4-way switch with 50s style wiring

[olympic-bound]

This is probably a dumb question. Can you have 50s style wiring and a 4-way switch together?

 

[Mr. Lumbergh]

Yes. The 50's-style just moves the location of the jumper on the tone control to another leg of the pot.

 

[RoscoeElegante]

Are such kits available?

Who makes a good one?

Could the average-skilled tech put one in, say, a cheaper type of Tele (say, an Affinity)?

I REALLY like the idea of both that great bridge/neck blend control, and the 4-way series switch.

Also, anyone here have opinion about whether the original Broadcaster blend in its switch position 1 is (subjectively) better or worse than the '52 RI's 4-way parallel option?

Caution: Self-referential by the way: This is very weird. In listening to some original wiring Broadcaster vs. '52 4-way-switch, etc., videos tonight, for the first time in my life this very question occurred to me. I bump my computer back to life so I can ask the Forum this question, and there it is, just asked. All week, about 10 min. after I think of something obscure, there it is. For example, for some reason, I think of "imbroglio" and wonder how I knew that word when I took my GRE's in 1983. I was surprised I got it right, so I remembered the word. Have seen it about five times since, heard it used maybe twice, and myself used it maybe once. "Weird," I think. Within a minute, walking home, I hear a student, looking up from something he's reading, asking someone, "What the hell does 'imbroag-leo' mean?" On and on, all week. Thinking of an obscure cheese-song (okay, I like it, though big-British-hair males in mascara scare me), I turn on the car, find that kids have goofed w/ the radio to an A.M. station I never dial in, and there's the same song, blasting. "CAN WE MEET...ON COMMON GROUND?"

Doo-doo-DO-doo! (Phlegmy "Twilight Zone" theme there, key of EndTimesDiminished.)

And yet my lottery numbers never win....

 

[Mr. Lumbergh]

Well Roscoe I guess it makes sense to define what is meant exactly by "50's style wiring" then. When I hear the term I think of the tone control being more interactive with the volume. Also called the "Fezz Parka" mod.
Perhaps we should ask the OP: what were you after specifically?

 

[RoscoeElegante]

By "'50s style," I'm thinking of the Broadcaster style. Position 1 = the "tone control" knob actually just blends the bridge & neck pups, w/ the actual tone fixed as all the way up for both. Position 2 = just the neck pup, tone fixed as all the way up. Position 3 = (very) muted neck.

I wouldn't have any use for 3 in this set up. But the tone control's blend function in pos. 1 seems brilliant. If that 3rd switch position could be converted the pos. 4 option (bridge & neck in parallel), OR if that pos. 4 could just be added to this basic Broadcast style, that would be great, I think. You'd have a Tele where you can dial for just bridge, where you can blend bridge & neck, where you can switch to just neck, and where you can play bridge and neck in parallel.

Maybe too good or kooky to be true. But is such a rigging available, and fairly readily transplanatable?

By the way, "at a reeesonable volume."

 

[sjtalon]

Tried the broadcaster wiring for kicks once and like others found the neck position(#3) too dark so I replaced the switch cap with a .015µF and it wasn't too bad.

Switched back to standard though as I like it better to just flip the switch instead of screwing around blending.

Ya could be confusion with the term 50's.

As far as the tone mod (a.k.a. Fezz Parka/Ted Greene), would should be added is GIBSON 50's wiring as that's where it originated from.

 

[telex76]

I think he's talking about the dark circuit. With a blend knob instead of tone.

 

[olympic-bound]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I am basically just experimenting to find what sounds the best to me. I guess I am more confused as to how the switch relates to the rest of the wiring. I saw a diagram for a 4-way switch with 50s style wiring (with the tone cap going to the center lug of the volume pot) and the wiring for the switch looked different from how mine is wired. I have a Lollar Special T neck and J Street bridge with a Sprague Vitamin Q 0.18 cap. Right now, it's dialed in pretty well. The tone knob at it's darkest still produces a useable sound, and at it's brightest it doesn't kill my ears with harshness. I'm just always wondering if there's some way to make it sound even better.

 

[olympic-bound]

Another question I forgot to mention is the extra .1 cap going from the switch to ground in the old school wiring schematics. What's up with that?

 

[waparker4]

By "'50s style," I'm thinking of the Broadcaster style. Position 1 = the "tone control" knob actually just blends the bridge & neck pups, w/ the actual tone fixed as all the way up for both. Position 2 = just the neck pup, tone fixed as all the way up. Position 3 = (very) muted neck.

I wouldn't have any use for 3 in this set up. But the tone control's blend function in pos. 1 seems brilliant. If that 3rd switch position could be converted the pos. 4 option (bridge & neck in parallel), OR if that pos. 4 could just be added to this basic Broadcast style, that would be great, I think. You'd have a Tele where you can dial for just bridge, where you can blend bridge & neck, where you can switch to just neck, and where you can play bridge and neck in parallel.

Maybe too good or kooky to be true. But is such a rigging available, and fairly readily transplanatable?

By the way, "at a reeesonable volume."

Here's a stab at this wiring. The blend works in this case by putting the resistance value of the blend pot between neck "-" and ground. The blend control could be a no-load pot (see (link removed)) and w/ the blend control all the way up, position 1 would be all bridge pickup.

 

[RoscoeElegante]

Here's a stab at this wiring. The blend works in this case by putting the resistance value of the blend pot between neck "-" and ground. The blend control could be a no-load pot (see (link removed)) and w/ the blend control all the way up, position 1 would be all bridge pickup.

View attachment 305046

Thanks, wp4! This is very interesting. Do you think a maybe slightly above average tech could devise this for me, if I brought him a Broadcaster-wired Tele to work on?

Or is the Pawn Shop '72 Stratocaster's wiring (just volume and blend knob) transplantable into a Tele?

 

[Opferlord]

Thanks, wp4! This is very interesting. Do you think a maybe slightly above average tech could devise this for me, if I brought him a Broadcaster-wired Tele to work on?

Or is the Pawn Shop '72 Stratocaster's wiring (just volume and blend knob) transplantable into a Tele?

Here's a stab at this wiring. The blend works in this case by putting the resistance value of the blend pot between neck "-" and ground. The blend control could be a no-load pot (see (link removed)) and w/ the blend control all the way up, position 1 would be all bridge pickup.

View attachment 305046

Here's a stab at this wiring. The blend works in this case by putting the resistance value of the blend pot between neck "-" and ground. The blend control could be a no-load pot (see (link removed)) and w/ the blend control all the way up, position 1 would be all bridge pickup.

This wiring diagram is very intriguing. Would capacitor have to worked into the circuit

 

[waparker4]

Wha?

 

[deadicated]

What a first post. Anyhow I think most good tech' would be able to do it or do what you just did. You don't really need a tech for that, a soldiering iron is very easy to use.