Bill Lawrence Microcoil Wiring Help?

[MrSparkle]

I recently got the Tele MC set... Bear with me, I'm still learning my way around the electronics...

I've looked at Bill's schematic diagrams and Becky's forum posts.. still a little confused. Both neck & bridge pups have:

White wire - Hot
Black/Blue wires - Ground

I had Texas Specials w/4-way switching (series/parallel), and I started by swapping the bridge p/u.. Haven't done neck yet because I'm not sure what to do w/the 4th position since there's not another lead on the neck p/u.. (or am I wrong?).

I presume I need to flip the leads because my series/parallel positions are out-of-phase and half-volume... and there's just as much hum as ever on my bridge p/u.

Do I keep the blue wire grounded to the volume pot and simply switch the W/B wires?

Will the MC Neck pup want to be reverse-wired to the MC bridge? Or is that not necessary since it's a silent pickup?

[MrSparkle]

Maybe I can use the 5-way schematic and skip the neck w/reduced low-end selection?

http://s1203.photobucket.com/albums/...outofphase.jpg

But the blue wires are confusing me a bit.

[soulman969]

Both blues are soldered to the volume pot.

[PunkKitty]

If you use the 5 way wiring, you will need to solder the blue wire from the neck pickup to the back of the volume pot. That isn't shown in the diagram.

For BL pickups:
White - hot
Black - pickup ground
Blue - casing ground

[garrett]

Originally Posted by PunkKitty

If you use the 5 way wiring, you will need to solder the blue wire from the neck pickup to the back of the volume pot. That isn't shown in the diagram.

For BL pickups:
White - hot
Black - pickup ground
Blue - casing ground

Right, so four way with the micros, both whites go to the switch. Blue and black of bridge pup go to back of volume pot. Blue of neck goes to back of volume pot. Black of neck goes to switch.

[MrSparkle]

Thanks fellas will try it tonight!!

[MrSparkle]

Hmm.. wired it up, sounds good, but got hum on all positions:

- both whites to switch
- neck black to switch
- neck blue to vol pot
- bridge black and blue to vol pot

Now I'm realizing ... To the back of the vol pot, I also connected the ground wire to output jack. Is this causing a ground loop?

This was the schematic I ended up using... since I had a treble retention cap too.. except i wired the extra bridge blue wire to vol pot:

[garrett]

You may not need that treble bypass cap. If the tone thins out too much when you turn down the volume, take it out.

Now, are you getting hum, or is it a buzz? Hum is that annoying drone you normally can't escape with single coils. Buzz is a thinner sound that goes away or reduces greatly when you touch the strings.

The Micros aren't completely noiseless, so it could be either, but I've seen where people first start noticing buzz after getting rid of the more obnoxious hum.