Tapped Esquire wiring combo I can't seem to find or solve

[Meowy]

I have built an Esquire with a tapped pickup (Zhang Paul Bunyan / Bell Tone) and I have wired it for now with the Seymour Duncan "Signature Esquire" scheme: http://cdn.seymourduncan.com/pdfs/su...gn_esquire.pdf

^^ This is essentially an Esquire with the Eldred mod, but with the tone pot in circuit. Even though I've tried several cap values, the Eldred mod really doesn't do anything for me, it just sounds like the simple filter that it is. I find the Arlo circuit has much more of a notable wah character.

What I would really like to do is the following:

Pos 1 - Full pickup with vol and tone
Pos 2 - Tapped pickup with vol and tone
Pos 3 - Tapped pickup with vol and arlo cocked wah, ideally with tone out of circuit

I have not been able to find a diagram that provides this or gets me close enough to make modifications, nor have I been able to come up with anything on my own

I know I could put the Arlo circuit on a push-pull and be done with it (I've done in a 2 pickup / 4 way switch Tele), but I would prefer to keep it Esquire-simple and not add another switch. If I am asking too much from a 3 way switch, this is the route I will take.

If anyone could refer me to a diagram or whip something up, I would be grateful

[Jerry C.]

What does "tapped" mean? I used one of the Seymour Duncan wiring schemes for the Esquire I just built and didn't like how it sounded. I found a different scheme and am very happy with the results. Since I'm not familiar with a tapped pickup I don't know if my diagram would help or not.

But I think mine is:

1. Direct
2. Volume
3. Volume+tone

[Meowy]

A tapped pickup is one with 2 hot leads. One is the full pickup output, the other (the tap) is lower output

[crazydave911]

Originally Posted by Jerry C.

What does "tapped" mean?

Seems to be the newest trend/fad coming from across the "Big Pond" and seem to be tied to another..........kill switches. It took me a long time to see any advantage to a kill switch until I saw a momentary switch used as a darn good fake trem
What a split single-coil gets you, I'm clueless still, but have heard a few on youtube (not impressed.............yet).


If you want to use the Eldred mod use this, just wire position 1 as your tap







Or, if you can live without the Eldred mod and don't want to use the 4-way switch, use this

[JCollins]

Tapped single coil pickups have been around for a long time. Seymour Duncan has made a Hot Tele tapped bridge pickup for years. I had one over ten years ago. The two sounds available from that pickup are quite different, indeed. The full pickup is very beefy and not particularly vintage tone, whereas the tap yields a vintage style tone. With a standard, five-way Strat switch, you can get five, distinct sounds out of a Tele with such a bridge pickup.

I use a tapped bridge pickup on my two-pickup Tele (five-way switch), and a bridge pickup with three taps on my Esquire-ed Tele (three-way switch). The pickups are Klein pickups.

[crazydave911]

Guess I just don't get out much