How to wire the middle position in a normal 3 way telecaster

Got meeself a Classic Vibe Custom Telecaster, love it to bits. I found however though, that I really enjoy the out of phase sound on my les paul and wish to transfer the character of that tone over to my telecaster.

Nothing's been changed to the wiring of the telecaster or the electronics, just your standard single coil 3 way setup. I was wondering if someone could point me to a wiring diagram with the middle position out of phase. What's different about it from this?

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/support/schematics/standard_tele.jpg

What makes out of phase "out of phase" too? How is it different from "in-of-phase" LOL

http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/support/schematics/standard_tele.jpg

What makes out of phase "out of phase" too? How is it different from "in-of-phase" LOL
See where it says "white" and "black" on the wires coming from the bridge pup? If you reversed where those wires go, then the phase of the pickup will be changed. It should sound the same when selected alone, but in the middle position the two pickups will be out of phase.

You can wire a mini-switch or a push/pull pot, to do the job of reversing one of the pickup's phase, instead of doing it permanently. I believe there is a wiring diagram on the Duncan site for it... look under Misc.

I don't know what the middle position out of phase on a Tele sounds like or if it is any good. I know it is Peter Greene-ish on an LP. A more common mod on the tele is to have both the pickups on in series instead of parallel, which makes a bigger, louder sound. They usually use a 4 way lever switch for that mod.

Click on "resources" in the blue bar up north ^^. There's wiring info in there...

The out-of-phase sound depends mostly on the balance of the pickups output. The more out of balance they are, the less noticeable the out-of-phase sound and the output will be louder. As the balance gets closer, the phase sound is stronger, but the output is not as loud as either pickup alone. Adjusting pickup heights is the easiest way to adjust the balance.

James Burton used the out of phase tone on some of the early Merle Haggard stuff. It's a thin, snotty, snarly kind of tone. I wouldn't want to lose the standard middle position, it has it's place. As Led suggested go to Seymour's Tele wiring site and look up the use of the DPDT or push/pull pot to achieve the out of phase tone. With the push/pull you won't have to drill a hole in your control plate. Good luck!

Not sure about the out of phase and sorry if this is hijacking, but that tone Cap. Middle lug to ground on the same pot? The diagrams I have seen have it middle lug Tone pot to outer lug Vol pot. What difference would that make? It must change something. Puzzled.

Kristina

to check out Deaf Eddie's 5-way switch wiring for telecasters--you keep the parallel, and also get series in phase and out of phase!

On the cap question, it doesn't make any difference where the cap is grounded. Ground is ground. The outer lug of the volume pot still needs to be grounded and the ground is ground rule applies there too. It's generally just bent back and soldered to the vol pot. Deaf Eddies way would work for him also, it just depends on how good he is with schematics and the old soldering iron. Hey, we all had to learn some where, go for it.

I tried the mod on my bridge pickup and now my middle and bridge position don't work.

wired it back to the way it was and now it works but the middle position is still "in phase" or whateverthehell you call it

If your bridge pickup has a metal base plate, then you will have to cut the jumper wire to it, add a wire to the solder on the plate and run that to ground. Then you can reverse the leads (switch and pot ground). If you didn't do that, the pickup coil was grounded out when you switched the leads, that's way it didn't work.

That jumper is connected to the neutral coil wire, to "share" the ground connection.

Nevermind I did it on the neck pickup and it works now.

Well I tried it out for a bit and it sounds fantastic. I was never really a fan of the middle position tone until I was introduced to out of phase sounds.