Four conductor wiring options?

Well I had posted this in another thread but I guess I'll ask here as well. I searched a few old threads as well at google but couldn't really find the answer. So in short I recently purchased a four conductor pickup and just wanted to know if the following wiring schemes are possible, or even easy.

With a 4 conductor pickup, can you wire each of the coils with separate vol/tone pots?

Could you wire in say a shottsky diode (black ice overdrive) to just one of the pickup coils?

I can you can do series/parallel, phase switching and coil taps but would it be possible to have separate on/off switches for each coil?

The actual plan I was thinking was going to have Jaguar hardware (rhythm circuit, 3 switch plate). On the lower switch plate I'd have an on/off for each coil and a series/parallel switch. The other plate would have volume and tone for one coil, and the rhythm circuit plate would be a volume/tone for the other coil. The switch on the rhythm plate would be to switch the cap on the tone pot between a stock setting or a shottsky diode.

It would be a single pickup guitar by the by. So is any of this feasible? Waste of time? Cool/unique idea? :lol:

You can treat the pickup as two separate pickups easily with the limitation of when you run both in series you can't just switch one off; the rest is doable. Google the Brian May circuit and make it for two pickups instead of three, throwing in the shottsky/cap switching.

As always, it's (usually) difficult to tap a humbucker and make it sound good. YMMV.



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1/2 a humbucker is 1/2 a good idea. IMO too. I'd use aligator clips or temporarily solder the various combos to see if you like them. I did a guitar w 28 combos. Only used 5 at all and only 3 mostly. A lot of combos are just second rate versions of others. The V pot for each coil is a cool idea. You might need a treble blead cap in parallel. Have you checked out the "spin a split " on the Duncan site?.

Thanks for the info and help. I think I may try experimenting a little with the options. I have some terminal strips I can use for easy rewiring. I too have yet to really be a fan of tapped/split humbuckers but I figure it's always worth a shot, you never know. I have looked at the "spin a split" wiring and that is one scheme I've been keeping in the back of my mind.

Deep down I really am a minimalist when it comes to on-board guitar wiring but no one can deny a guitar with an abundance of knobs and switches looks cool. :smile:

The pickup in question is actually a vintage Wide Range humbucker that was modified at some point with 4 conductor wiring. To be perfectly honest I am sort of leaning towards just getting the pickup restored. Although I have always wondered how a single coil Wide Range would sound:neutral:

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/ThreeStringGuitar/Bronco%20VI%20Conversion/IMG_0140.jpg
http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t259/ThreeStringGuitar/Bronco%20VI%20Conversion/IMG_0141.jpg

You can wire it to series-split-parallel. I like it. You'll need on-on-on switch. Here's how:http://www.**********************/product/WD1H11_07/Guitar-Wiring-Diagram-1-Humbucker1-Volume1-ToneSeries-South-Parallel.html