Great 2 humbucker wiring plan: Schematic + Video

rpguitar

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Hi folks,

My first post here.  I have built 5 Warmoths, starting with my first about 10 years ago.  I thought I might share the unique wiring plan that I have in that first guitar.  It is intuitive to use, yet very flexible with more tonal variety than the average dual HB circuit.

Instead of the usual simple coil splitters, this circuit uses a 3-way (on / on / on) mini toggle for each pickup.  This allows selection of the inner coil, outer coil, or both in series - for each pickup.  You can use each pickup as a standard humbucker, or a single coil located in one of two places.  You can get closer to Strat and Tele tones because you can approximate the single coil locations a bit better than with a fixed coil split setting.  And it's cool to use either pickup in single coil mode with two different flavors.  Yes, you can hear the difference between the two coil settings!

This guitar was built with two individual volumes and a master volume, because it's warm enough to not need tone controls.  You could also build it with two tones and a master volume, or two volumes and a master tone - if you like.

Enough words.  Here is a diagram:
http://rogerplacer.com/guitars/img/RPSpecialWiring.jpg

And here is my YouTube video demonstrating the guitar.  Some of you may have seen it judging by all the hits it gets:
[youtube=425,355]http://youtube.com/watch?v=iVnZLuOTP_0[/youtube]

Hope this helps someone or provides food for thought.  Peace!

Roger
 
Hey, you're that YouTube guy!  I've enjoyed your videos, as have many of us.  Welcome, and thanks for the link...
 
I just finished wiring up a seven-string similarly with an on/on/on for the bridge pickup, series/single/parallel, and an on/on for the neck pickup, series/parallel (it's a lower-powered DiMarzio PAF, not much use for the split single). Each pickup gets a volume, then a master tone. A few years back I re-wired my "tele" (?) with a Superswitch for the bridge Bill Lawrence L500XL pickup alone, one coil/series/parallel/out-of-phase/other coil - that has concentric tone and volume controls for each P.U. I've come to suspect that's overkill but at least I learned which combinations I didn't need. A humbucking out-of-phase with itself doesn't "quack", it more like "tanks." :laughing7: People do get up to some wacky stuff here.

I'm also fond of the system Bill Lawrence devised on the Gibson L6S, using a five-way to pull out combinations of coils from different pickups. It's since been "borrowed" by Paul Reed Smith, Music Man and Ibanez. Funny thing, every time I see a student's Ibanez that's been re-wired with death-metal pickups, it's wired back to caveman status - better to slay you with, my dear...  :party07:
 
dbw:
Thanks man!  That's very nice of you to acknowledge.  My other Warmoth is on a couple of videos too (it's the orange burst thinline Tele).  I just discovered this forum and I immediately felt overwhelmed at the volume of posts and my lack of participation!  Well, better late than never.  :confused4:

Stubhead:
I also have gone through all the usual wiring schemes and I've discovered what I like and don't like.  That's how you learn!  Takes time... I have no use for out of phase sounds for example.  And the guitar I demoed used to have the more traditional Series / Parallel / Single wiring.  But I found that parallel was just a "less loud" version of series most of the time.  This experiment allowing the choice of either single coil has been much more practical, and the tones are more unique.

That said, I also enjoy a single pickup with just a volume control!  That would be a neck pickup for me, since I favor clean and jazz-oriented tones.

Peace -
Roger
 
I've seen some of your vids before, nice to meet you!  Love the tone on that thinline, is that an all rosewood neck?

One of your other vids was in another thread here a bit ago

http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=2921.0
 
Yeah, that's a good one... Roger, you're kinda the unofficial Warmoth poster child on YouTube.    :icon_thumright:  The only other guys on there are that INSANE dude who jumped into an icy river and, of course, Confederate Wookie.  :doh:
 
Even though I have a lot of tweaking to do on the seven, I'll HAVE to post a pic tomorrow when I get sunshine - without ever having seen your video, I managed to put my mini-switches in the exact same place. I take it that you too always use your little finger to dial the volumes relative to each other and hence, the minis aren't at all "too close" to the volumes?
Of course they're not.... :hello2:
 
Wow, thanks to all of you for the kind words!  Unofficial poster child... yikes.  Who knew?!?  :laughing7:

Bear with me as I probably have to respond to that other old thread, if only to express appreciation.

