Wiring help with 1-tone strat, mix of tapped and untapped pickups

noisepolluter

I have a strat with 1 volume and 1 tone, which is master tone control for all three pickups.

the bridge pickup however is coil tapped, with a push-pull on the tone control. The neck and middle are normal style strat.

On one side of the 5-way switch I can just wire up normally with the neck and middle plus the 'cool' bridge output, and this side then goes to one of the lugs on the push-pull pot.

on the other side of the 5 way I have the bridge hot wire and... what? I've tried bridging the neck and middle leads from the opposite tags with short lengths of wire, but this causes a really weird phase cancellation sound just on the bridge-and-middle setting which is really hollow and muddy. 

The only workaround I've found is to have the push-pull override the 5-way when pushed in and default to 'hot bridge', but after a year of this I'm still forgetting at inopportune moments that I have to pop the push-pull back out again to use the other pickups. 

Any suggestions how I could get the first layout I mentioned working properly? Otherwise I'd either have to get an additional tone control fitted, or a micro switch for hot/cool bridge lead, or (don't tempt me) get tapped neck and middle pickups. 

ICBM

What combinations are you trying to achieve?

If you just want the normal five sounds with the option of the coil tap, wire one side of the 5-way to the neck, middle and full output of the bridge, then use the push-pull to link the full and tapped outputs of the bridge.

You don't need the other side of the 5-way at all unless you want it to auto-split in the bridge/middle position.

If you don't use the other side of the 5-way it's best to wire the whole thing completely in parallel, which will improve reliability.

noisepolluter

I think I'm after what you described first - basically using the 5 way switch normally. I'm not quite wrapping my head around using the push-pull to link the hot/cool bridge leads - If I'm not using the other side of the 5-way switch, what am I connecting the second bridge pickup lead to? 

ICBM

noisepolluter said:

I think I'm after what you described first - basically using the 5 way switch normally. I'm not quite wrapping my head around using the push-pull to link the hot/cool bridge leads - If I'm not using the other side of the 5-way switch, what am I connecting the second bridge pickup lead to? 

Connect all three pickup hot leads to the switch as normal.

Then connect the bridge pickup hot (ie from the same terminal on the switch) and the bridge pickup tap to the push-pull. When the pull-switch is on it will connect the hot and tap together which will give the tapped pickup.

olafgarten

See here www.seymourduncan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/tapped_tele_5way.jpg

This is the same concept with a Tele, the bridge pickup should be the same, but just attach the but going from the switch to the bridge to where the bridge would go on the 5 way switch and the Neck and Middle as normal.