Just bought a tele, need to do electrical work

[kidA]

hello, I am new here, just joined. Anyhow, here's my story:

I just purchased an Alvarez asg4 telecaster copy. I love the guitar, especially since it has a quilted maple top and a middle pickup. So, I need to change the tone pot and the output jack. I already ordered a new output jack and a 500k (thats what came on it) pot and .047uf capacitor. First, is this the right capacitor? second, I know the soldering for the output jack is straight up, and i've found diagrams for the tone knob, but i just want to make sure. The capacitor gets wired up to the metal on the pot case itself, then the other end goes on one of the poles on the pot with the live wire. then the ground attaches to the other pole and im set right?

Also, given that it has a middle lipstick pickup, I'm thinking about putting in a mini humbucker (not the rail kind), which would require that i cut a custom pickguard and all that. I also want to coil tap the humbucker so that I can get the following pickup selections with the 5 way switch.

1.Humbucker (single on push pull)
2.Humbucker and Middle (single/middle on push pull)
3.Middle
4.Humbucker and bridge (single/bridge on push pull)
5.Bridge

I'm looking for feedback, what people think, is there a point in doing this, etc. also, any humbucker suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

sorry, one more thing. I'm looking to buy a new bridge pickup from someone locally. it's a GFS fat alnico bridge pickup. I was wondering if anyone knows anything about these pickups.

[aznrambo481]

so you want it S-H-S? (single-humbucker-single)
You could probably get a variety of sounds out of that. Depending on the orientation of the middle pickup, you may be able to pop the humbucker in just by cutting a larger hole where the lipstick was, and carving a bit of wood out for the pup to sit in. the wiring is not that hard, wire it like a strat, but put a coil split in the humbucker before the switch(it is a coil split and not a coil tap, making a humbucker work as a singlecoil is not the same as a coil tap). your pot values should be right.

And you are doing 1 tone knob right? take this (the wire colors may not be the same). in the diagram the humbucker is in the bridge. just switch it with the middle one. see the 3 wires coming from the pickups onto the left side of the switch? make sure that you orient them so that the one from the humbucker goes to the one that says (middle).

I've had a great experience buying from Guitarfetish.

Hope this helps.

[kidA]

thanks. that's exactly what i needed.

Also, what difference does it make in terms of sound whether the humbucker is at the neck or the middle, or would it make more sense to do S H S?

[normantrophy]

As to the capacitor, that's a matter of taste, and you can experiment with the value to see what you like. Seems like they're usually either .01uF, .022uF, or .047uF, depending on how much or little "mud" you like in the mix. There's some good stuff over at the guitarnuts web site on playing with the value of this cap.

[kidA]

is there something wrong with guitarnuts? Every button i click takes me either to musiciansfriend or ebay...

[aznrambo481]

guitarnuts has some really annoying popups that link to those sites, try closing those windows.

[normantrophy]

I've never run into that problem, but then, I have a "pop-up blocker." Look for something about "shifting your guitar's tonal range" under "modifications."

[kidA]

i got it to work. question about the push pull pots. it has the extra thing with 6 studs, 3 rows of 2. can someone explain what each of those is? thanks.