Joe Barden Two/Tone Humbucker Custom Wiring Help Needed

frown

Senior Member
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I'm in need of a legible wiring diagram for my current build. A Warmoth Replacement Tele with humbuckers, namely a pair of Joe Barden Two/Tone Humbuckers that I'm wanting to wire up to individual push/pull volume pots, direct to the jack with no switching or tone in the circuit.

The blotchy print out of an unclear hook up that came with the pickups is not helpful, plus with the removal of switch and tones for my build, Googling for diagrams suitable is becoming very confusing.

While the Two/Tones can be tapped, I am just planning on having full humbucker while respective pot is 'pushed' and then single coil mode when 'pulled' - the tapped mode is bypassed for now.

The colour coding for wiring that I have found from somewhere online is as follows:

Coil 1

End winding - White
Tap point - White / black stripe
Start winding - Black

Coil 2

End winding - Red
Tap point - Red / white stripe
Start winding - Green

Obviously there are two humbuckers so 4 coils in total. My concern is wiring them all up so one volume doesn't affect the other via the jack connection, when either pulled up or pushed down...

If anyone can point me in the right direction, then I'd appreciate it as I'd love to get this:

warmoth-tele.jpg


... up and playing A.S.A.P!

Cheers!
 
I'm not sure if you couldn't find the official JB diagram, does this help?

http://www.jbepickups.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HB-TT-Wiring-DiagramR3-1up.pdf

Either way, nice guitar and pickups.
 
^that'll work. there are atleast 2 ways to wire a volume pot. the one in that diagram prevents it from shunting the whole guitar. that extra cap is a treble bleed cap and helps keep things ballanced when you turn down the volume and shunt the pickup end.
 
Thanks Alogusz!  :icon_thumright:

That's a proper image of which the 'guide' supplied with the pickups is from, but seemingly the printer was running out for my copy! I can now see where the ends of the wires are supposed to go!

I had looked for the PDF online, but couldn't find a link - think but beggining to think my browser plugins may have been working against me!

More pics will be posted elsewhere on the forum when it's all wired up and completed - which I'm now going to head off and attempt...
 
Hmm, Trying to wire up this schematic minus the tones and the switch is confusing me.

Does anyone have / can anyone do, a sketch for two humbuckers, two push/pull volumes and one jack?

I'm aware this is supposed to be simple, but I'm uncertain on where the grounding goes on volume pot and how the independence of volume level works so one won't affect the other...

Much as I'd like to do trial and error testing, I don't have the solder, patience, aptitude or wire length for unknown attempts!

I've scribbled up this:

joe-barden-two-tone-wiring.jpg


Note: blue used for white wires [for visibility]!

But could do with someone with a clue, for some guidance please!

Cheers,
 
frown said:
Much as I'd like to do trial and error testing, I don't have the solder, patience, aptitude or wire length for unknown attempts!

You're the second person in the last week to say they have no ability to do what they want to do but want somebody to tell them how to do it. I have no problem teaching, and most folks on this board don't either. That's why most of us are here. No offense intended at all, but if you know you're in trouble to begin with, what would be wrong with taking the thing to someone who knows what they're doing and rewarding them for taking the time to learn how to do it? It'll save you a lotta time and grief, and you end up right where you want to be. You're probably only talking about $25-$50 or so. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

I could draw you a schematic or describe what you need to do, but it would probably make less sense than a wiring diagram (which I don't do) so it's likely a waste of time. Pay somebody. You'll be much happier.

Incidentally, that is one beautiful guitar! I'm envious!
 
Hi Cagey,

I understand what you're saying. I do have a local guy that I take my guitars to for work that I can't do - fret work, nuts etc, but as he's a busy man [with long turn-a-round times] and I'd thought I'd at least have a look at doing this one myself as the circuit seems simpler than previous ones I've had done.

However, I'm aware that what looks simpler on the surface [two push/pull volume pots] is often deceptively more complicated underneath due to counter intuitive switching logic, pots cancelling each other out, grounding points - not to mention ommitting common things from the circuit [tone, switch], things are often in standard circuits and it's this which I keep coming up against which is testing my perseverance and leading me to get frustrated that I may not be able to do what I thought would be relatively straight forward!

