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:

Stratocaster Double Tone Control Mod

This is a simple Stratocaster and Fat Strat wiring modification that changes the tone control capabilities. With this mod you will have much wider palette of tones to choose from by using the tone knobs.

All modification process is based on changing the tone caps, the tone pots and their connections.

OK, so how it works?

Awesome YT Channels About Guitar Gear

I would like to recomand you some great YouTube channels about guitar gear. They are made by very charismatic dudes, who know quite a lot about the stuff they are showing. Really enioyable things for guitar geeks.

Gearmanndude
Because of great stomp-boxes showcase.

Scott Grove
Because of extremely interesting and unique guitar collection.

Rob Chappers
Because of charisma and cool guitar licks and tips.

How to Wire a Blend Pot?

If you're looking for some new, unique tones with your old two-pickup guitar, this mod project will be helpful. In this article I will show you how to wire a pickup blend potentiometer together with a classic 'volume+tone' stack. It is a guitar wiring system without common pickup selector. The blend pot will take its function, in quite original way.

Diagram:

Simple Wiring in the Music Man Axis Style

Sometimes simple is best. This is what you can think when you're looking on the Music Man Axis or some Charvel guitars. The MM Axis is a two pickup guitar with a simple, 3-way toggle pickup switch and one pot – volume. This is completely enough if you want to get just clear, distinct signal – especially if your guitar is made from some high-grade wood and got some nice pickups.

This is the wiring diagram for that kind of axe:

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:

Brian May's Red Special Wiring Diagram

Brian May's Red Special has got some great futures as a 3-pickup guitar. All p-up configurations are possible, you can reverse the phase of every coil, and there is also a classic volume+tone control. It means a lot of cool tones to reach. All of them can be useful, there's no mambo-jumbo waste of space.

The original May's RS guitar wiring was made from quite „vintage” parts. Fortunately, today you can also build something similar, with modern electronics.

This is my Red Special wiring diagram: