ASK HBS – HH – Multiple Wiring Options

Question

Hi !

I just found your site while searching to modify my bullet strat !

What i wanna do is replace the 3 single coils with 2 humbuckers (ALNICO 5 magnets) ,
which I have from another guitar.

But I want to have options for home recordings …meaning:

1. TWO VOLUMES 2 TONES
2. SERIES/PARALLEL ON EACH HUMBUCKER (meaning neck single bridge humbucker or opposite)
3. OUT OF PHASE ON EACH HUMBUCKER
4. SPLIT COILS ON EACH HUMBUCKER AND BE ABLE TO SWITCH BETWEEN COILS

What is the best way ? Push – Pull pots and DPDT Mini Switches ? I think ……or not ?

Always chasing the TONE!

Thank you so much for your time!

MAY THE TONE BE WITH YOU

Johnny!

Answer

Hello Johnny, Thanks for the great question! We can do some of these things, and some we can’t. Let’s go one by one.

You specified that your pickups use Gibson wiring code, so we’ll break that down here:

Gibson Wiring Code

• North – Start = Red
• North – Finish = White
• South – Finish = Green
• South – Start = Black
• Bare = Shield

Out of Phase (one humbucker with the other)

We can use a push-pull switch to flip the hot and ground leads on one of the humbuckers to put it out of phase with the other. You will only notice a difference in the middle position (assuming a 3-way switch), which means you only need to do it to one humbucker – reversing both humbuckers at the same time will put them back in phase. However, I wired both in the diagram.

Fig. 1

Out of Phase (with itself)

We can use a push-pull switch to reverse the leads on one of the bobbins, putting the humbucker out of phase with itself and likely eliminating humbucking properties. We can do this with both of the humbuckers, so you will need 2 push-pull pots or dpdt switches.

Fig. 2

Series Parallel

We can use a push-pull pot to allow you to switch between series and parallel wiring. Since we can do it with both humbuckers, you will need 2 push-pull pots, or dpdt switches.

Fig. 3

Humbucker Split

We can humbucker split using a push-pull pot to turn off one of the coils in a humbucker. It works by adding a ground between the first and second coils, so there is no way to choose which one you turn off; it will always be the second coil. However, if you use it with the Out of Phase (one humbucker with the other) mod, you will be changing the starting coil, which will change the coil you shut off.

In Figure 4, I show you how you can do it without any modifications.

Fig. 4

In Fig. 5 I show you how to do it with the Out of Phase (one humbucker with the other) mod

Fig. 5

In Fig 6 I show you how to do it with the Out of Phase (with itself) mod

Fig. 6

Summary

Unfortunately, we can’t make use of coil splitting with the series-parallel mod because the one coil doesn’t run into the other when in parallel mode, and I believe activating the coil split in parallel would short out and turn off the entire humbucker.
You will also need to choose between series-parallel and the phase mod.
You can also do many combinations of these mods, like making the polarity of one humbucker reversible while allowing the other to switch between series and parallel.