Telecaster Guitar Forum - View Single Post - Wiring a humbucker w/4-way switch

Deaf Eddie · May 6th, 2009, 01:54 PM

Here's my take on it: Shunt? Split? Tapped?

So, I would consider these schemes to be coil-SHUNTS. We're not disconnection one of the coils (SPLIT), and we're not TAPPING into the windings of a coil.

As for the how and why of coil-shunts, you've heard the old rule that electricity ALWAYS follows the path of least resistance? OK, then!

When you connect the SERIES PAIR junction (here, where the red and white are soldered together) to ground, you are making a "short-cut" path for the signal, so that instead of traveling through BOTH coils, one after the other (aka "series"), it can bypass one of the coils and go straight to ground - SHUNTING one of the coils out of the circuit. Basically, ONE of the coils then has both its hot AND ground both connected to ground - so, the juice don't run through it, it takes the short-cut bypassing it, and you only "hear" the other coil. With Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups, shunting to ground typically leaves the slug-polepiece-coil active, and shunts the adjustable-screw-polepiece-coil.

You could also "SHUNT to HOT" to play the OTHER coil (the screw coil), instead. When I do coil-shunts on a pair of humbuckers, I try to shunt one to ground and one to hot, so that it leaves a noise-canceling pair when I play them together.

May 6th, 2009, 01:54 PM	#16 (permalink)
Deaf Eddie Tele-Afflicted Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sunny San Diego, CA Posts: 1,741 14 Photos	Here's my take on it: Shunt? Split? Tapped? So, I would consider these schemes to be coil-SHUNTS. We're not disconnection one of the coils (SPLIT), and we're not TAPPING into the windings of a coil. As for the how and why of coil-shunts, you've heard the old rule that electricity ALWAYS follows the path of least resistance? OK, then! When you connect the SERIES PAIR junction (here, where the red and white are soldered together) to ground, you are making a "short-cut" path for the signal, so that instead of traveling through BOTH coils, one after the other (aka "series"), it can bypass one of the coils and go straight to ground - SHUNTING one of the coils out of the circuit. Basically, ONE of the coils then has both its hot AND ground both connected to ground - so, the juice don't run through it, it takes the short-cut bypassing it, and you only "hear" the other coil. With Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio pickups, shunting to ground typically leaves the slug-polepiece-coil active, and shunts the adjustable-screw-polepiece-coil. You could also "SHUNT to HOT" to play the OTHER coil (the screw coil), instead. When I do coil-shunts on a pair of humbuckers, I try to shunt one to ground and one to hot, so that it leaves a noise-canceling pair when I play them together. __________________ YMMV - I been wrong before...