When Googling for wiring diagrams and guides in an attempt to find something close to what I'm after, all I seem to primarily find is repetitions of wiring for Les Pauls, Strats and Teles in standard formats - so a plethora of standard common stuff is out there for everyone to see, yet when someone tries to do something more personalized or custom, have a go at drawing a schematic based on research and interpretation using common information from said Googles, there is very little in the way of explanation as to how these components interact [that I've found so far - if you know of such a resource, please share!] so novices with an interest at learning this can then determine if it's over our head or not. This explains my statment above... I hate wasting materials [and money replacing stuff], when I could just make sure I have a working theory diagram prior to any physical action commencing.

I, for one, will keep researching before I do any actual wiring then try and understand how, what I plan to wire up, actually works! While impatience / frustration at the lack of initial underdanding and progress may get the better of me in the short term, seeing as I want to play this Pau Ferro / Mahogany / Ebony creation of mine, I want to have the satisfaction of at least trying to get it working [hopefully without screwing things up], rather than simply throwing more money at others in the know and learning nothing new myself in the long term... That, is definitely a cop out in my book.

I drew the diagram below from extracting what I thought would work from a multitude of sources - this is the second one I did from when I started afresh and I came up with the same circuit. Even now I've noticed that I missed a grounding on the pot case to lug 1 of each pot - so 'progress', while wobbly, is there as I'm noticing holes in the diagrams - I just don't know if they'll work as intended - hence posting here and asking others help from their experience and knowledge where I may be going wrong.

I don't think giving up and just paying someone else to fix my wiring confusion teaches me anything and the whole point of this exercise was to learn about guitar wiring...

I will soldier on and crack it eventually!

Edit: D'oh! Just noticed the 'Guitar wiring links...' sticky thread at: http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=281.0
 
frown said:
Hmm, Trying to wire up this schematic minus the tones and the switch is confusing me.

Does anyone have / can anyone do, a sketch for two humbuckers, two push/pull volumes and one jack?

I'm aware this is supposed to be simple, but I'm uncertain on where the grounding goes on volume pot and how the independence of volume level works so one won't affect the other...

Much as I'd like to do trial and error testing, I don't have the solder, patience, aptitude or wire length for unknown attempts!

I've scribbled up this:

joe-barden-two-tone-wiring.jpg


Note: blue used for white wires [for visibility]!

But could do with someone with a clue, for some guidance please!

Cheers,
this should work. i never used joe bardens and it looks like these are multiple winding pickups so things are slightly different from standard humbuckers but since the switching is the same as shown on the jbe official diagram it should work.

only thing, you omited the 3way switch. is that intentional? i know you wanted the volumes setup for blending and all but most people still prefer a toggle in there. also some kinda like the Gibson wiring with pots that shunt the output because you can use the toggle as a kill switch by turning the volume to zero on one pickup. also it tends to shunt more noise when the volume gets turned down.. but if you prefer volumes that blend and no toggle i can't knock you. you may notice a big loss in high end at low volumes. you may want to add those treble bleed caps from the official diagram. but for all intents and purposes the diagram you drew works.
 
I could be wrong - wouldn't be the first time - but I don't think that'll work. The red/white wires are usually the series connection between coils to make the thing humbucking. To coil split it, you ground that connection to kill one coil. I don't see that happening here. I'm also confused about the dotted lines. What are those? Also, which end is up on the switch? And where's the ground for everything?

I hate wiring diagrams. So many open questions. Why doesn't anybody draw schematics?
 
Hi Cagey / DanO,

The dotted lines were my [feeble] representation of the coloured wire with a white stripe on them - should've made that clearer.

There is no switch, just volumes, and the ground is to that 'ring' sketch in the bottom right corner - supposed to be a jack sleeve, with the hot from the volume pot connected to it.

It's occurred to me that if I found a simple humbucker > push/pull > jack schematic, I could just wire a pair of those to a single jack? Something like: http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/schematics.php?schematic=1hum_1vol_split - obviously substituting the correct coloured wires.

