Tele 4-way switch mod with humbuckers

barnsleyboy

I'm in the last throws of rewiring my 2 humbucker tele with the 4 way switch mod to include the pickups in series and parallel. I've used the same mod on a traditional (2 single coil) tele set-up and it works great, but I'm struggling getting it to work with the humbuckers. They are 2 conductor, so do I need to do a similar mod to the neck humbucker that I had to do with the single coil i.e. adding an additional ground wire for the pickup cover?

Here's the diagram that I'm working to:

https://www.fralinpickups.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Normal-4-way-Switching.png

Any help would be much appreciated.

SteveRobinson

Yes you do. It's easy if the pickup has a 4-conductor cable, if not it'll need some surgery,

barnsleyboy

Thanks Steve. Wish I'd known about it before. I've already done quite a bit of surgery already. They are the cheapy stock pickups on the HB TE-20 HH, which sounded pretty good to my ears. I've switched the pickguard for a black one and to keep it as black as possible I've put black pickup covers on them. I also had to buy new black screw pole pieces. I then found out that the original  screws were not really screws, and were slugs with a slot in the top.

Taking them out, I realised that the bobbins weren't made to take a screwed in pole piece. So I've cut down the bottom part of a couple of old bobbins which did accept screw pole pieces and mounted them under the pickup plate so the screws have got something to screw into. I've also switched out the magnets for an alnico 2 and 4. Finally realised that with all that air inside, they would probably need to be wax potted to stop them being microphonic.That bit was quite successful as I found a big bag of paraffin wax pellets leftover from an old candle making project.

So effectively, I need to ground the cover and the baseplate with a seperate wire?

Funkfingers

Personally, I would not bother. Two humbuckers in series could sound very muddy UNLESS they are coil split at the same time. This is not possible with the two-pole, four-way lever selector switch.

ICBM

What Funkfingers said - find a more useful application for the fourth switch position, such as a bass-cut setting for the neck pickup. Two humbuckers in series sound fairly crap - the only successful wiring I know of which uses that is the Gibson L6-S, which if I remember rightly has a midrange-cut tone control which allows it to work reasonably well.

barnsleyboy

Funkfingers said:

Personally, I would not bother. Two humbuckers in series could sound very muddy UNLESS they are coil split at the same time. This is not possible with the two-pole, four-way lever selector switch.

Hmm, I'm now thinking that what I might do is change the switching option to:

neck only ---> neck+bridge ---> neck+bridge with neck out of phase --->bridge only

is this possible with just the 4 way switch? I'm also going to do away with the tone pot and have 2 independent volumes, so I can control the "out-of-phaseness". If anybody has a diagram of how to do this,I would be really grateful.

For some reason, I just can't picture how the 4 way switch works and what the signal path does. I get the idea that it is 2 4 way switches which can work independently, and that you can add jumpers to do all sorts of magic stuff. I also know that there is a common terminal at opposite ends of each side and as you click through each position connects that terminal to to the common one:

https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-fxdzp2uudp/images/stencil/1280x1280/products/2181/4542/swl4connections__91953.1601338603.jpg?c=2

 Once again, any advice would be chipper!

ICBM

barnsleyboy said:

Hmm, I'm now thinking that what I might do is change the switching option to:

neck only ---> neck+bridge ---> neck+bridge with neck out of phase --->bridge only

You can't do phase switching with 2-conductor cables either.

Assuming were are talking about 2-conductor as in a single centre core and shield like a vintage Gibson pickup, and not like the early DiMarzios which have 2-conductor *plus* shield so you can in fact do both phase and series switching... or like many PRS pickups which have a second core for coil splitting.

barnsleyboy

ICBM said:

Assuming were are talking about 2-conductor as in a single centre core and shield like a vintage Gibson pickup, and not like the early DiMarzios which have 2-conductor *plus* shield so you can in fact do both phase and series switching... or like many PRS pickups which have a second core for coil splitting.

Sadly it's the single centre core with a shield that is soldered to the pickup base plate.

so that's put the kybosh on that one! So this leads on to another question, is there anything that I can do with the additional switch position that would give me a useful tone option? or should I just cut my losses and order myself a decent 3 way blade and go back to basics?

ICBM

barnsleyboy said:

So this leads on to another question, is there anything that I can do with the additional switch position that would give me a useful tone option?

Yes, a bass-cut setting for the neck pickup, which gives a sort of pseudo-single-coil sound. Or the bridge, if you prefer ‘wiry’ bright Tele sounds…

This is achieved simply by putting a cap in series with the pickup - a good starting value is .01uF, but you may need to experiment since it depends on the pickup characteristics.

barnsleyboy

ICBM said:

This is achieved simply by putting a cap in series with the pickup - a good starting value is .01uF, but you may need to experiment since it depends on the pickup characteristics.

Many thanks @ICBM. I'll order up a selection to try. What sort of range would I be looking at? I've got a couple of the standards knocking around (0.047uF and 0.022 uF), so I might try those in it first. Is it higher capacitance, more bass cut? or the other way round?

ICBM

barnsleyboy said:

I've got a couple of the standards knocking around (0.047uF and 0.022 uF), so I might try those in it first. Is it higher capacitance, more bass cut? or the other way round?

