How to Wire a Deluxe Nashville Tele for neck and bridge Pickup

Here's one way pictured. [emoji2957] It gives me any pickup combo, even all on and all off.

Another is a 5 way switch, you just reverse the bridge and middle pickup wires. That would give you (from front to back) neck / neck+bridge / bridge / bridge+middle / middle.

What you don't get that way is neck+middle

Yet another way is to wire it like a standard Tele 3 way with neck and bridge and then add the middle pickup with a separate volume ala Brent Mason.

You have LOTS of choices.

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Rob D wired one for me with a five way switch and a push/pull to turn on the neck pup - it works great for how I play.

 

Mine too. Plus a Lion King, SRV Tiger and Nashville Lion set.

 

I wired my Strat with a standard three way connected to the neck and bridge pickups and a mini toggle that activates the middle pickup.

 

I've been tempted to do that on a Strat. The problem on a Strat of course is that if you position the switches where the normal blade switch is, you run the risk of accidentally muting yourself if you have one pickup on and accidentally turn it off.

I worked up a wiring diagram which allows you to assign a default pickup. If all three pickups are switched off, there's no muting. Instead, your "default" pickup is on. As soon as you select any pickup, operation returns to normal. Here's the diagram showing all 8 switch permutations.

The solid lines are wires and the dotted lines are the switch blades. I selected the neck as the default pickup, but you can choose any one. The default pickup gets the SPDT and the other two pickups get the DPDT.



... Thom

 

I use mine in the studio. The "all off" when in that setting is a nice feature. The reverse plate on the Telecaster keeps the toggles out of the way.

I think if I did that on my Strat I would do mini push-buttons.

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These first two use 5-way Strat switches. Same as Strat master tone + blend wiring, except with a switch instead of a blend pot. The two schemes are identical in terms of sounds. The only difference is in positioning of the 'extra' settings. Described in the diagram legends.

The switch is drawn as a mini-toggle, which I like to mount between the pots. You could also wire it with a push-pull pot, but in that case you'll reverse the Up and Down as shown on the toggles. In other words, when you pull UP, the upper lugs are active. On mini toggles, the contacts are on a pivot with the switch tip, so when the tip points one way, contact is made towards the other direction. Not unlike a Fender blade switch.



















The last two here employ 3-way Tele switches. Neck and Bridge are wired normally. The difference is in how Middle is activated. NOTE: either of these can just as easily be a 4-way switch with Neck / Bridge in series. With Middle activated, it would be in parallel with the series pair. Not a bad sound.


The first scheme has Middle on a mini-toggle (can also be push-pull, like the first two diagrams). It has everything the first two offer, except no Middle pickup on it's own.






Finally, we have another where it's Tele wiring as normal, plus Middle, but this time controlled by a volume pot. Note, it's not a blend. Separate volume, meaning it can be played alone. So, we're back to getting seven sounds.

The third pot is fairly easy to install, but in my experience, a pot with a smaller body than CTS is required. I forget if I used Alpha or Bourns. Another way to do it is to put vol and tone on a single stacked pot. It's actually still two separate pots, with concentric shafts. Then mount a regular CTS pot for the Middle.

I forgot to say on the legend, but it's a Master tone. Separate volumes, but tone works on all.

I tried this scheme on one of mine, thinking I'd like it. I was wrong. I don't like that there's no switch for Middle. We're used to having both switch and pot for either each pickup (Gibson), or the whole (Fender). I didn't care for having to spin the Middle volume every time I just wanted to turn it on. YMMV of course.

 

I purchased and installed a 920D Custom 7 way control plate. Btw, if ordering (or even doing a rewire) there is a difference between years in the Nashville Deluxe(s)...some have a two wire middle pickup (like mine) and some have a four conductor middle pickup (later models I think).

 

There's also the Oak-Grigsby 6-way switch, which is a fairly new thing. Very simple wiring, and no extra toggle or push-pull. Compared to the others, it's missing Neck+Middle+Bridge.






Along those same lines, here's one nobody ever mentions, but I kinda like. 6-way rotary switch. Cheaper than the Oak-Grigsby switch, for sure. Easy to wire. The main problem is looking at the position of the knob to figure out what position you're in. On the plus side, these switches usually have a solid click-feel to them. You won't bump it out of position.





That's about it for the simple Nashville schemes. The more complex wirings come with super switches, and offer all the singles (though sometimes not middle), all the parallel combos, and some or all of the series combos.


I'm currently playing this in my recent Nashville build, and I like it a lot. Though I do need a cheat sheet, as I get used to the wiring.... It has a super switch, plus a S-1. It's got a modified TBX tone pot. Half the rotation is bass cut, half is treble cut, and the middle detent is no-load.

With the S1 disengaged, it acts like a Strat. Press the button, and you get five completely different sounds: all three series, plus the two 'extra' parallel positions. The Bridge / Neck series setting has a cap which honks up the tone a bit. The five Strat positions have an extra 250k resistor loading the signal, just like position 4 on a Strat when both tone pots are active. It doesn't sound darker... just a bit 'softer'.

 

That makes sense, although a tuner on your pedal board or your volume knob take care of muting as well. With your switch plate orientation, you won't accidentally turn anything off of course. You do however need to get used to turning one pickup on before you turn another one off. I like the idea of slamming all three switches down in one motion to play my most used (neck) pickup, but that's just me.

While mini push buttons have cool factor, I'd want an LED indicator for each switch to know which pickup is on. Then, that becomes a distraction to me (having to look down). I think toggles are more elegant due to their directness and simplicity (tactile recognition). This lack of tactile recognition is what I hate about modern cars' climate control systems. I'm sure there are exceptions in sports cars, but I don't see a Porsche or Ferrari in my immediate future.

I went over the deep end with switch wiring a Strat years ago. I can't remember the sequence, but it was a toggle with one position being the standard Strat positions and the other one having some series and other variants. I found that I spent more time focusing on which pickup combination was on than I did on playing. The arrangement was similar (the same?) to the one posted above.

For adding bridge + neck to a 3 pickup guitar, I like the simplicity (in order) of:

• three toggles
• standard 3-way Tele wiring of the neck and bridge, along either with a toggle or push/pull pot to turn on the middle (I prefer a toggle).
• the 6 position rotary(above) - intuitive, with the only disadvantage being that you can't flip it with your pinkie.

On a Strat, the bridge + neck is never gonna sound like a Tele anyway, so I've reverted to standard Strat wiring. On a Tele ... yeah, you want that bridge + neck.

... Thom

 

Thats my preferred setup with strats and Nashville tele’s although I use a push-pull switch. Same/same.

 

I went with the switch because I also converted it to a single tone/single volume, so there was a hole to fill in the pick guard.

 

Is that a stacked humbucker, or noiseless perhaps? I'm just curious why the second set of conductors.

 

I go with the master volume/tone thing too but I’m too ham-fisted and always seem to turn down the volume on a strat when I really get amped up so I just cut a new pickguard with two control holes. Yeah, I get that’s a personal thing and I like the idea of a separate switch, just doesn’t work for me.

 

Unknown. But in the process of buying the control plate, the person on the other end asked me to verify a two or four wire middle pup bc the control plates are wired differently. Cheers!

 

Yay! Thanks to this thread, a Bourns push-pull tone pot, and some wire, I got my MIM Nashville Tele rigged up with the seven sounds. Bridge on wiring. Love it! Gives the classic B + N Tele sound plus all the others. Thanks for the diagrams.

 

Sorry, I don’t - I had suggested a 5 way and a mini toggle but Rob suggested the push/pull on the tone pot to turn on the neck, and I love it - easy and intuitive. Ask him here for the diagram?