Packed- Telecaster Wiring with mixed pickups

[telemesomething1]

Hello all. Long time viewer first time caller.

I might be the outlier here. I am a bit of a minimalist. I only want to own one electric guitar, instead of having many for different purposes.

I have a SH Telecaster that I am fixing up. Humbucker is in the bridge. I am doing a full rewire of the guitar and new pickups.

I am going to be using Tonerider alnico 2 Blues as a neck pickup and Tonreider Alnico 2 PAF Bridge humbucker.

I am going to use a super 5 way switch so that I can coil split on the bottom humbucker and get some tele-like sounds still or just use it fully for rhythm. and hopefully even do a single coil split humbucker and neck pickup for some hum canceling action too. ( attached pdf of plans I currently have.)

The important thing is that this guitar is going to have two 500k push/pull switches that I need help figuring out how to wire it all in this small cavity .

I did NOT realize that having a Single coil and Humbucker would require one to have a 250k and the other a 500k for even volume and clarity.

Currently with cheap pickups it has I do notice a very noticeable difference of volume levels when using the 3 way switch with the 500k pots that are in it.

So I would like to figure out how to find a way to use a push/pull Pot or resistors to make sure the volume levels are equalized and the Neck pickup does not sound too muddy or distorted. ( I do have a pack of diff value resistors to test)

The volume push and pull I wanted it to either have one side to reduce the resistance of the Pot down to 250k instead of 500k and the other one regular or treble bleed.

With the 5 way super switch I feel like this could be very trick to have an even volume per pickup on all the switch positions. Any help on best practices or anyone with previous experience with mixed pickups would be apricated

Now for the fun Part.

Tone control:

I have a Grease bucket Kit and a .047uf tone cap that I would like to use to have as a push pull function the grease bucket has a .022 and .1 cap with 4.7k resistor


I attached a screenshot from another user on the forum but I could not follow the conversation and seemed like others had other ideas as well.


I know I might not be able to get the full answer, But if anyone can at least steer me in the right direction would be very grateful.

Tim

 

[Beebe]

Having a humbucker doesn't necessarily require a 500k pot. If that PAF is wound to around 8k with 42 gauge wire, it's probably pretty bright. Broadcaster style pickups can be wound to 10k with 43 gauge wire, and Fender still used 250k pots on them. And Gibsons can be found with 300k pots.

I'd suggest sticking with 250k pots or 300k and see what it sounds like before complicating the circuitry. You might really like it.

Some 250k pots with lower tolerances can measure a good bit higher. So if you have a handful, you can use the higher value ones.

 

[thegaijin]

Is this what you mean?

 

[moosie]

Hello all. Long time viewer first time caller.

I might be the outlier here. I am a bit of a minimalist. I only want to own one electric guitar, instead of having many for different purposes.

I have a SH Telecaster that I am fixing up. Humbucker is in the bridge. I am doing a full rewire of the guitar and new pickups.

I am going to be using Tonerider alnico 2 Blues as a neck pickup and Tonreider Alnico 2 PAF Bridge humbucker.

I am going to use a super 5 way switch so that I can coil split on the bottom humbucker and get some tele-like sounds still or just use it fully for rhythm. and hopefully even do a single coil split humbucker and neck pickup for some hum canceling action too. ( attached pdf of plans I currently have.)

The important thing is that this guitar is going to have two 500k push/pull switches that I need help figuring out how to wire it all in this small cavity .

I did NOT realize that having a Single coil and Humbucker would require one to have a 250k and the other a 500k for even volume and clarity.

Currently with cheap pickups it has I do notice a very noticeable difference of volume levels when using the 3 way switch with the 500k pots that are in it.

So I would like to figure out how to find a way to use a push/pull Pot or resistors to make sure the volume levels are equalized and the Neck pickup does not sound too muddy or distorted. ( I do have a pack of diff value resistors to test)

The volume push and pull I wanted it to either have one side to reduce the resistance of the Pot down to 250k instead of 500k and the other one regular or treble bleed.

With the 5 way super switch I feel like this could be very trick to have an even volume per pickup on all the switch positions. Any help on best practices or anyone with previous experience with mixed pickups would be apricated

Now for the fun Part.

Tone control:

I have a Grease bucket Kit and a .047uf tone cap that I would like to use to have as a push pull function the grease bucket has a .022 and .1 cap with 4.7k resistor


I attached a screenshot from another user on the forum but I could not follow the conversation and seemed like others had other ideas as well.