Other way round - a smaller cap gives a more drastic cut. If you have .022uF already, try that first.

The wiring is very simple - if position 1 is the bridge (bridge pickup to A0), connect A0-A3 and B0-B3 exactly as for a normal Tele, and jumper B4 to B3 with the cap.

barnsleyboy

 

So the wiring would look like this?

https://www.flickr.com/photos/146233690@N07/52201031620/in/dateposted-public/

I don't think I've interpreted this correctly!

Funkfingers

Neither do I.

Some of the necessary connections are absent.

ICBM

No - wire the first three positions like a standard Telecaster...

A0 - bridge pickup
B0 - neck pickup
A1, A2, B2, B3 - all to volume pot

Then connect B4 to B3 with the cap.

barnsleyboy

I am proper confused! Like I said, the workings of these blade switches I can't seem to comprehend!

So far I've got:

A0 - bridge pickup
 B0 - neck pickup

Volume assumed connected to B4

A1 & A2 connected, then jumper across to B4 (volume)

B2 & B3 connected, then B2 connected to B4 (volume)

Capacitor connected between  B3 & B4

From your other post:

B0 & B3 connected

A0 & A3 connected

Fingers crossed, this is correct, but to me this first position has both bridge and neck connected to the volume pot.

.... my head hurts!

ICBM

barnsleyboy said:

Volume assumed connected to B4

Why? B4 is connected to nothing other than the cap to B3.

barnsleyboy said:

A1 & A2 connected, then jumper across to B4 (volume)

Why? A1, A2, B2 and B3 are all connected to the volume control, not to anything else, nor vice versa.

barnsleyboy said:

B2 & B3 connected, then B2 connected to B4 (volume)

No.

barnsleyboy said:

From your other post:

B0 & B3 connected

A0 & A3 connected

Sorry, that's my terminology. By A0-A3 and B0-B3 I meant A0, A1, A2, A3, B0, B1, B2 and B3 are connected exactly as in a standard Tele.

barnsleyboy said:

.... my head hurts!

Read what I posted again, and make those and only those connections, don't assume extra ones. It's really very simple.

A0 - bridge pickup
B0 - neck pickup
A1, A2, B2, B3 - to volume control
B4 to B3 via cap

barnsleyboy

Ahhh - now I get it! My apologies for the numptiness! I think the A0-A3 and B0-B3 confused me!

Many thanks @ICBM, now where did I put that soldering iron?

Funkfingers

The two of you appear to be at cross purposes. I detect two possible reasons for confusion.

1) The OP has not made clear which pickup will be combined with the bass cut capacitor as the fourth switching option.

2) In his written explanations, ICBM usually numbers lever selector switch positions from left to right, as viewed by the player. i.e. 1 = neck, 2 = both, 3 = bridge.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

1) The OP has not made clear which pickup will be combined with the bass cut capacitor as the fourth switching option.

I've suggested the neck, as I find that more useful - giving more of a 'standard Tele neck' or 'Strat neck' sound. If you want more of a 'Telecaster Custom' (neck humbucker, bridge single coil) setup, you could do it to the bridge pickup instead... but I won't post that unless asked .

Funkfingers said:

2) In his written explanations, ICBM usually numbers lever selector switch positions from left to right, as viewed by the player. i.e. 1 = neck, 2 = both, 3 = bridge.

In this case to avoid confusion (not that it helped ) I have followed the switching as shown in barnsleyboy's post - position 1 is bridge pickup.

barnsleyboy

@ICBM ;

Now then, she's all wired up, and the .022uF isn't making much of a difference, so I had a quick shwifty around the web and got interested in the Gibson Varitone: 

- A 1.5H choke is housed beneath the treble pickup and it fixes the range of the notch.

- Position 1 on the Varitone switch is the bypass.

- Positions 2-6 traditionally cycle through 1000pF, 3000pF, 0.01μF, 0.03μF, and 0.22μF capacitors.

- Each cap is paired with a 10M resistor to avoid “pops” when you’re switching from position to position.

Ok, so I'm not putting a Varitone in the guitar (well at least not yet but would the capacitors used be a good range to try?

My other thought was some kind of trimmer variable capacitor that I could twiddle around with until I get a tone that I like, then leave it alone. A bit like this: 

https://uk.farnell.com/vishay/bfc280811229/cap-150v-pp-through-hole/dp/1215709?gclid=CjwKCAjw2rmWBhB4EiwAiJ0mtf3kguBvif0F6BsuPuQYLU9CISqaGE2x82VWQpXWIevVr4k9HemcNBoCnyAQAvD_BwE&mckv=s_dc|pcrid|602272695816|plid||kword||match||slid||product|1215709|pgrid|143146518851|ptaid|aud-1212293608305:pla-301409940178|&CMP=KNC-GUK-SHOPPING-SMEC-Whoops-Remarketing-LowROAS-Test906&gross_price=true

..... but I'm guessing that the sweep range won't really make it viable?

Funkfingers

Beware. The Gibson Vari-Tone occupies a lot of space inside a guitar and is of limited musical use outside a recording studio.