My concern with this is I'm unsure if one volume will affect the other as the jack is common to both. From research I did when I intended to use concentric pots, as I understood it, the output lug connections on one of the pots had to be reversed so cancelling out was averted. I'm wondering if this is the case still...

Good news is that I've got the guitar tuned and playable - if only accoustically, while I work on the schematics!

Your help is appreciated!
 
i've already said that the jbe diagram show the volume wires as you would like so that one volume doesn't shunt the output and thus the other pickup. instead the pickups get shunted by their own volume pot which can make them muddy at low volumes (thus the bleed cap in the diagram) this means they don't interfere with the volume of the other pickup..

on a pot the middle pin goes to the wiper. the wiper varies between the point of full voltage and the point of zero voltage. on a traditional wiring diagram the output goes to the wiper and the pickup is full voltage. on the diagram from jbe the pickup goes to the wiper so as you roll the volume down the ground pulls the pickup voltage down instead of the output voltage. the resistance to the output also increases so that it doesn't allow this to pull down the voltage of the output when there is another pickup creating it. so yes you can have no switch if you like but it's not a popular choice even with the volume pots wired this way. one annoyance is that now you have to turn 2 knobs to turn down the guitars volume. the other is that switching pickups is not a quick flip of a switch, it's turn knob a clockwise then turn knob b counter clockwise. technically you have full control but it's not always as ergonomic as the usual way of doing things.

cagey, the diagram looks a little weird, the pickups are multiple coils on each bobin. they have at least 6 wires. the switching is strait from the joe barden website so it should work. which wire goes to which coil is not something i can tell you but i would think you could trust their own diagrams. 
 
Good news!

I managed to find time to sit down and review this with no distractions and am now all sorted!

Thanks to Dan0 and his contribution, I used the JBE diagram [from the PDF I downloaded mentioned by Alogusz above] and wired them up so they're now working as desired - independent volumes for neck and bridge, each with pull for coil split!

I had to use the alternate wiring position shown on the diagram, so that the humbucker is on full when push/pull is 'pushed'.

Thanks also to Cagey for your replies - a nudge in the right direction came from him too I think...

I've posted more pics in a more appropriate thread at http://unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=23690.0 but here's a teaser:

joe-barden-two-tone.jpg


Thanks for your help guys!  :icon_thumright:
 
K. Now you gotta ship it to me for testing. Should only take 12-14 years.
 
:icon_biggrin:

I have plans for another one soon, in pewter or copper, a full pau ferro neck / board, chrome hardware with direct mounted mini humbuckers...

I love the fatback neck - gonna sell my EBMM Luke as the neck feels like a matchstick in comparison!
 
If you like the idea of copper, you might want to consider a Candy Tangerine that Warmoth does. It's purty!

IMG_1451_Sm.JPG
 
Hi Cagey,

You're right, that is a purty colour! Nice and vibrant - a full Pau Ferro neck would compliment that nicely!

Rats. I'm now getting torn from my original Pewter finish choice...  :icon_biggrin:
 
frown said:
Rats. I'm now getting torn from my original Pewter finish choice...  :icon_biggrin:

Happens a lot when browsing the Warmoth Showcase or seeing other people's builds. Solution is simple: do both. Then, do another, and another...
 
I like how you think! I shall end up doing just that I fear...









Wait... I don't fear having more guitars! What am I on about!
 
Cagey said:
If you like the idea of copper, you might want to consider a Candy Tangerine that Warmoth does. It's purty!

I have a Tangerine Strat... all Fender though. Originally came with cream pickguard and horrid noiseless pickups... which I swapped out for the chrome and added Texas Specials:
 

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Seems like a cream pickguard would make one of those look too much like a frozen treat on a stick I remember from my youth.

I'm surprised you didn't like the Fender noiseless pickups, though. I've not used them so I don't know, but everything I've heard about them has been good.

Of course, there's no accounting for taste. Some folks like old Gibson/Fender pickups, while I'd never go to any special trouble or expense to get one.
 
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