Guitar Wiring Problems: 5 Things to Check Out Before You Spend Money on New Parts

photo by notsogoodphotography

I've got a few tips for you that will help you repair your guitar and probably also save some money. This is what you should check out when your guitar wiring doesn't work properly: 

Open your guitar's wiring cavity. Watch out on the body finish.

1. Switches

A (Gibson): If you have problems with a Gibson-style switch, try to look at it closer. Do you see that springy, thin pieces of metal. Try to carefully push them to the inside of the switch. Sometimes, after years of work, they are pushed out a little bit.

B: Use compressed air (or just blow) to get rid of dust inside the switch. You might be surprised what a little bit of dirt can do.

2. Connections, joints:

How a DPDT Switch Works? (DPDT in Guitars)

You can use a DPDT (Double Pole, Double Throw) SW in your guitar wiring in many ways. You can base on this thing many kinds of tone switches. You can use it as a pickup selector. It can switch coils in your guitar pickups (series/parallel, split humbucker, reversed phase, on-off etc.). It's also a good part to make a switchable signal bypass or a loop.

This diagram will show you DPDT connections in a few, popular examples:

How a Guitar Tone Potentiometer Works?

A common guitar tone control is a low-pass filter. It's made from pickup resistance and tone capacitor capacitance. It's called also a RC filter.

A tone pot in a guitar is used as a variable resistor (only two lugs are used). It's placed after or before the tone cap. The more resistance is on this path, the smaller amount of treble will bleed out to the ground. The diagram shows how it work's in three different knob positions:

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How a Guitar Volume Potentiometer Works?

Every pot used to control guitar's volume is basically a voltage divider. It's used to control how much resistance will be between the fist and the middle lug, and between the middle and the third lug. This system affects how much voltage will pass to an output. The diagram shows this thing according to knob positions.

As you can see, the less resistance is between the lugs connected to the hot wires, and more resistance is between the hot path and the ground, the louder a guitar sound. When the volume potentiometer's knob is on „10”, a guitar signal has a clear way to go.

Link to more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiometer

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How to Install a Varitone (Wiring Options)

A varitone switch can be installed as a part of a guitar wiring in two ways: before the volume control, or after it. It really has a matter for your guitar tone. This article will help you choose the right way.

Before we start analyze the first way of wiring, let's look at my  > varitone project <. As you can see, it has two connections with the rest of a guitar wiring: the hot conductor (from hot path) , and the guitar wiring ground contuctor (to ground). 

Varitone wiring 1 – before the pot

4-Conductor Humbucker Connections

I made a diagram, which shows how 4-conductor guitar pickups (humbuckers) are configured. It can help you understand how many kinds of guitar p-up wiring (like coil-split, series, parallel) works.

Smooth, Jazz Tone On a Solid Body Guitar

Hollow-body or semi-hollow electric guitars used to sounds more warm and open, than solid-body constructions. It's a big advantage for many blues and jazz players. However, having a solid-body axe is not a problem on the way to get a nice, warm, jazz tone.

I'm the one of those, who play jazz on solid body guitars. It's because I like the tone dynamic and comfort of this kind of constructions. I have really smooth, jazz tone with my SG (yes, I'm using SG to play jazz).

So, how to get that smooth, warm tone on a solid body guitar?

Super Switch Connections - 5-way, 4-pole

This is about how Super Switch works. The diagram shows terminal connections and pin-out.

It's a 5-way, 4-pole, lever-action guitar pickup selector. If you will use a Super Switch in your axe, you will get 4 poles, where every lever position has got its own pin (5 + 1 common per pole).

If your guitar has got 2 or 3 pickups, you will get more than you need for just typical 5-way selector wiring. You will get a possibility to make some extra connections.
For example, with a super-switch, you can make a Stratocaster wiring with the bridge+neck position, or some coil split – if you have a 4-wire humbucker. There's a lot of options.

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Pickup Selector Switch Connections - 5-way

How 5-way guitar pickup selector switches works:

The diagram shows pin-out and terminal connections, according to toggle or lever positions. There are three examples of popular 5-way pickup selectors. They are frequently used in Stratocaster style and 'HSH pickup set' guitars.

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Pickup Selector Switch Connections - 3-way

This is about how 3-way guitar pickup selector switches works.

The diagram shows pin-out and terminal connections, according to toggle or lever positions. There are four examples of popular 3-way pickup selectors. These switches are used in Fender Telecasters, Gibsons and many other 2-pickup electric guitars.

Posts about other kinds of switches are coming soon.


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Treble Bleed Mod

In this post, I would like to present my way to make a good guitar treble bleed mod (treble bleed prevention). If you were searching on-line about this circuit, you probably know what it is, and that it can be made in many different ways.

If you don't know what it is...

The treble bleed mod is a circuit which can help you keep the treble in the guitar signal, when you're turning down the volume potentiometer.

Probably you know, that when the volume pot knob is turned a little bit down, the guitar signal is quieter and also darker or smoother – it's loosing some high frequencies. Treble bleed mod will help in preventing treble frequencies from bleeding to the ground.

It's made from capacitor, or capacitor and resistor in series or parallel. It should be connected to the input and the output lug (firs and middle) of the volume potentiometer .