I know I might not be able to get the full answer, But if anyone can at least steer me in the right direction would be very grateful.

Tim

Welcome to the forum. Sorry for the belated answer. Busy building stuff...

Lots to unpack in that first post. Good details, thanks for that.

You seem to have a novice understanding of guitar circuits. With some of the stuff you're considering, you'll either learn a lot, FAST, or your one guitar will cease to work properly.

I'd hold off on the treble bleed issue until you have the rest of it done. At that point, see if you have annoying treble loss as you roll back volume. It might not be as big of an issue as you anticipate. Dialing in the ideal TB recipe for wildly disparate pickups is going to be difficult, at best. You might eliminate the need by using 50s wiring, but that comes with it's own caveats.

You talk about using a switchable greasebucket circuit. Permanently? Or just to test? I think if you wire it into the guitar permanently, you'll quickly tire of it, and settle on using one or the other all the time. That diagram you posted (I drew it, BTW) works fine either way. I just think it's unlikely to be useful once past the testing phase.

If you choose to use a greasebucket circuit either all the time, or switched, keep in mind that it won't work properly with 50s wiring (which is what you might try to eliminate the need for a treble bleed). Nothing is ever easy...

Why? In short, the GB passes the signal through the big .1uf cap, which mildy cuts bass as the treble is rolled back. For a bass cut to actually cut bass, it must be applied to the signal before it reaches the volume pot. 50s wiring by definition is where the tone circuit is applied to the output side of the vol pot.

On to the 'simple' stuff:
There are two issues with an SH setup that you're conflating. Pot values, and volume levels.

Pot values:
Some treble drains off to ground no matter what. Smaller value pots provide less resistance to this, so more drain, and we call the small pots 'darker'. Conversely, large value pots are 'brighter'. In a passive circuit there is no way to add anything that wasn't there when the string was plucked. So, not really brighter, but just less of that pesky treble drain.

Hold that thought.

Pickups are also seen as brighter and darker. Fender singles pretty much define bright. Gibson style humbuckers are less bright, with more mids, and more output, all thanks to there being two coils internally, that are wired back to back (in series). Think about how different a 4-way Tele sounds when series mode is selected. That's similar to how the two coils of a HB sound wired internally in series.

So, a dark HB can be brightened up with a large value pot. And a shrill single coil can be tamed with a small value pot. That's why the two pot values. It has nothing to do with volume levels.

The way resistor math works, for resistors wired in parallel: 500 + 500 = 250. If you use a 500k vol pot, the humbucker is happy. Then, when the single coil pickup is engaged, add a 470k resistor in parallel to the vol pot, so the effective resistance is now approximately 250k, like the small value pot the single wished it had. (470k is close enough, and is a much more common value to find). This can be done by connecting the resistor to the switch, at the terminal where the single coil pickup hot lead is soldered. The other end of the resistor is connected to ground.

Volume levels...
Humbuckers with series-wired coils are more powerful (louder) than singles, so when using them together in parallel (middle position of a 3-way), the HB overpowers the single. And switching between each of them solo, there's a noticeable volume change.

Assuming you have a 4-wire humbucker, there are two ways to address this. Coil splitting; and parallel coil wiring.

The simple coil split usually sounds like crap, in my opinion. Coils designed to make a humbucker sound good aren't necessarily what's used in a Fender single coil. Usually the humbucker coils are individually too weak. The usual way to work around this is to retain a portion of the dumped coil. Kind of like splitting so you end up with 1-1/4 coils. It sounds better, and is louder so there will be less (but still some) volume drop. This entails adding a resistor (google PRS coil split). I took that idea a step further with my frequency split, which I think sounds best.

The coils in parallel sound like humbucker-lite. Like a full HB, but not as loud, and more open, less thick sounding. It still sounds more like a humbucker than a single coil, but eliminates the worst of the volume level disparity.

It's possible to put the HB on a push pull, or mini toggle. A two position DPDT can be wired series vs split, or series vs parallel. And a ON-ON-ON toggle can be wired for all three: series, split, parallel.

 

[eallen]

I do a lot of SH builds with 5-way. I have never had anyone request a push pull after trying them. I use Schaller Magaswitch M 5-ways which provides space savings in high quality.
Single
Single series with HB outer or inner
Single series with HB full
HB outer
HB full