Tele 5-way switch mod question

Keefy

I tried this mod (which I’ve always thought of as the Jerry Donahue mod) on one of my Teles. It sounded (1) a bit like a Strat in-between sound, (2) not as good (imo) as the regular 2-pickup Tele sound.

Of course this will depend hugely on the pickups in your guitar.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

Ideally the HOOP cap needs to be on the phase switch so it's only in series when the pickup is out of phase, but I'm having trouble combining that with only being active in the middle selector switch position . I think it should be possible with 'reversed' Tele switch wiring - rotors to volume and selected terminals to pickups - using the other neck end terminal to bypass the cap... but I'll need to draw it out, it's possible there's a catch!

That's where I gave up.

In my envelope drawing, the filter cap forms one of the links across the diagonally opposed corner terminals of the DPDT, such that it is engaged when the push-pull switch is up and the black conductor of the neck pickup serves as hot.

Obviously, this leaves the filter cap in circuit if the neck pickup alone is selected whilst the push-pull pot is still pulled up.

Can't be arsed with that. Hence, my choice of the Schaller Megaswitch M, circuit SS3.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

That's where I gave up.

In my envelope drawing, the filter cap forms one of the links across the diagonally opposed corner terminals of the DPDT, such that it is engaged when the push-pull switch is up and the black conductor of the neck pickup serves as hot.

Obviously, this leaves the filter cap in circuit if the neck pickup alone is selected whilst the push-pull pot is still pulled up.

Yes, exactly - but that can be solved as I guessed earlier, I've just drawn it out.

Connect both the selector switch rotors to the volume pot and the bridge pickup to bridge and middle position terminals on side 1.

DPDT terminals numbered like this (1 and 4 nearest the pot body) -

1 4
2 5
3 6

Neck pickup white to 2, neck pickup black to 5
1 and 6 to ground
HOOP cap between 3 and 4
3 to neck and middle position terminals on selector switch side 2
4 to neck position terminal on side 1

That gives the HOOP cap in circuit only in the middle position.