In any case, I have a new electric guitar passion of sorts, and it's headless ergonomic guitars.  It started with a Steinberger, moved to a custom guitar (Forshage) and then I bought a Klein.  I would just love for Warmoth to make headless necks and a Klein body.  I'd be so into a custom build based on that.  I'm contemplating lopping the headstock off one of their cheaper necks and mounting a headpiece, and using a body blank to cut my own shape... but, we'll see!

In any case, it's nice to be welcomed this way and I look forward to interesting discussions!  Cheers guys.

Roger
 
Hello there, your Youtube video inspired my second Warmoth guitar  :icon_thumright:.  Welcome to the forum.
 
Well ALRIGHT!  That's simply great.  Looks beautiful.  Is that a zebra top or rosewood like mine?  Thanks for sharing that!

One pic deserves another.  My demo video doesn't show the guitar that clearly.  In some ways, she is bare bones... flat top, pretty basic aesthetically.  I didn't know you could get things like custom made wooden knobs back when I made her (1997).  But I wouldn't do much now - it's a classic, all business look.  Wish I could shave a few pounds off the old girl though!

RP_Special.jpg

 
Hi, my guitar is a Mahoghany hollow body, rosewood neck with Ebony board, stainless steel frets, there is a mix of gold and chrome hardware on there at the moment but I am going to go for all gold, the pickups are Gibson p94, fairly well balanced  weight wise, I was really after that woody bare bones look and I am really satisified the result. 

Just had a look at your website, you own and have owned some beautiful guitars, great playing on there too.
 
Here is my new seven-string, with almost comically-identical control placement:

S6300083.jpg


Before I can issue the customary (BEST GUITAR EVER!) sorts of proclamations, I still have a lot of tweaking to do, including leveling an errant fret, whammy spring deployment issues, and actually manufacturing the string guide (the vision keeps changing on me, dammit) but I thought the switch thing was funny. :blob7:
 
2 HUMBUCKER TOO..

It got DiMarzio EVO 2 for the neck (its a 'bridge' model) and DiMarzio Super Distortion for the bridge.. 2 Full size DiMarzio A500K pots (reading 510k) its a good pots.. brass shaft & got thicker terminals comparing to any CTS type.. Got HOVLAND Musicap .022uf caps for the tone..switchcraft switch & cannon jack..every terminal is sealed with heat-shrink tubing... correct 22awg wire for hot and braided for ground...

Planning...
b469a89f.jpg

Harness ready..
99b89841.jpg

inside
214e9961.jpg

front
83fc83d7.jpg


 
Hello Roger Placer--thanks for your efforts with the wiring diagram and demo video.  Your explanation and video really shows the versatility of your wiring scheme--great stuff!  I'd like to do the same to my 60's Guyatone hollowbody (using GFS overwound Liverpool Retrotrons)--I assume I can do the same in a hollowbody as you've done in your solid Warmoth.  I like the jazz style sound best myself.  With your wiring diagram, the only things I missed are the specs on your pots and the cap.  Did you use 250k, 500k or 1meg pots for neck and bridge volume controls?  What about master volume?  Am I right to understand that, say, two 250K pots on a pickup circuit is like one 500k pot?  Finally, is the unnamed cap (bottom left) in your diagram for safety then, since you don't have a tone control?  What's the spec on the cap?

Sorry for the technical barrage of questions.  I love what you've done and would like to get it right the first time when I mod my guitar.

Thanks a lot.
 
re:I'm pretty sure that's the output jack, not a capacitor.

Duh, me.  Yeah, that makes sense.  Thanks
 
Hey Roger!  I'm a fan of your Youtube clips, but I didn't see you using the same Warmoth in other clips  :sad:

Damn you got so many guitars lol

Love your playing!
 
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