"Full Boat" Humbucker Wiring Mod

[duhvoodooman***]

From the various mods I've made to my Epiphone Dot's humbucker wiring, I now realize what I should have done to start with! So I've put together a diagram (attached below) detailing what I'm calling DVM's "Full Boat" Dual Humbucker Wiring Mod. The diagram shows a comprehensive overhaul of the stock wiring to add a large number of new tonal options to a 2-humbucker guitar equipped with separate volume and tone controls for each pickup. This mod has the additional advantages of (1) not removing or altering the three stock tones, and (2) not changing the appearance of the guitar (i.e. no drilling/new holes, extra switches, etc.).

I do not mean to imply that any of this constitutes "original thinking" on my part! I've just taken several well-known mods and tried to integrate them together in a logical way and represent them in a clear and well-labeled diagram. Hopefully, this will accomplish that end. If you're familar with the "Jimmy Page" Les Paul mod, you'll notice that this is very similar. The main difference is that it substitutes series/parallel switching on the individual humbuckers for the series/coil-cut switch the Page mod employs.

In a nutshell, the mod involves replacing all four of the stock control pots with "push-pull" pots fitted with 6-contact double-pole/double throw (DPDT) switches. It requires that both humbuckers be of the 4-conductor variety. While many "aftermarket" humbuckers sold by outfits like Seymour Duncan and DiMarzio are of this type, the stock humbuckers that come in most guitars are 2-conductor and will not work with this mod. So you may be looking at a pickup upgrade to be able to do this, which obviously raises the cost of admission substantially! If you don't need new p'ups, you can do this for the price of 4 push-pull pots ($40 or so) plus whatever wiring and soldering supplies you need. Pretty cheap for the tonal benefits that will be reaped!

One other possible expense I should mention--for this project, you should definitely have a digital multimeter available to check continuity and troubleshoot problems. I picked up a cheap one at Radio Shack for $20 that handles the job nicely.

When completed, the "Full Boat" mod gives you the following capabilities:

• Run either humbucker with the two coils in series (stock) or in parallel (a brighter, thinner tone much like a single coil, but still hum-cancelling).
• Run the bridge pickup magnetically out-of-phase with the neck, giving an interesting hollow, somewhat nasal tone. Sometimes referred to as the "Peter Green mod".
• Run the bridge and neck pickups in series with each other, vs. in parallel, which is what the middle position of the 3-way pickup selector toggle gives on most stock dual-humbucker guitars. This gives a bigger, fatter sound. I refer to this as the "megabucker mod", because it essentially turns the two humbuckers into one big 4-coil 'bucker.

When you look at the possible combinations of these various options, there are 20 unique combinations, though some are only very subtly different from each other, and a few aren't very useful. But even if you found only 3 new settings that you really like, you've just doubled your dual-humbucker guitar's tonal flexibility. And I'll bet there will be a lot more than 3 you'll find useful!

Additionally, the diagram shows the contacts on the volume pots for the pickup output signal and the wire to the 3-way pickup selector toggle reversed from the stock wiring. Doing this will make the two volume controls independent when the toggle is in the dual-pickup (middle) position. With stock Gibson-style wiring, turning down either volume pot while in dual-pickup mode will reduce the volume of both pickups simultaneously. Making them independent gives you mixing control over the two p'ups, a nice tonal advantage, IMO. I've really never understood why Gibson wires them the other way!

One last, important point: Let me give fair warning right now--this mod involves a LOT of soldering work! If you have no previous soldering experience, this would not be the project to learn on! But if you're comfortable with your soldering skills and have a mind to turn your Les Paul or other 2-humbucker guitar into a magical multi-tonal music machine, this mod's for you!!

EDIT: Here's another way to do the "Full Boat", with coil-cutting for the two humbuckers substituted for the series/parallel switching. It's much easier to wire the two push-pulls on the volume pots, and I find that the coil-cut and parallel coil wiring both sound very similar. You'll sacrifice the pickup's humbucking property when you coil-cut, but the added noise is pretty negligible.

[duhvoodooman***]

I liked the idea of this "Full Boat" layout so much that I ripped out the 3-way toggle switch, added a 4th push-pull pot and wired my Dot exactly as per the diagram in the preceding posting. Also fixed a little grounding mistake I'd made previously that caused some nasty crackling when I ran the two p'ups out-of-phase.

The controls are much more intuitive now, with the two volume pots push-pulls acting as series/parallel switches for their respective p'ups. The bridge tone pot P-P controls the phase of the bridge p'up, and the neck tone P-P is the "megabucker" switch that puts the bridge p'up in series with the neck. All I sacrificed was the coil-cut setting for the bridge p'up, which sounded almost exactly like the parallel setting anyway. No loss, IMO.

