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Post subject: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 7:22 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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I have an oddball Japanese-made Squier Stratocaster ST-331 from the mid-'80s. It has a single humbucker in the neck position, volume knob, no tone knob, output jack on the pickguard. The strangest thing about it is that it has a 24.75" Gibson scale instead of the far more common 25.5" Fender scale. It's a pretty rare guitar.

Almost 25 years ago, I cut two holes in the pickguard and inserted two cheap switches in it, a kill switch and a coil split switch. I got the switches at Radio Shack and they weren't intended for a guitar and they never worked very well. I also dropped the guitar once and it damaged the pickup that was in it (it was an Epiphone pickup of some sort and not the original pickup) and replaced it with a cheap Select by EMG pickup. Right now the guitar will only play if you fiddle with the switches for a few minutes. Those switches have to go.

I bought two 3 way Gibson-style switches for it and I'm going to buy another pickup for it soon. My question is this: How many different configurations are possible? I'm going to buy a pickup with as many wires as I can (Is 4 the maximum?) Besides using it as a regular humbucker, can I set it up to where it will play either the front or back coil when the coil split is on? Can I set it up to where the humbucker is in or out of phase? What other options do I have?


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Post subject: Re: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 8:33 pm
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Humbuckers are typically four-wire pickups and AFAIK there are six configurations possible:

1 -- standard humbucker, both coils
2 -- single coil, using a tap switch
3 -- single coil, using the alternate coil with a tap switch
4 -- both coils, series and in-phase
5 -- both coils, series and out-of-phase
6 -- both coils, parallel and in-phase (the opposite of a factory-wired humbucker)

Using multiple tone caps, some other combos may be possible, a la what Fender used to do via their S-1 switching system.

Arjay

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Post subject: Re: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 8:46 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Thanks for the information! Is it possible to attain all of these settings using two 3 way switches?


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Post subject: Re: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 8:50 pm
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I think it would be more efficient to use Fender's "Superswitch". Wired in conjunction with an S-1 volume pot will provide a maximum of ten different pickup configurations.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY


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Post subject: Re: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Fri May 26, 2017 10:00 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Retroverbial wrote:
I think it would be more efficient to use Fender's "Superswitch". Wired in conjunction with an S-1 volume pot will provide a maximum of ten different pickup configurations.


Are there 10 different configurations possible using a single humbucker?


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Post subject: Re: Pickup wiring options for a humbucker
Posted: Sat May 27, 2017 12:21 am
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The potential is just as I previously described.

Arjay

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