4 way Telecaster wiring with TV Jones Classic

[powerteletron]

I've got a partscaster Tele with a Seymour Duncan Antiquity single coil in the bridge and a TV Jones Classic in the neck, 3 way blade, 1 vol, 1 tone.

I'd like to try wiring up a 4 way switch like I've done with other Teles because I'm interested in hearing what having a single coil bridge and humbucker in the neck will sound like.

Typically 4 way wiring in a Tele requires breaking the jumper on the neck pickup itself and adding a 3rd wire there to isolate the pickup cover. How does that same principle apply to a TV Jones Classic humbucker that has 4 wires plus the shield?

TV Jones 4 conductor pickups have a bare shield, black, white, red & green wires. Normally the bare & black both are grounded to the back of the volume pot together, while white is "hot" and goes to lug 1 of volume, and red + green get twisted together and taped off. This is typical TVJ series wiring, just what I want. The confusion comes with figuring out how to isolate the cover of the TVJ Classic in the neck? Is it necessary?

I'm not interested in coil splitting or tapping, etc... just asking if anyone has successfully utilized 4 way Tele wiring with a TVJ Classic in the neck... and how you dealt with isolating the cover on the neck pickup.

Looking for
1-bridge only
2-bridge + neck in parallel
3-neck only
4-bridge + neck in series

 

[Wayne Alexander]

The bare shield wire in the TV Jones pickup should be wired to ground. The black and white wires should be wired to the 4 way switch just as they are on a standard tele pickup in this diagram from Lindy Fralin's website. Consider the bare shield wire on the TVJ pickup to be the same as the "cover ground" wire on a tele neck pickup. Do not change the red/green wires which are connected together (that puts the pickup coils in series as they should be for this pickup). My guess is that you will not find the 4th position (neck and bridge pickups in series with a TVJ classic in the neck and the SD Antiquity tele pickup in the bridge) useful, but this should be how to get it.

 

[powerteletron]

Much thanks! I also have a killer 5 way Monty's loom that I may experiment with if the 4the position of the 4 way isn't a useful sound. Thanks again. I'll give this a shot.

 

[powerteletron]

So I decided to go for the 5 way after all. I am really happy with all the sounds and functionality of the setup I landed on. I added the Fralin "bright switch" as well, which can also be viewed as a "preset" of sorts since.