Lindy Fralin Modern PAF Wiring Diagram

In this article, we’ll take a look at installing Lindy Fralin Modern PAF pickups. These pickups have a thick, warm sound that helps high notes push through the mix, preventing them from sounding thin and brittle. The lower register notes are punchy, but they don’t lose their clarity, even when using overdrive.

You can purchase the Lindy Fralin Modern PAF with one, three, or four-conductor wires. You need three or four to split the pickup and four to wire the pickup out of phase. You can also choose different pole spacings that line up better with Gibson, Fender neck, and Fender bridge placements. You can also choose between four different bobbin colors and seven different covers.

Wiring Code

Lindy Fralin sticks to the same wiring code for all of their pickups, which makes it really easy to get started. Also, as we have mentioned earlier, you can get the same Lindy Fralin pickup with one, two, three, or four colored wires. It might sound complicated, but it’s not – it’s really quite easy.

Here’s the Lindy Fralin wiring scheme:

• If there is only one wire inside a metal sleeve, it is the Hot, and the metal sleeve is the Ground.
• If there are several colored wires and a bare, the bare wire is always the shield. The shield wire grounds the pickup’s chassis, and it’s not connected to the coils.
• White is always Hot.
• Black is always Ground.
• If there is a Red wire, it’s taped off.
• If there is a Red and a Green wire, they are twisted together and taped off.
• Black and Bare are twisted together.

Wiring Diagram

Most people install these pickups to replace stock pickups. The Hot is the wire that is going to one of the tabs on the volume control, or to the switch. The Ground is soldered to the back of the volume control.

Let’s look at a standard Lindy Fralin Modern PAF wiring diagram for a Gibson-style guitar, as illustrated in Example 1.

Example 1

Now let’s look at a wiring diagram for a Strat-style guitar in Example 2.

Example 2

Required Components

Lindy Fralin recommends using 500k pots with the Modern PAF pickups, but if you feel they are too bright, you can switch to 250k pots. If you think the Modern PAF pickups are too dark, you can brighten them up with 1 Meg or no-load pots.

Most people are using a .022uf capacitor on the tone control, and this is a good place to start, but many people feel that they get a more usable tone control from a smaller capacitor. If you have the parts, you can try a .01uf capacitor instead.

Summary

Installing new pickups is one of the best ways to improve the tone of your guitar, and Lindy Fralin Modern PAF pickups are some of the best. Paying attention to how you remove your old pickups will make replacement a breeze. Once you’ve completed your Lindy Fralin PAF wiring, and the pickups are working, try some different value tone pots and capacitors. You’ll then be ready for more complex modifications such as coil-splitting and wiring pickups out of phase.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading over this short guide, and that it has helped you get your pickups working. If you have found it useful, please feel free to share this wiring diagram on Facebook and Twitter. For more articles on guitar electronics, visit humbuckersoup.com.