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:

Simple and Popular „Volume + Tone” Guitar Wiring

This time I would like to show you some very popular guitar wiring. It's based on two humbuckers, two pots (volume and tone) and a 3-way pickup selector in the „import style” (China, Korea). This is a very common configuration, especially in guitars made in Asia.

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:

RG Strat – How to Wire a Stratocaster in Ibanez Style

In this article, I would like to show you an quite simple method of wiring a Stratocaster or a Fat Strat guitar, to reach some functions of the Ibanez RG construction. It's a great proposition for all fans of Fender Strat shape and feel, who would like to get some modern, more Ibanez-like tone and functions.

Diagram:

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:

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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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.

Terminator's Guitar Wiring

Do you remember Terminator movies? Do you remember Terminator's character? He's a cool, reticent, strong and effective killing machine.

What kind of guitar this dude play? I'm sure it's not a jazz box or an ukulele.

Before I will write something more about the guitar, I need to tell you about the Terminator's rules:

1. The best guns are simple, effective, loud and powerful.

2. Kung-Fu and Karate sucks. It's better to just throw an enemy against a wall. A simple, strong punch also works well.

3. To solve a problem with a bad guy, you need to eliminate him (kill).

...He's just a simple, no-compromise dude.

So, how the Terminator's way of life affects his guitar preferences?

Fat Strat Mod (Fender + Charvel)

This Fat-Strat (HSS Stratocaster) modification project is based on functions of classic Strat and Charvel guitar wirings. The target of this construction is to get well known, vintage Strat single-coil pickup vibes, and hot, crisp, dynamic humbucker tone, typical for single-pot Charvels.

Diagram:

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.

10 Great and Simple Guitar Riffs

Some old school music makers, who knows how to rock:
(unranked)

Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers

Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy

The Troggs - Wild Thing

Saxon - Wheels Of Steel

Black Sabbath - Iron Man

AC/DC - Highway To Hell 

Eric Clapton - Cocaine

The Doors - Hello, I Love You

ZZ Top - La Grange

Johnny Cash - San Quentin

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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.