Any other wiring sickos out there?

[Goldietops]

First post on UW, so I thought I’d share my own personal, most ambitious (insane?) wiring project to date.

Humbuckers: Sheptone Tribute neck (A5), Sheptone Heartbreaker bridge.

Controls: Series/parallel on either pickup, passive treble-bass tone circuit for each pickup (PTB), switchable no-load blend pot, standard 3-way switch and master volume w/ treble bleed cap.

Signal Path*: hots from humbucker up to the respective outer series/parallel switches, from those switches down to the respective PTB tone controls, from the tone controls to the 3-way switch, from the 3-way switch (a) to the volume pot, and also (b) neck/bridge wiring from the 3-way back up to the blend switch, and from that switch to the adjacent blend control.

*Note: It’s been years since I hooked this up, but I’m pretty sure this is the correct schematic. Unfortunately, I didn’t write it down anywhere, but everything works as intended. More knowledgeable folks can correct me on anything I might have gotten wrong..

The output options on this guitar are unlike anything I’ve come across. Standard series output? Easy. Bridge in series with neck in parallel? Done. Bridge in parallel with some treble rolled off before blending in some series neck with some neck bass rolled off? I gotchu. For someone who has absolutely no use for something like this, it’s incredibly useful. Just thought I’d share this monstrosity.

 

[Hodgo]

Lordy. And no odd combos that cause everything to go to ground?

How many combos do you actually use?

 

[rockandroller]

That's really cool! and a very tidy-looking control arrangement!

 

[Goldietops]

Lordy. And no odd combos that cause everything to go to ground?

How many combos do you actually use?

None. I somehow made this mess work as it should. The wires look like spaghetti under the hood, but there’s no hum and no grounding issues. I did have to solder some shorter leads to longer wires for the top-to-bottom-to-top-to-bottom runs.

I really don’t play nearly as much as I would like, and these four walls are my only audience. Mostly use the bridge and dial in a little bit of parallel neck sounds with some bass rolled of the neck. I find that pretty pleasing for dirty licks that gives a little bit more body to the sound. I want to get around to recording some original tracks in the future, so I’ll be tweaking things much more at that point. I’m sure someone could put something like this to much better use than me, but I’ll get there at some point…

 

[Goldietops]

That's really cool! and a very tidy-looking control arrangement!

Thanks! Glad I didn’t show you what it looks like under the control plate. You’d call the cops.

 

[stratamania]

Thanks! Glad I didn’t show you what it looks like under the control plate. You’d call the cops.

How do we know that it is not just wired like a Tele under the hood. Let's see a diagram or photos of the actual wiring.

 

[Goldietops]

How do we know that it is not just wired like a Tele under the hood. Let's see a diagram or photos of the actual wiring.

You got it. Might be a few days before I can get around to it, but I’ll post some photos and a clean diagram.