3-way- switch 2 single coil 1 vol 1 tone push/pull wiring diagram

[HeiA]

Hey there, I’m pretty new here, and have been searching here for hours now but getting more and more confused

i bought myself a Chinese telecaster knock- off (amazing action btw) and wanted to use the opportunity to do some writing experimentation.
I can silver but wiring schematics go over my head

i would like to know where I can find a wiring diagram for the following scenario:

pulling the push/ pull knob, I’d get the option of having both of my single coils in middle position in series, for that hummbucker- like effect

also, what other additional options would I be able to achieve with that one push/pull configuration?

I’ve been watching some videos where people talk about different ways of wiring to make the volume and tone pots interact differently with each other, like the grease bucket, black circuit and others I can’t remember right now- any clear and concise explanation would be deeply appreciated, may it be just a link or a wiring diagram with some simple explanation on what it does

thanks for taking the time and reading, and please apologize for my lack of researching skills

 

[sjtalon]

Here's one way- Series-cudos to Deaf Eddie:

 

[HeiA]

Wow that was fast- thank you so much!!! Would I still be able to do a grease bucket modification to it? I’m pretty new on how to develop those kinda diagrams on my own

 

[NoTeleBob]

FWIW, series won't be "humbucker effect" unless your pickups are wound and magnetized in the orientation that does that. You'd need to test to figure that out. But it will give you a different sound no matter what. So go for it.

I would also add a push-pull on the volume control too and change the phase of the bridge pickup. That way you get the in or out of phase sounds which are sort of like a Strat between positions. Scroll this page down to where it says "Phase Reversal Switch". You just take the two wires from the bridge pickup and send them to the additional DPDT as shown, solder on the cross wires on the switch, and run the two "output" leads as before (above, bridge). http://www.1728.org/guitar.htm

 

[HeiA]

FWIW, series won't be "humbucker effect" unless your pickups are wound and magnetized in the orientation that does that. You'd need to test to figure that out. But it will give you a different sound no matter what. So go for it.

I would also add a push-pull on the volume control too and change the phase of the bridge pickup. That way you get the in or out of phase sounds which are sort of like a Strat between positions. Scroll this page down to where it says "Phase Reversal Switch". You just take the two wires from the bridge pickup and send them to the additional DPDT as shown, solder on the cross wires on the switch, and run the two "output" leads as before (above, bridge). http://www.1728.org/guitar.htm

Oh yeah that polarity thing has to be checked with a compass, right? There is a special tool for that, with that black or white flipping tube thingy, but a compass will do hahaha

 

[HeiA]

FWIW, series won't be "humbucker effect" unless your pickups are wound and magnetized in the orientation that does that. You'd need to test to figure that out. But it will give you a different sound no matter what. So go for it.

I would also add a push-pull on the volume control too and change the phase of the bridge pickup. That way you get the in or out of phase sounds which are sort of like a Strat between positions. Scroll this page down to where it says "Phase Reversal Switch". You just take the two wires from the bridge pickup and send them to the additional DPDT as shown, solder on the cross wires on the switch, and run the two "output" leads as before (above, bridge). http://www.1728.org/guitar.htm

Like this?

 

[Billy3]

All great options above! You might want to check out the 4 way switch mods also. I also like the oop mod too. Don't use it much, but it's a nice addition to have! Keep on pickin!

 

[HeiA]

All great options above! You might want to check out the 4 way switch mods also. I also like the oop mod too. Don't use it much, but it's a nice addition to have! Keep on pickin!

Thank you really much for your help- I’ll be having a few additional questions, for sure- after learning all that abbreviation lingo on that forum that only makes ~40% sense to me as of now

 

[sjtalon]

Wow that was fast- thank you so much!!! Would I still be able to do a grease bucket modification to it? I’m pretty new on how to develop those kinda diagrams on my own

You're welcome.

Think of the tone control (pot) as its own component. You can do whatever you want with that. Really means nothing to anything else there as far as how it's wired to function.

 

[NoTeleBob]

Like this?

That's the series / parallel mod. That's already in the diagram above. The phase switch only has to deal with one pickup (you flip the wiring on one and then they are out-of-phase with each other).

 

[moosie]

FYI, the greasebucket tone circuit attempts to eliminate the mud when rolling the tone pot down. Unless you use a very small tone cap (like .01uf), most of the pot's sweep is too muddy to be useful. Fender says the greasebucket "removes treble without adding bass". Well, you can't add anything to a passive guitar signal - what you got from the string and pickup, is what you got, period. What they mean is "removes treble, while also removing some bass frequencies."

 

[Billy3]

Thank you really much for your help- I’ll be having a few additional questions, for sure- after learning all that abbreviation lingo on that forum that only makes ~40% sense to me as of now

Here to help! Keep on pickin!

 

[HeiA]

FYI, the greasebucket tone circuit attempts to eliminate the mud when rolling the tone pot down. Unless you use a very small tone cap (like .01uf), most of the pot's sweep is too muddy to be useful. Fender says the greasebucket "removes treble without adding bass". Well, you can't add anything to a passive guitar signal - what you got from the string and pickup, is what you got, period. What they mean is "removes treble, while also removing some bass frequencies."

thanks a lot for the additional info, it really helps accelerating that learning process

since starting this studying journey, I came across some nice source material, and a lot of abbreviations make more sense to me now.

