Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

[ImmortalGizmo]

Hey guys,

I'm a huge fan of SD pups, they're in most of my guitars but I recently came across an excellent deal on this sweet BC2 DiMarzio bridge pickup (Billy Corgan sig model).

The wiring looks the same as a JB humbucker in that it has the 4 wires and ground.

I've never installed any DiMarzio pups in a stratocaster before, and I was really hoping someone could just tell me which wires need to be soldered where for this particular setup. I've tried looking at the wiring diagrams on the DiMarzio site and there's just too many wiring options. I'm only looking for it to serve it's normal purpose with the hope of minimal noise of course.

I've taken the strings and pickguard off as you'll notice in the picture below. 2nd pic is the new pickup. I suppose where I'm getting confused here is that the current bridge position single coil only has 2 wires coming from it whereas the new one has 4 wires and a ground..


Any help would surely be appreciated, thanks everyone.. If better pics are needed I can take them, just need to know which wires to tie off with electric tape and which ones to solder where. :\


Squier 50's vibe strat-

 

[htwheelz67]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

Just follow Dimarzio wiring colors they are not the same as Duncan, I would suggest installing a 3 way mini toggle to get series/split/parallel to get more options, install 500k pots as well as a different cap .22 uf. If you just want to drop it in and try it solder or tape the black and white wires together, green and bare go to ground and red goes where the hot went from the stock pickup on the switch. This will give you series humbucker only, it will over power the stock A3 pickups by a good margin and with the 250k pots it will get bassy when turning down the volume. I like the DMZ single sized buckers especially the tone zone t and s which the BC2 is based on. I highly recommend 500k pots, 3 way mini toggle and a mallory 150m .001uf cap as a treble bleed, the stock A3 pups will still sound great with this combo with a tone and volume adjustment and the BC2 in parallel especially but also split will still sound like a strat at lower volumes but crank up the volume in series and you will have the closest thing to a full sized bucker.

 

[The JEM Ghost]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

I've taken the strings and pickguard off as you'll notice in the picture below. 2nd pic is the new pickup. I suppose where I'm getting confused here is that the current bridge position single coil only has 2 wires coming from it whereas the new one has 4 wires and a ground.

If you don't want any split/parallel options, wire it as follows: The DiMarzio's red wire goes to the 5-way switch where your current bridge single coil's black wire goes, solder the DiMarzio's black and white wire together and tape it off, then solder the DiMarzio's green and bare wire together and solder them to a grounding point (the back of a pot). That's all it takes for standard (series) operation. If you should desire split or parallel options, you can follow the Duncan schematics but you need to switch the black wire for the red one and the red wire for the black wire. In other words the black wire on a Duncan pickup is the red one on a DiMarzio and the red wire on a Duncan is the black wire on a DiMarzio. Hope this helps!

 

[ImmortalGizmo]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

This is exactly what I needed to know, thanks so much!!! You guys are awesome.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

The only thing that could happen is that bridge/middle might be thin and weak. In which case swap the green and red.

 

[ImmortalGizmo]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

The only thing that could happen is that bridge/middle might be thin and weak. In which case swap the green and red.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but is there a way to wire this up so that all the power goes to the bridge pickup? I have 2 strats that I use only bridge position pickups in so I was wondering if there would be any benefit to wiring the DiMarzio to push a stronger signal out?

If not, then it seems like my best option is to wire it the way "JEM Ghost" instructed..

Thanks again for the input everyone, I love this forum! :yourock:

 

[AlexR]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

I'm not quite sure I'm following you here. When you select the bridge only, you get only the bridge pickup sending the signal. And you can only get as much signal as the pickup can provide - which is what both of us are recommending. However as you move the pickup selector to the next notch from bridge only you get 2 pickups combined. This is where the issue might occur.
When you wire pickups from different makers the possibility is that they fight each other due to opposite polarity signals - called 'out of phase'. Peter Green from fleetwood mac in the late 60's used this effect quite often, but for most of the time it sounds bad.
In that case you have to reverse the wires. The signal for 1 pickup is exactly the same, but it no longer fights the other when combined

 

[ImmortalGizmo]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

Gotcha, that makes a lot of sense actually. It's just a little confusing reading about all these different wiring methods (like the Eric Johnson method for example) or if you're wiring in series or parallel. I understand what that means, but I do not understand the pros & cons for each or if the type of guitar matters as well...

As of right this moment I'm wiring this pickup the way "JEM Ghost" suggested. Hopefully this doesn't cause that phase sound you are referring to. Just to clarify, did you mean that was a common issue in mixing pickup manufacturers (e.g. Seymore Duncan & DiMarzio)? or are there other variables too such as the type guitar being used?

You guys helped me big time back in February when I was installing a JB humbucker in my Peavey telecaster.. I still have no idea how any of you knew exactly where those wires went, but I suppose if you have a fundamental understanding of what each wire is for it's probably easier to tell. :boggled:

 

[AlexR]

Re: Squier "50's classic vibe" stratocaster wiring help!

You could say its a 50/50 proposition. It will either work or not. But if you use mainly the bridge only and you can't be bothered to dis-assemble again then your tone for that pickup alone in unchanged. So you might want to wait for the next string change.
But its just swapping the 2 colour wires one location for the other - green and red. The bare stays where it is whatever happens.