Vintage Rails parallel/series question

[appello]

Hi, I have purchased a Seymour Duncan Vintage Rails and a 500k push/pull pot for it because it appears that you can switch it between series/parallel. However I'm not sure how exactly to wire it to the push/pull to allow for this configuration. I've searched all over and can't find a wiring diagram.

Can anyone help me out?

 

[Cagey]

The VR is essentially/electrically an old "PAF-style" humbucker. Packaging/materials/physics makes it sound a little different. Treat it the same way for wiring. The vast majority of "noiseless" pickups that bring out four wires can be looked at like that.

 

[appello]

Thanks for this. So I guess even though it is single-coil sized, it's still technically a humbucker and you just wire it to the push/pull as such?

 

[Fat Pete]

^ That should do it.

Bear in mind that if you want the 'down' position on the push/pull to be the parallel mode (as that's the intended standard mode) then you need to wire the switch with the top terminals as shown in the diagram - the output and ground - nearest to the body of the pot.

 

[Cagey]

Thanks for this. So I guess even though it is single-coil sized, it's still technically a humbucker and you just wire it to the push/pull as such?

Right.

 

[appello]

Thank you, you guys are great. So to clarify, the Vintage Rails Strat is meant to be in parallel by default? If so, I will use this wiring diagram and I'm super thankful!

 

[appello]

I don't think the VR has a bare shield like in that diagram though.

 

[Cagey]

The marketing cat sheet leads you to believe they're wired parallel by default to get the touted performance, but I don't think you can really call it a "default" per se. Depends how you wire it.

As for shields, sometimes foil it's a braided wire, sometimes it's a stranded wire running inside some foil. I can't remember off the top of my head. It's usually obviously a ground of some sort.

 

[appello]

The marketing cat sheet leads you to believe they're wired parallel by default to get the touted performance, but I don't think you can really call it a "default" per se. Depends how you wire it.

As for shields, sometimes foil it's a braided wire, sometimes it's a stranded wire running inside some foil. I can't remember off the top of my head. It's usually obviously a ground of some sort.

Oh, got it, thanks. For some reason I was thinking there were only 4 wires, but I just looked and there are 5.

 

[Cagey]

These days, most pickup manufacturers try to give you every option under the sun so nobody can say they don't do something. Seymour Duncan is about as good as it gets in that department, including jillions of wiring diagrams.