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.

 

[DaveT]

I think I can beat that...
A pair of Semour Duncan P Rails pickups.
Each pickup is attached to a 6 way rotary switch that gives:-
1) coils in series
2) coils in parrallel
3) 'P90' coil
4) 'single' coil
5) coils in series but out of phase
6) coils in parallel but out of phase

positions 5 and 6 are almost useless - until - wait for it!

There is a Telecaster 4 way switch giving bridge, neck, pickups in parallel and pickups in series.
And there is a phase switch.

positions 5 and 6 become quite interesting when out of phase with the other pickup.
of the 134 or whatever possibilities 32 of them are we could call useful in everyday playing.

 

[Archie Macfarlane]

I think I can beat that...
A pair of Semour Duncan P Rails pickups.
Each pickup is attached to a 6 way rotary switch that gives:-
1) coils in series
2) coils in parrallel
3) 'P90' coil
4) 'single' coil
5) coils in series but out of phase
6) coils in parallel but out of phase

positions 5 and 6 are almost useless - until - wait for it!

There is a Telecaster 4 way switch giving bridge, neck, pickups in parallel and pickups in series.
And there is a phase switch.

positions 5 and 6 become quite interesting when out of phase with the other pickup.
of the 134 or whatever possibilities 32 of them are we could call useful in everyday playing.

Wow Dave T, that truly is sick isn't it? I don't Think it's possible to top a p rail for sickness but here's what's floating around in my head

HsH five way switch
Auto split
Master split volume
An S1 switch as a tone control and a dual phase flip/inner outer coil toggle (or two phase switches for humbuckers)

A blender pot as another phase push pull

What do you get
Well you get the Strat 5 you get inner coils outer coils north/South coils all three coils

Two humbuckers that's a Gibb son
Turn the neck pickup down a touch to take the bite off Justin Ostrander/Clapton style
And Peter Green. Peter ****ing green.
(and sort of brian may)

Then to make a true monster utterly depraved you could perform the Waylon McPherson dual load tone pot mod on the S1 switch and have 50s wiring/ modern wiring no load tone in the same axe with different cap values if you so desire.


All without a freeway blade switch.



Suck S**t **nts have a nice one.

 

[Archie Macfarlane]

Not sure if that made sense my wiring diagram is essentialy this

Pickups wiring: HSH autosplit with a standard 5-way switch (with optional coil split push/pull) – ♫ Daniele Turani ♪

www.danieleturani.com

Modified with a neck bridge 7 way blender
Two HB polarity switches, and a dual load tone pot. OR if you use an S1 for both HB polarities another polarity switch in series with half of the S1,
And a dual load master tone pot

The reason you have 50s and modern wiring options in a guitar would be the different response different amps can have


With the posted schematic polarity flipping switches interact with coil splits to change the selected coil.

 

[MikeS]

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

I'm mostly impressed at how that fits in a tele rout. Two PTB circuits AND a treble bleed? That's a 5 capacitors and 3 resistors crammed in there with two concentric pots. My guess is those caps aren't orange drops!

I love a good wiring challenge. I've drawn up quite a few diagrams over the years for folks on other forums, even once corrected an error to a Seymour Duncan diagram many years ago, but when it comes to my guitars, I don't like having to throw a lot of switches. What I do like is finding a way to add just one extra switch to find something a little less common.

• I have a strat that, in addition to the traditional 5 strat position, with a single push/pull I unlock bridge + neck (parallel), bridge + middle (series), and neck + middle (series). That strat also uses a PTB circuit.
• I have a pair of two humbucker guitars that use a single push/pull to perform a coil swap, where the bridge stud coil is placed in series with the neck screw coil, and vice versa. This is more impactful when one of the pickups is rotated so that the two series positions are inside/outside, and when using a humbucker with unequal coils. Super useful tones.