I came across this schematic
https://www.sixstringsupplies.co.uk/telecaster-wiring-in-series

which is kinda intriguing, although I’m not sure what half out of Phase actually would sound like, or what the benefits would be- curious to see what you guys have to say about that

right now I’m trying to decide what kind of wiring I actually would like to have, either treble bleed, greasebucket, or 50s wiring.
https://youtu.be/2Gcz53ImWAA
(here’s a video on the most popular tone mods).

https://www.sixstringsupplies.co.uk/installing-a-treble-bleed

Although I still have to check all of those capacitor and transistor combinations for each of those- so im thinking if there maybe is a way to add a second push/pull pot and combining to different wiring circuits as well as that in series mod so I could get the best of all worlds- in a way hahaha

so yeah, after I made up my mind based in your recommendations and combined wisdom,
Im actually planning on making my circuit as modular as possible by using DuPont jumper wires for connecting everything, so I can test different capacitors, transistors and wiring schemes without having to solder over and over again.
This is gonna be fun hehehe

 

[moosie]

right now I’m trying to decide what kind of wiring I actually would like to have, either treble bleed, greasebucket, or 50s wiring.

It's not treble bleed OR greasebucket. They aren't related at all.

50s or TB can be used with greasebucket. Don't use both TB and 50s.

The TB is wired to let some variable amount of treble bypass the vol pot, and thus not be 'lost'. Ideally, the variable amount is exactly the amount of the loss, at each point along the taper as the pot rolls back. You can see how it might be tricky to get right. It's easy to end up with MORE treble (as in a spike), maybe only in certain portions of the vol pot sweep. Not good. The TB is constructed one of four ways: single cap; single cap + single resistor in series; single cap + single resistor in parallel; and single cap + TWO resistors. The values of all these components aren't set in stone, either.

I recommend using no treble bleed for now. It's easy enough to try both regular and 50s, and see if regular is a problem when rolling back volume. And if you're like many, vol is normally dimed anyway. There's no loss in this case.

Don't get caught up in "internet difficulties". Fender didn't use a treble bleed for decades. All that music... sounded pretty OK.

although I’m not sure what half out of Phase actually would sound like, or what the benefits would be- curious to see what you guys have to say about that

When you have two pickups in parallel that are out of phase with each other, the frequencies cancel out, resulting in a very thin sound. If the pickups were in the same place on the body, the freqs would fully cancel, and there'd be no sound. You only hear the slight differences based on pickup placement under the strings. It has a place, but not very often. Generally it's unusable.

HOoP is an attempt to make something more useful. A capacitor is placed in the path of one of the pickups (doesn't matter which). Capacitors are delaying components: they load with signal, and then release at a threshold. Then they start loading again. This slight loading delay causes a phase rotation. Imagine both signals on a 'scope. Two sine waves, almost exactly cancelling each other. But with the cap, one signal is 'slower', is a step behind. So, when one pickup's wave is peaking at 0/360 degrees, the other is at 90 degrees. There's still frequency cancellation, but not nearly as much. It's a useful tone, somewhat like the Strat 2 & 4 positions. But not really, since those are NOT OOP, contrary to popular belief.

 

[moosie]

Im actually planning on making my circuit as modular as possible by using DuPont jumper wires for connecting everything

What, out to a breadboard? You might not be able to hear anything useful for the noise. Unless you shield the whole mess somehow.

 

[AJBaker]

For the series sound, a push-pull pot works fine, but a 4-way switch is much more convenient in my opinion. (I'm also constantly adjusting volume and tone, or doing volume swells, so I don't like push-pulls).

For the noise cancelling effect ('humbucking') I wouldn't worry too much about finding a compass. Just turn up your amp and listen to the amount of hum in each position; if the middle position is quieter, that means it's already noise cancelling. If it isn't noise cancelling, it's not the end of the world either.

 

[HeiA]

Man, im loving this. Foolish me to think Forums like this one are a dying breed haha


This is the video I used for learning about the different bleed circuit options

as of now, I’m opting for the chris kinman treble bleed circuit/ in series, for the more gradual control in volume decrease

but upon reading this https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/19909-mod-garage-50s-les-paul-wiring-in-a-telecaster

it seems like the 50s wiring is better than treble bleed circuits?

am I right in my understanding that the 50s wiring makes tone and volume knob become interdependent to each other compared to the treble bleed circuit which only takes care of the high frequency loss when turning the Volume knob lower?

the Only reason I never interacted a lot with the tone knob in the first place is because it just makes the signal sound muddy, so anything that would give me a different approach other than having a highcut/lowpass effect with the tone knob is interesting to me and I’d love to,learn more about my options.

 

[HeiA]

For the series sound, a push-pull pot works fine, but a 4-way switch is much more convenient in my opinion. (I'm also constantly adjusting volume and tone, or doing volume swells, so I don't like push-pulls).

For the noise cancelling effect ('humbucking') I wouldn't worry too much about finding a compass. Just turn up your amp and listen to the amount of hum in each position; if the middle position is quieter, that means it's already noise cancelling. If it isn't noise cancelling, it's not the end of the world either.

I really don’t like a 4-way switch, because the space between the switch and the knob is so small, and in the haste of the moment I can’t afford to fiddle with it- push pull is more convenient for my simpleton brain hahaha

 

[moosie]

am I right in my understanding that the 50s wiring makes tone and volume knob become interdependent to each othe

Right. It eliminates the need for a treble bleed, but is really an entirely different thing. Worth trying in my opinion. I wire most of mine with 50s.

Your treble bleed video is out of date - it doesn't show the more recent Fender style, which is what they're calling Duncan style (parallel cap / resistor), plus a resistor in series. I can't remember the values, you can look it up though. Fender has a lot of their wiring schemes online.

Anyway, this recent treble bleed idea is meant to hug the tone curve most closely, as the vol pot is turned.

 

[Norris Vulcan]

Lots of good suggestions.
Only thing I'd add is consider a Push/Push rather than a Push/Pull - much easier IMO.