There is no perfect treble bleed prevention for a passive circuit. For example:

Guitar Pickup Choice - Good and Bad Factors (passive)

Most of guitar pickup descriptions, that you can read on manufacturers websites, eBay auctions, e-stores, are usually made from marketing tricks. Yes, they are :o\

You can read about how „vintage” is the pickup, how „deep” is its tone, how „the middle” is improved. All these things are based on myths. The tone character described as vintage, deep, with reach middle, etc, just can't be made only by a pickup. These things depends on the whole guitar construction (amps and effects also).

Home-Made Guitars Can Be Awesome

In this post, I would like to show you some YT videos of home-made electric guitars.

Some people can make really nice instruments in their homes, garages, etc.

There are a lot of good parts on the market. You can buy a neck with your favourite shape. You can buy a body stylized on some well known guitar construction. You can also buy a lot of different types of hardware. There are tons of pickups to choose from.

All this things means, that building an awesome guitar in your home is possible. ...And it will be completely your own project!

Lets see some DIY guitar projects:

Pine and maple, GFS New York pickups, hard-tail

Warmoth parts based  (my fave)

Fretless Tele (Warmoth parts)

Ibanez Jem copy

DIY Tele - making of


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Low-Output Pickups for Heavy Music?

Many metal and hard rock guitarist are using electric guitars with some high-output humbuckers. However, we shouldn't forget also about those guitar players, who are using some low-output pickups, even single-coils, to get heavy tones. 

Do you know Yngwie Malmsteen, Brian May or Paul Gilbert? They've got quite „weak” p-ups in their gear collections.

As examples, here are some cool videos:

Paul Gilbert with his Ibanez Fireman guitar

Yngwie Malmsteen - Seventh Sign

Brian May Band - Love Token 

Guitar Wiring Ground and Other Connections - Quick Guide

If you will make the ground in your guitar wiring in a wrong way, your instrument can:

• not work
• add a lot of hum to the signal
• be too sensitive to vibrations, so there will be a lot of strange noises (it's because of poor connections)

Five main things, that you should keep in your head, when you're making a guitar wiring ground

1. Avoid loops
2. Try to keep „the star shape” (star ground system)
3. Keep it short
4. Make a plan before you start soldering anything. You can also test connections with jumper wires.
5. Don't use old or crappy looking wires. They can be broken inside.

Guitar Tone Capacitor Values - My Faves

Today, I would like to present my favorite values of tone caps in guitar wirings. It will be the selection for a common type of a tone control: volume pot + capacitor. It's something well known from most of guitars on the market.

If you are thinking about changing the tone cap in your guitar, this short article can be helpful.

This is how I describing my two main purposes of using the potentiometer based guitar tone control:

A:

For soft, warm and jazzy smooth tone, or for the „woman tone”.

Works nice with a well tuned pot - not on full – if you want warmth and smoothness. If you want to get the „woman tone”, it can work well on the maximum turn-on.

B:

Good for making the tone a little bit smoother and well balanced. Works nice if the knob is turned only slightly. Good for small interference of the tone control circuit.

Parts Selection for DIY Boutique Guitar Gear

Probably many of guitar DIY fanciers would like to make a real boutique guitar pedal or use some high-grade parts in a guitar wiring. In this post I would like to show you my selection of capacitors and resistors, that I'm using in preamps and guitar wirings. All of them are selected as parts with good relation between price and quality. They are also quite easy to find in online stores.

CAPACITORS:

red Wima and brown Elna caps

Film:

Vishay MKT1813
Vishay MKP1837
Wima MKP 2
Wima MKP 4
Wima MKP 10

Electrolytic:

Elna Slimic II
Nichicon KZ
Panasonic FC

If Your Guitar Sounds Too Bright or Too Dark - Wiring Tips

If your electric guitar sounds too bright, or too warm and dark, I can give you a few simple tips. They are based on small modifications of the volume control circuit in a guitar wiring.

This diagram can help in tuning your guitar tone and choosing right parts:

About Active Guitar Wirings - Preamps, Buffers, Pickups

I already have few post about active guitar wirings with on-board buffers, but I didn't wrote an article, about reasons of building that stuff and it's benefits. So, here it is.

Some people, who mounted an active wiring with an on-board buffer or a preamp, or have active pickups in their guitars, are saying that this stuff changing the tone dramatically and it's a little bit too bright or less full, smooth sounding. I think, that it comes from some kind of misunderstanding the way how this electronics works.

If you mounted an active wiring, with a completely linear frequency response (for example audio op-amp based), the tone should be much brighter. It's because of transporting a full frequency range. Passive guitar wirings usually cutting off a little bit of treble. Active wirings are usually - like I said before - linear. They will just transport a guitar pickup signal. Thy will not cut anything if you don't want it. It's because of preamp or buffer impedance – high on input, low on output – and characteristic of working with the signal.

How to Make a Small On-Board Buffer?

Today, I would like to show you how to make a really small on-board guitar buffer.
It's based on the TL071 op-amp, which is very good for that purposes. It will allow you to make an active buffer with high impedance on the input (1M), and low impedance on the output (it's very important for buffers). The TL071 will not eat your power source too quick - will work hundreds of hours on one, typical 9V battery. 

It is a very popular construction in guitar electronics. Nothing original, but will work fine for the most of our purposes. You need only six parts to make it: the op-amp, two resistors, two capacitors (one film, one electrolytic) and some small multipurpose PCB.