Pickup Wiring

[MotleyMars]

I took apart my guitar (equipped with two humbuckers) to paint it and noticed that it had spaces for a hum/sing/hum combination. I am getting new pickups for it. So can I add a single so I have a h/s/h combo and just wire to the volume and to the switch like the humbuckers are? Or do I need a five-way switch or something? Thanks

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Pickup Wiring

Lots of options-
If you don't want a vol control on the single one of the easiest things you could just enable and disable it with a push pull and run it direct to the outs- On one hand it's cool becuase with a knob pull you would add in the single at full vol no mater what else is going on- On the other hand you have no vol on the single coil - it's kind of a full blower mod so it's a trade off-

With a 5 way you could get combos of traditional HSH

Hope this helps

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Pickup Wiring

I take it that this is a Strat or Strat clone of some kind with the traditional Strat pickguard set-up (otherwise, how would the middle pu cavity be hidden?)

The typical Strat set-up is a master volume with two tones, so there is never a way to adjust the individual volume of the middle pickup anyway -- except of course by raising/lowering it.

How to wire it depends entirely on what you want. If you never plan on splitting the humbuckers for single-coil tones, then just adding the push/pull pot to pop the middle pu in and out as zionstrat suggested, is the way to go.

But if you want to split the humbuckers for a variety of tones, go with the 5-way switch and add one or two push/pull pots to split the humbuckers for single-coil sounds.

 

[Artie]

Re: Pickup Wiring

There's at least two very cool things to do with an HSH:

1. Wire it like this: Hum/sing/hum - with split

2. Put the middle pup on a push/pull so you can keep the neck/bridge combo, and add the "all 3" combo.

There's other things you can do also, but those are my favorites, and they're easy.