Stereo Wiring for Guitars

[Joywalker]

I’m fairly new to guitar forums, so I’m not sure how often this gets discussed.

I recently decided to try modding my Telecaster Custom to have a stereo output, sending one pickup to the left and another to the right.

I used a 4-pole 5-way rotary switch to change which pickup comes from which output, and even tried an out-of-phase option between the left and right channels.



You can find out more about the wiring and the stereo tones in this video I recently made.

Have any of you considered doing stereo wiring in your builds/mods?

 

[TBurst Std]

Rarely. I have a few stereos than I use for bi-amplification (for different tones through different systems), often one pup going to one system and the other to another. Easy peasy to do. Especially with the Fractal.
When I need more sound spread without a FOH, an extension speaker easily handles the task.

The simple fact is, it’s not well presented in FOH to worry about it. 50+ gigs I’ve had over the last 12 months couldn’t really support it well (these are FOH supported 1000+ seating rooms). Sounds great at home though.

 

[TBurst Std]

I trust you’re sending each pup to a different sounding amp system, otherwise you could create the same sound stage with an extension speaker if no FOH is being used.

I have a few Rics and a few mag/piezo items (used to have an ES347) that benefit from that.

As an example: my 4003 I love the bridge pup through a SVT and the neck through a modern style amp.
Needless to say the mag/piezos require a guitar amp as well as something more akin to a tube pre.

 

[stratamania]

I must say, it is refreshing to see a post where this is the wiring that I have done and a good diagram. I opened the post expecting someone asking how to do this.

In several years on forums, I cannot say I have seen it discussed much at all. I know Rickenbacker basses such as @TBurst Std mentioned have the option and separate outputs for piezo and mags make sense for different amplification needs (but that is not really stereo).

With just mags with modern outboard gear, you could just split the signal somewhere there and end up with stereo. What does doing so at the guitar give you?

 

[DuckBaloo]

I owned an '80s Ric 360 when Rickenbacker expected people to buy a (very expensive) breakout box that required a TRS cable for the "RIC-O-SOUND" jack. I hate being limited to TRS instrument cables or a Y cable, they are extra specialized equipment to buy and keep track of. I realized a better setup would be a switching jack that split the pickup output whenever I plugged into the second jack. That let me run two normal TS instrument cables to two different amps.

 

[TBurst Std]

That’s another of the Rics I reference.
Mine is currently awaiting repair. Was planning on some work on it then the dreaded R tail piece blew up.

Going to have the truss rods redone, new nut spacing , placing an 12 saddle bridge , installing toasters, installing a janglebox, and replacing the tp with a harp tp.

Having Mark Arnquist do most the lifting.

 

[Rick]

Actually, I played an ovation acoustic that split strings 1,3,5 from 2,4 and 6. Pretty cool. Not sure how useful, but cool. Sort of like having an excellent delay pedal connected to an expression pedal that lets you kick it into feedback oscillation. Cool, useful once and a while. Steady diet of that? Not sure.

 

[mayfly]

That’s another of the Rics I reference.
Mine is currently awaiting repair. Was planning on some work on it then the dreaded R tail piece blew up.

Going to have the truss rods redone, new nut spacing , placing an 12 saddle bridge , installing toasters, installing a janglebox, and replacing the tp with a harp tp.

Having Mark Arnquist do most the lifting.

Hey - what do you mean by the R tail piece blowing up? Did it fail mechanically somehow?

 

[TBurst Std]

Yes. R tailpieces are notorious for “exploding”. Especially on 12s. The two arms connecting where the strings are and the piece connecting to the hanger fracture.

It’s crap cast metal. The Harp tail piece has the same flow in look, won’t break, and is much easier loading that the hidden slots that are crappy cast on the underside of the orig

Visit Ric Resource and type in exploding LOL

 

[mayfly]

well! Glad that didn't happen to any of mine! Before I sold them that is...

 

[Joywalker]

With just mags with modern outboard gear, you could just split the signal somewhere there and end up with stereo. What does doing so at the guitar give you?

That's a good question. In short, my guess is that both options serve similar purposes but will ultimately sound different.

Both pickups are collecting different amounts of overtones, so even if you run them into two copies of the same amp (in my case, I'm doing this in my DAW with HX Native), you'll get different sounds out of each ones, giving you your stereo spread.

Whereas if you send the same guitar signal to two different amps and/or pedalboards, you're relying on the outboard gear to produce different overtones/dynamics, which will likely sound different.

Thanks for bringing this up! I'm curious to test both methods out for myself, and to see how much they differ.

 

[TBurst Std]

Umm if using the same amplification chain for a 2 pickup situation, the sound will be like the middle position for 90% of the instances.

The main purpose of “stereo” wiring is to either bi-amp (which is not stereo as Trevor noted) or to feed separate chains before the amp. As we now have stereo chorus, delay, etc, that’s not needed as much.

Think of it this way, all your guitar is doing is sending an input to an amp chain. If your amp chain is the same, in a 2 pup world, it’s basically the middle position you already have. The main purpose of stereo is bi-amping as the effects aspect has already been addressed over the last decades (think ping pong delay, which requires to separate sound fields to realize, not a stereo out on your guitar ). Separate sound fields is ourltside of a guitar , and from your description is not your setup. Unless your monitors are at least multiple feet apart.

Think The Cars, Moving in Stereo. In talking with Elliot, that was all done post production, live it was the FOH that was stereo and the tech simply panned hard left then hard right. Rest of the time it was panned center.

 

[stratamania]

The main purpose of “stereo” wiring is to either bi-amp (which is not stereo as Trevor noted) or to feed separate chains before the amp. As we now have stereo chorus, delay, etc, that’s not needed as much.

I think that was me rather than Trevor that mentioned that it is not really stereo.

@Joywalker thanks for the reply. Always worth experimenting of course, but as @TBurst Std mentioned you may end up with something similar to running a pair of pickups in parallel, possibly with a little more adjustment for each one in the signal path.

And of course for recording, the sky is the limit if you go for things like double tracking and panning parts etc.

 

[Jebberz]

Thought of wiring my bass Stereo, using clean signal from the neck Pick-Up blended with a slightly overdrive from the bridge Pick-Up, but essentially the lack of a stereo or 2 channel wireless system made me reconsider (as I almost play exclusively live)

 

[Joywalker]

Sorry @TBurst Std and @stratamania, I forgot to clarify a crucial detail: one “amp” is panned left and the other one is panned right in this scenario. So the signal chain would be:

Neck PU -> DAW Input 1 -> Channel 1 with Amp Plugin Preset -> Panned Left -> Left Speaker
Bridge PU -> DAW Input 2 -> Channel 2 with Amp Plugin Preset -> Panned Right -> Right Speaker

If both “amps” were panned the same, then I would agree that it would sound like the middle position on a Tele, however that’s not exactly what is going on here.

If you’re curious what this sounds like, you can hear an example of this at 5:35 of my video.

 

[stratamania]

@Joywalker it seems you have already done some experimenting with adjustment and panning in the signal path for each one.

Though if you recorded two tracks with the same respective pickups output in mono and then panned each track would you not then end up with something similar, perhaps something for you to check out. Or just use one signal and split it in the DAW, via two paths with different treatments may get you similar results.

 

[TBurst Std]

Exactly my thoughts Stratamania