Bridge Pickup Series/Parallel Add-in Wiring Mod

[duhvoodooman***]

A couple of months back, I posted THIS "quick & easy" wiring mod for guitars with three single-coil pickups, like Strats and Nashville Tele's. This mod enables you to add the bridge pickup in parallel to the neck pickup or the neck/middle combo. Assuming you start with Strat-style 5-way switching, this simple mod adds two new pickup combos to the stock five, including the popular Tele-style bridge-neck pairing. All you need is a push/pull pot ($8 - $10, typically), a bit of hookup wire, and modest soldering skills.

Here's a related mod that builds on that original theme, but through the addition of a second push/pull that allows you to add three more unique pickup combinations:

• The bridge pickup in series with the middle pickup
• The bridge pickup in series with the neck pickup
• The bridge pickup in series with both the middle & neck pickups, which are in parallel with each other.

Running pickups in series, rather than in the parallel mode you get from most guitar's switching systems, increases the resistance of the signal path and generates a stronger (i.e. louder) and fuller tone than the parallel mode. The outcome is that you get some pretty distinctive new tones when running with this "bridge-series add-in" mode. My personal favorite is the bridge-middle-in-series combo, a.k.a. "super-quack" mode. Because of some magnetic signal cancellation, you'll still get that characteristic Strat quack tone with single-coils, but you don't get the thinning/volume loss efffect of the parallel wiring orientation. So the quack comes on loud and strong. With the possible exception of the classic Strat neck tone, this combo is probably my favorite Strat sound. If you're partial to the Strat "quack", you owe it to yourself to give this wiring mod a try! It's only very slightly more complex than the original mod I referenced above.

The required wiring for the pickups, 5-way pickup selector switch, and the two push/pull switches is shown in the attached diagram below. I've intentionally left the potentiometer wiring out, both for volume and tone controls. Since they are not a functional part of this modification, there's no need to clutter up the diagram with them. Just follow the manufacturer's stock wiring diagrams/schematics for that stuff. Since you'll be changing out two control pots in this mod, you will need to rewire all the pot contacts and ground connections with the new push/pull pots!

The push/pull switch labeled "S2" in the attached diagram is the same switch shown in the original bridge add-in mod posting linked above. The "S1" switch is the new one that provides the in-series switching capability. In a nutshell, the modification consists of the following changes from the stock Strat-style 3-pickup, 5-way switch wiring:

1. The hot lead from the bridge pickup is rerouted from going directly to its corresponding contact point on the 5-way switch. Instead, it goes to one of the top lugs of the S1 switch, which is then jumpered to one of the middle lugs of the S2 switch, and then on to the original 5-way switch contact point. (NOTE: It doesn't matter which vertical row of 3 contacts you use on either switch, as long as you keep all of the wiring on each switch confined to just one row. Even though these are DPDT switches, they function only as SPDT switches in this mod.)
2. The ground leads for the middle and neck pickups are rerouted from their stock ground point (usually the body of the volume pot) to the appropriate middle lug of S1.
3. The corresponding bottom lug of S1 is wired back to the ground point where the middle and neck pickup ground leads were previously attached.
4. A jumper is run from the appropriate upper lug of S2 to the same contact point on the 5-way switch that connects to the volume pot signal contact.

Voila! That's all there is to it! Now, when the S1 switch is activated (pulled up), it will cause the selected pickup(s) at the 5-way switch to be put in series with the bridge p'up. Pulling up S2 has the effect of bypassing the 5-way switch with the bridge pickup and putting it in parallel with the selected pickup(s). Attached below is also a table showing the various combinations of switch positions (there are 5x2x2=20 total) and the resulting pickup selection. As mentioned before, this mod gives a total of 10 unique pickup combinations. Note that if you activate both switches simultaneously, you'll get nothing but the bridge pickup in all five selector switch positions!! With both switches off, you have the original stock 5-way switch combos.