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:
How it works?
A blend pot is just like two pots connected together on a one axis, in a one case.
In this project it's used to control proportions between two signal sources – guitar pickups . If you will turn the blend knob to „10”, you will get the full signal from the first pickup, and the second pickup will be completely quiet. On the position „1”, these proportions will be reversed.
The middle position of the blend pot knob means that both pickups will be working together, on the same volume level. You need to know that it's NOT just like the middle position of the common 3-way guitar pickup selector. The tone will be a little bit warmer and milder. It's because of the blend pot load and tune. For some folks it can be a huge advantage, but not for all. I recommend 500K pots over 250K here.
With the blend pot, you can tune proportions between two different pickups in any way you want. So don't be afraid to use, for example, some dark sounding pickup on the neck position, and some screaming one on the bridge.
Two-pot guitars
If you want to make this kind of wiring in a two-pot guitar, you need to sacrifice the tone pot. It will be a similar configuration to the Fender Pawn Shop 72 guitar.
BTW, on this site you can find some other information about bled pot wiring:
