Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Butch Snyder

Butch Snyder

ObsoleteChickenPickingologist
I really want to bring my Tele back to a stock look. I have a set of VIntage Stacks for Telecaster and I want to get more out of them than just bridge/bridge-neck(parallel)/neck. I have done the 4-way thing where you get the bridge-neck series thing. I have a 5-way switch that I want to use. Now, it's not a super 4-pole switch or anything. It's just a regular 5-way Strat switch. Please give me your ideas as to how I can wire everything and get 5 cool usable tones.

Here are some I have thought of...

1. Wire them like a 3-way but in the 2 and 4 postions, have them in powerboost mode.
2. Do the out of phase wiring in position 2 and bridge-neck in position 4.

You get the drift. What do you guys think...
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Hey Butch; This could be tough. The problem is, a 5-way has 3 terminals and a "common". In position #2 and #4, you're just connecting terminals 1 & 2, and 2 & 3, together respectively. The "powerboost" mode requires that a connection be "broken", rather than made.

I'll mess with this a bit, and see if there's some way around that. Or, just find something else interesting to do. ;)
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Hi Artie,

Thanks for chiming in. I was hoping you'd be around... I'm not necessarily "married" to the idea of the power boost thing. I just want to get the most out of my pickups and a standard 5-way switch...
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

I'm "doodling" up a couple things now. We might be able to sorta get it. I'll let you know later on today. ;)
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

You know, Butch . . . I was just thinking, I may have messed up your thread. My forte is in knowing how to wire up something specific once you know what you want. But your actual question was looking for recommendations for good "sound" combinations. There's a whole bunch of people on this board better qualified for that than me: Lew, GearJoneser, Curly, Robert, Kent, rspst14 . . . the list goes on.

I'll still continue to doodle up some ideas, but its still early. You may want to delete this thread, and start fresh. ;)
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

I'd start over with a set of the Tele Hots with a Tapped Tele bridge pickup.

Or: If you can afford it get MJ to wind you the Alnico 2 version of the Tapped Tele Hot bridge pickup and the alnico 5 Tele ala Strat neck pickup. Looks bone stock from the outside.

1. Hot bridge
2. Hot bridge and neck
3. neck
4. neck and vintage bridge
5. vintage bridge

Lew
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Lewguitar said:
I'd start over with a set of the Tele Hots with a Tapped Tele bridge pickup.
Lew
Click to expand...

A couple of days ago, that was my plan...

However, I'm a couple of days past my 21-day exchange policy deadline. So, I want to make something work using the Vintage Stacks...
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

i think if you had the 4 pole switch youd open up a lot more options.
im trying to think of what you could do, to me it makes more sense to use a push/pull to go to powerboost mode and maybe a 3 or 4 way for pup switching.
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Lewguitar said:
I'd start over with a set of the Tele Hots with a Tapped Tele bridge pickup.

Or: If you can afford it get MJ to wind you the Alnico 2 version of the Tapped Tele Hot bridge pickup and the alnico 5 Tele ala Strat neck pickup. Looks bone stock from the outside.

1. Hot bridge
2. Hot bridge and neck
3. neck
4. neck and vintage bridge
5. vintage bridge

Lew
Click to expand...

That was going to be my suggestion - I had a Tele years ago that was wired this way, except it had a tapped QP & a Gibson HB. (I think that's the axe in my profile pic - it's been over twenty years.) Works good, no cutting or drilling involved. To bad the VS doesn't do much in single-coil mode.
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Unfortunately, I can't seem to come up with anything particularly exciting with a 5-way and two pups other than what SD already has on their site.

For example, you could do this:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/support/schematics/2hum_vol_tone_5way-w-split.html

Basically, you can do anything with those pups, that you can do with any 4-wire humbucker. I'm just not sure how those stacks will sound "split". There's also a Tele-split diagram that might be interesting:

http://www.seymourduncan.com/website/support/schematics/tapped_tele.html

The only thing that would be different in that diagram, is that you'ld use the red/white of the bridge, and not just the red.

Edit: Heh - other folks posted while I was composing that. Jeremy's idea, using a push/pull, is what I'd do. ;)
 
Last edited:
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Well, I'm kind of thinking about either sticking with the 3-way or 4-way and going with the power boost scheme with push/pull pots. Here's a drawing. My question is there's a connection from the push/pull pot that goes to the hot output. Where exactly does that wire go?

Powerboost.jpg
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

ArtieToo said:
That goes to the 3-way or 5-way selector switch.
Click to expand...

Which lug on the 3-way? And what about the 3 lugs on the pot itself? Can do you me a quick drawing?
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Butch Snyder said:
Which lug on the 3-way? And what about the 3 lugs on the pot itself? Can do you me a quick drawing?
Click to expand...

I can do the drawing real quick . . . unfortunately, I can't post it 'til I get home from work. (About 4 hours.) :rolleyes:

What kind of switch did you decide to use?
3-way, 4-way, 5-way, etc.?
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

ArtieToo said:
I can do the drawing real quick . . . unfortunately, I can't post it 'til I get home from work. (About 4 hours.) :rolleyes:

What kind of switch did you decide to use?
3-way, 4-way, 5-way, etc.?
Click to expand...

That's okay, I can wait. I decided to go with the 3-way.
 
Re: Wiring Gurus, I need Help...

Butch Snyder said:
That's okay, I can wait. I decided to go with the 3-way.
Click to expand...

Cool. Now, just so I can make the drawing accurate to your needs, there are 3 different types of 3-way. Is the type you'll be using, the one that looks like a Strat 5-way?
 
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