Telecaster Direct-Through Mod

A direct-through mod is a very useful tone shaping tool. It will help you make your Telecaster tone brighter and more dynamic when you will need that. It's based on a DPDT switch (push-pull), used to connect pickups directly to the output, by omitting pots.

Diagram:

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:

Direct-Through Strat Mod - Toggle Switch

Direct-through switch is a guitar mod, popular in Stratocasters and Fat Strats. It's designed to send the pickup signal directly to the jack, by omitting all pots. It makes the tone brighter and more dynamic.

Usually, it's made from a push-pull pot, what is good if you don't want to lose any function of the Stratocaster tone control. It this article, I would like to show you a little bit different version of this great guitar mod. It's a direct- through SW based on an quick to use toggle.

Diagram:

Varitone Project Mk2

This time, my 12-position guitar varitone project is a little bit more complicated. It's still a quite simple circuit, but with a few new configurations. I added a stand-by position – as „0” - and I tuned the filters more for nice „woman tones”. I prefer this version for rock crunch and overdrive/distortion tones. The previous varitone works great for me on clean and bluesy crunch guitar sounds.

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

Varitone Project - 12 Positions

The varitone is a multi-position guitar tone switch. It's a great thing for DIY guitar electronics enthusiasts, because every position of this tone controller can be designed almost independently. It means, that it allows you to crate many different guitar tones.

In this post, I would like to show you my own project of the varitone. It's got 11 low-pass filters.

Volume Drop Switch - Guitar Mod

The volume drop switch is a guitar wiring mod , which can help you to reduce the output power of your axe, without significant treble loses. You can use it to make your tone cleaner, with less crunch from a tube amp, or just to decrease the volume, without treble bleed effect.

Diagram:

Treble Bleed Switch (Volume Pot Mod)

In this post, I will show you how to make a switchable guitar treble bleed prevention circuit. It's based on a push-pull volume potentiometer, a capacitor and a resistor.

Diagram:

Simple Tone Switch

In this post I will show you, how to mount in your guitar a simple, but useful tone switch.

This circuit can help you cut-off a little bit of high-end (high frequencies) from the guitar signal. It means, that your guitar tone will be a little bit fatter and more round after using the switch. It will not work just like a classic, potentiometer based tone control. It's more subtle, and it can be switched only on and off, by a toggle (there's no pot).

The circuit is based on one SPDT on-on mini toggle switch and one capacitor.

Diagram:

Tone Switch in Gretsch Style

In this post I will show you my idea for a Gretsch style guitar tone switch. It's a three position (cap1 - off - cap2) low-pass filter selector. It can be a very useful tool, if it's well tuned.

In my circuit, I'm using different capacitors values than Gretsch. I'm also using a SPDT on-off-on toggle switch, which is easy to buy and comfortable in mounting.

The lower value tone cap will help you in getting fat overdrive tones.

The higher value capacitor is good for clean, really smooth sound.

I've got three version of this wiring. One is for classic Filtertron pickups (Gretsch, TV Jones). Second is for use with Fender style single-coils.  Third is for PAF style humbuckers and P90's.

Diagram: