My personal superswitch 2 pickup wiring

Winny_Pooh

This is what I've personally found to work best for a med to hot bridge humbucker & lowish output neck (single or HB). Previously many of the inner coil/split combos I tried sounded too weak.


A - neck
B - neck + bridge (part split) in series
C - neck + bridge in parallel
D - bridge (part split)
E - bridge

In the diagram there is no connection for the neck inner coil wires on a 4 conductor humbucker so these would be taped off.

The bridge inner coil connections labelled green/white here can be reversed if things sound too thin or too fat in position D

Uses an Oak Grigsby/Fender super switch, not the Schaller (stock musicman type)



Heres a demo
Guitar has a firebird mini hum in the neck (Winterizer)
and a PAF (Fletcher w unorientated A5)
in the bridge 

ICBM

I’ve just done a similar one with a low-output Firebird-ish neck pickup (which sounded too thin in anything other than series) and a higher output bridge pickup.

1 - neck
2 - neck + parallel bridge
3 - neck + series bridge
4 - parallel bridge
5 - series bridge

I’m not normally a fan of humbuckers in parallel, but this particular one - an Oil City Brassknuckle - sounds good like that.

This also has the advantage that all settings are very effectively hum-cancelling, more than if I’d combined both split pickups.

axisus

Sounds interesting but your diagram is scaring me. It's like the frankenstein of schematics.

SteveRobinson

axisus said:

Sounds interesting but your diagram is scaring me. It's like the frankenstein of schematics.

@Winny_Pooh is Frankenstein, the schematic is his monster

Roland

I’ll play. This is for single coiled Telecaster, where the bridge can be tapped:
1. Bridge
2. Tapped bridge
3. Tapped bridge and neck in parallel
4. Neck
5. Neck and tapped bridge in series.

This is a timely thread because Oil City are making me a pair of Brass Knuckles, and I’m wondering which settings to use. It will be a 5 way superswitch, so many combinations are possible. My first thought is:
1. Bridge
2. Tapped bridge
3. Both tapped in parallel
4. Tapped neck
5. Neck
but then I’m asking myself whether position 3 will use the same coils as 2 and 4.

Winny_Pooh

SteveRobinson said:

axisus said:

Sounds interesting but your diagram is scaring me. It's like the frankenstein of schematics.

@Winny_Pooh is Frankenstein, the schematic is his monster

Monster from the neck up, lover from the neck down

guitargeek62

I like PRS’s approach to 5-way switching - particularly the second* variation they introduced (rotary pots from ~88-08). Now that they’ve moved to a blade switch on the Custom series they’ve gone for more “standard” options and (imo) lost some of the versatility - in particular the series singlecoil setting, which I use quite a lot.

2nd gen rotary wiring (wired and later PCB variants):

• Position 10: Humbucking treble pickup alone
• Position 9: Outside coils of both pickups in parallel for what PRS calls a “deep and clear” sound
• Position 8: Series singlecoils – PRS describes this as a “warm version of the classic in-between the bridge and middle pickups”
• Position 7: Parallel single coils – Here PRS describes the sound as a “crisp version of the in-between the treble and middle pickups”
• Position 6: Humbucking bass pickup alone

3rd-gen blade switch wiring:

- Position 1: Bridge humbucker
- Position 2: Bridge humbucker with neck singlecoil, in parallel
- Position 3: Bridge and neck humbuckers
- Position 4: Neck singlecoil with bridge singlecoil, in parallel
- Position 5: Neck humbucker

Note: not the first config which had the horrid cocked-wah middle position.