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GENERAL INFO & TECH TIPS

• UNDERSTANDING THE TREBLE BLEED MOD (aka Volume
Kit)
A volume kit is a very simple mod that will prevent the loss of
highs as you roll down your guitars volume. Many pros will
recommend slightly different methods on how to approach this.
Click here to learn everything you ever wanted to know about
this mod.

• HOW DO I WIRE A NECK-ON SWITCH IN A STRAT?

This simple mod will turn a 5 sound strat into a 7 sound strat!

• HOW DO I IMPLEMENT SERIES PARALLEL SWITCHING?

You can add this mod to any guitar or bass using either a DPDT
mini-switch or push-pull pot
• HOW DO I WIRE A COIL-TAP FOR A HUMBUCKER?
This classic mod is also known as a coil-split which will short
one of the coils of your humbucker so you are left wtih one
active coil.

• HOW DO I IMPLEMENT SERIES/PARALLEL SWITCHING IN

A HUMBUCKER?
In full humbucking mode the tone will be full and strong. In
parallel mode the tone will be clean, scooped and with less
output.

• GUITARS AND NOISE

Information about guitar noise/hum.

• HOW CAN I WIRE A STEREO OUTPUT JACK AS AN ON-OFF SWITCH

This is a common trick when using active electronics so you don't drain your battery
while your guitar cable is unplugged.

• INFO ABOUT HUMBUCKER 4 CONDUCTOR WIRING COLOR CODES

• Should I use 250K or 500K pots?

250K and 500K pots are the most common pots used in passive guitar circuits. Using
higher value pots will give the guitar a brighter sound and lower value pots will
provide a warmer sound. Higher value pots put less load on the pickups which
prevents treble frequencies from bleeding to ground through the pot. The convention
is to use 500K pots for humbuckers as well as hotter single coils, since hotter pickups
can tend to sound darker and can use more highs. 250K pots are commonly used on
traditional single coils that can tend to sound bright so added warmth of 250K works
well. A personal favorite of mine is to use 300K pots for single coils which provides a
very subtle increase in brighteness.

• What is the difference between Audio and Linear taper pots?

Linear taper pots provide 50% resistance at 50% rotation (eg. On 5). Audio taper
pots generally provide 10% resistance at 50% rotation, although there are variations
where some manufacturers produce pots with 20% resistance at 50% rotation. Either
way, audio taper tends to provide a more gradual audio reduction perceived to be a
smoother taper.

• What is a No Load tone control?

A no load tone control works just like a standard tone control from settings 1-9 but at
10 the pot and capacitor are both removed from the circuit, thus eliminating the path
to ground that exists with standard pots even in the full treble position. The end
result is that the only load on the pickup is the volume pot. From a tonal standpoint
this equates to increased output and brightness when the pot is on 10. The reason for
this is that the reduced load allows more output from he pickup to come through
and reduces the amount of high frequencies that bleed off to ground.

• What is a blender pot?

 A blender pot allows you to blend (mix) the neck pickup or the bridge pickup into
the signal which will provide you with 2 extra sound, namely: bridge/neck (very Tele
like) as well as all 3 pickups on simultaneously. If the 5-way is in the neck position, it
blends in the bridge pickup. If the 5-way is in the bridge position it blends in the
neck pickup. You can dial in as much or as little as you want. For example, one of
Lindy Fralin’s favorite ways to use blender wiring is add just a little bit of the neck
pickup to warm up the bridge pickup.

Blender pots ideally should be “no-load” pots (see above) so when the pot is on 10
the pot is completely removed from the circuit, and therefore not loading the circuit
in any way (think “true bypass”).

Here is a summary of how the blender works in relation to the 5 way selector switch:

POSITION ORIGINAL PICKUP BLENDER FUNCTION RESULTING PICKUP

COMBO COMBO

1 Bridge Blends in neck pickup Bridge/Neck

2 Bridge/Middle Blends in neck pickup Bridge/Middle/Neck

3 Middle Non-functional Middle

4 Middle/Neck Blends in bridge Bridge/Middle/Neck

pickup

5 Neck Blends in bridge Neck/Bridge

pickup

• How does the tone capacitor value affect tone?

The most common value capacitors for guitar circuits are .022 uf and .047 uf (where
uf is the symbol for microfarads, sometimes referred as MFD). The tone pot and
capacitor are wired together to form what is called a variable low pass filter. This
means as you dial in the tone pot only the low frequencies pass to the output jack
and the high frequencies are grounded out. The selected capacitor value will
 determine the "cutoff frequency" of the filter. Larger capacitors (eg. .047 uf) will have
lower cutoff frequency and sound darker when dialed in because a wider range of
frequencies is being reduced. Smaller capacitors (eg. .022 uf) will have a higher
cutoff frequency and sound brighter when dialed in because only the high
frequencies are cut. The convention is for humbucker equipped guitars to use .022 uf
capacitors and single coil equipped guitars typically use ..047 uf capacitors.
However, feel free to experiment. Some like to use .033 uf capacitors since they are
in between .022 and .047.

• What is the famous Clapton “woman tone” about?

Eric Clapton often used smaller than normal caps on his tone controls and then
rolled the tone all the way off to create what he referred to as "woman tone". This
would give him a rather subtle, warm, yet beefy sound that had a great growl to it
and provided a rather creamy distortion when overdriven. A good value cap to use
for this effect would be a .015 uf capacitor.

HUMBUCKER WIRING CONCEPTS

Here are a few graphics demonstrating the combinations available with 4 conductor
humbuckers. For these examples, I chose to use Seymour Duncan's color codes (black =
start of slug coil, white = end of slug coil, green = start of adjustable coil, and red = end of
adjustable coil. Youu can substitue the color codes for any manufacturer.
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