For grins, I just recorded a clip that demonstrates the "extremes" of the tonal range. It consists of the same pair of riffs played consecutively a total of four times. These four couplets are:

1. Clean, neck pickup, all push-pulls down (stock settings)
2. Clean, neck pickup, all push-pulls up
3. Dirty, neck pickup, all push-pulls down (stock settings)
4. Dirty, neck pickup, all push-pulls up

"All push-pulls up" translates as follows: both pickups with their two coils in parallel, bridge and neck out-of-phase, and the two p'ups in series. This gives one truly nasty, biting, hollow-ish tone, particularly with some distortion provided courtesy of my Radial Tonebone Classic. But don't take my word for it--listen for yourself!

http://duhvoodooman.com/audio_clips/Dot_extremes.mp3

[ted s]

Hey DVM, this sounds good, I am interested in doing something like this to my LP copy. It has 2 wire pups right now. I looked at Stewart Mac, they have hummers advertised as 2 wire plus a ground that can be split. Will they work ?

[duhvoodooman***]

I looked at Stewart Mac, they have hummers advertised as 2 wire plus a ground that can be split. Will they work ?

I assume you're referring to those Golden Age humbuckers that StewMac sells? If so, the answer is....almost. You can wire them for phase switching, you can do the both-in-series ("megabucker") mod, but you can't do the series/parallel switching within a single humbucker without modifying the stock Golden Age wiring. However, they are set up to be able to do coil-cutting (instructions are right there on the StewMac site), so you may want to do that as an easy alternative. I've found that parallel and coil-cut modes sound very similar--brighter, thinner and a bit lower volume than series--with the major difference being that the parallel mode remains humbucking, while coil-cut is not. But coil-cut will do the job for you tonally, and you don't have to fool around modding the pickups themselves. You'd just need to modify the push-pull switch wiring that I show for the two volume pots per the coil-cut wiring instructions on the StewMac site. Actually, it's a lot simpler than the series/parallel switch wiring.

[ted s]

Them's the ones, thanks for the reply.

hoodaman ? voodooman !

[ted s]

Ok, I dun gone and did it, awaiting parts delivery from StewiMac. Overwound hummers and p/p pots. If I like it I'll do it to my Aria 335.

[rickleverett]

Thanks for your great humbucker info. I am having trouble locating the toggle wiring diags. How do you wire a DPDP on on on toggle to your full boat masterpiece?

[duhvoodooman***]

Thanks for your great humbucker info. I am having trouble locating the toggle wiring diags. How do you wire a DPDP on on on toggle to your full boat masterpiece?

Not quite sure what you're asking. Do you mean the 3-way pickup selector toggle, bridge-both-neck?

[Blaze]

Hey DVM,

Looks pretty interesting ,i guess this mod does nt work on Paf pick ups bein not the same wiring ..

Creative guy you are , bravo !

[Hardass blues]

excellent mods,I love that stuff. I have been modding a few guitars lately. Got laid off recently and have had the time. I put and old 70's bucker in a es-335 copy and installed a bigsby,completely rewired a les paul art project with 59 Seymore Duncan Seth Lovers and new cts 500k pots, and finally went over the mods I did to a tele thinline a while back. I didn't want to change the pickguard so I made base plates for a emg 89 in the bridge and a 85 in the neck drilled and tapped them and wired 'em to a push pull for out of phase/coil tap on the bridge and put the original chrome covers over the emgs. Looks like a stock set up but it really growls. I had done this a few years back and when I ordered the 89 and I had to get a drawing via e-mail from EMG. It never switched right and I broke the original base plate (made from a thinline pickup base plate) I was in need of it so I let it go and just used it that way. So the other day I went to EMG's website and sure enough, I had wired it correctly to their spec at the time. Now they have a totally new diagram for it . I had to pull it all apart and rewire all of it and it works perfectly now. Good company excellent help by the way. It was early in the making of the pickup when I did this. They were learning as I was. LOL! I also put a set of pearly gates in my Les Paul standard with some Luxe bumblebee caps that went well. I still think I like the Hoveland caps the best. When I wired my Les Paul studio to 1950 specs with the Hovlands I got a rich deep tone quality that I really like. I have to get some long shaft pots for the Standard and I think I'm gonna put the Hovelands in it with the same wiring in the future. Well gotta go. I printed out that diagram and plan to use it in the future. Thanks,John H.

[weekendclimber]

Hey Guys,

I'm new here and wanted to check out this mod, but when I click on DVM's link to the jpg I just get a blank page that says it's a 1x1 pixel gif image. Has this imaged moved somewhere? I'm more of a lego instruction type of person, so pictures always help better when I'm considering doing wiring mods. Thanks

DVM Edit: I've fixed the image display in the first post. It got broken when the "attachment" function went south in the old forum structure.

[Photomike666]

If you went with a three position DPDT on/on/on pot, you should be able to get parallel, coil cut and series for each humbucker. You would lose out of phase; or you could add an additional switch for out of phase / coil cut. Then you have even more possibilities.