designed on paper, but not built.)

 

[MikeS]

I might end up making a few posts in this thread. I think my favorite, with a dual-humbucker guitar, is making the middle position the stud coil of the bridge, in series with, the screw coil of the neck, to make a virtual 3rd middle humbucker. Great tone because you get a little warmth of the neck, with a little bite from the bridge.

I'll second this, I love Artie's coil swap mod. I have a version of it on two different guitars, both HH, both with standard toggles and using a push/pull for the swap. This creates two flavors of the coil swap (bridge stud + neck screw in the bridge position and neck stud + bridge screw in the neck position). I also take the neck pickup and rotate it 180-degrees from typical so that the neck screw coil is closer to the bridge. The result are the coil swaps are inner/outer coils, and the added coil separation yields greater variety between the two different coil swap sounds.

 

[MikeS]

While it's not necessarily interesting or unique, I've found the G&L PTB tone circuit to be worlds more useful than the traditional Fender tone circuit.

 

[freefrog]

Really not a fan of bass cut controls based on series caps: they just don't work with some fuzz and treble booster circuits. I vastly prefer to wire pickups in parallel with an inductor, itself in series with a limiting resistor if needed.

Parallel inductors open to all kinds of tones: not only they give a single coilish response to humbuckers without the downsides of coil splitting but when in series with a cap, they can emulate 2d or 4th Strat positions with a single pickup, or acoustic guitar sounds.

Regarding in phase/OOP and series/parallel signal paths, I've done my share of experiments since I've a Burns with all the options of Brian May's Red Special and an experimental partcaster opening to... 45 different wiring options (that I play most of the time on position... 1. LOL).