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?

Fender Esquire Wiring Mod

I would like to show you some wiring mod for the Fender Esquire guitar. It gives some different switch options than the classic construction. They can make the tone warmer or brighter in a more subtle way.

The mod is based on two resistors and a 500K volume pot. The rest of parts is common.

Diagram:

Guitar Wiring a la Frankenstein (Eddie Van Halen, Charvel)

You can build your own Frankenstein guitar like Eddie Van Halen. This is not so difficult today. I will show you my idea on how it can be done from the electronics wiring side.

My wiring is designed for use with a Stratocaster style guitar.

I'm suggesting a Strat, because it's a very comfortable guitar for modifications. It has got easy to change pick-guard and electronics. Many on-line stores are selling parts for these instruments.

The market has got a lot of Squiers and other, economical constructions stylized on famous Fender. You can also use some MIM Strat or even Warmoth parts.

My wiring design is based on one pickup: single-coil sized humbucker (or full size for Fat-Strat). The circuit is quite original - it's not a copy of the Frankenstein. It has got three signal controllers: volume control, tone switch and killswitch. I think, that they can be very useful for fans of shredding and heavy rhythms.

Diagram:

Gibson Les Paul Jr and SG Jr Wiring Mod

Today, I would like to present my wiring modification diagram for Gibson's Junior guitars: Les Paul and SG. I really like P90 pickups, so I decide to make something especially for them.

My wiring design has got a few extra options. It can work like a typical "volume + tone" circuit, or with some special tone shaping tools.

Extra parts: two 500K push-pull potentiometers, 0,033uF film capacitor, 4,7nf ceramic cap, 500K resistor. You will need also some additional wires.

Diagram:

Guitar Wiring for Metal Maniacs

There are some electric guitars on the market, designed especially for metal music. This guitars, very often, have just one, high output pickup and just one potentiometer – 500K volume. This kind of simple wiring is not smoothing the sound, so it's a perfect distinct, distorted tone maker.

Here, i would like to present my mod of it. This wiring will allow you to make the tone more crisp and percussive, just by one click. It's something useful for fast palm-muting, or screaming solo play. 

All you need to make it, is push-pull 500K potentiometer and some resistor.

Having a Lot from Only One Pickup - Wiring Schematic

How to have a lot of tones, from just only one pickup and two potentiometers, like in some jazz, hollow-body guitars, Gibson Melody Maker or Fender Esquire?

It's easy when you mount in some push-pull potentiometers, instead of standard pots. With that stuff, you have two DPDT on-on switches. This schematic will show you what they can do:

The switch beside the tone pot, is used to be able to switch off all tone control (the potentiometer, caps and their grounding). It will give a guitar tone with less impact of these electronics.

The switch beside the volume pot, can be used to select one of two tone capacitors, which are parts of tone control circuit, so we can select a signal frequency cutoff level. It's good to use some typical and some lower value capacitors (for example: 0,022uF and 0,01uF).

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