james david low |
live / work / play / worship |
Ultimate Strat / Gibson 5 Way Pickup Switch Wiring
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, my ultimate 5 way pickup switch wiring. They both require the 5 way double XL super switch, 4 poles, double wafer. They’re done in such a way that both a 2 humbucker guitar and a strat style guitar (SSS or SSH) sound as close as possible in each position. I like a 5 way because its faster than having to switch your main pickup selector and a coil tap at the same time.
| Strat Style | 2 Humbucker | |
|---|---|---|
| 1) | Bridge Pickup | Bridge Humbucker |
| 2) | Bridge/Neck | Bridge/Neck Humbucker |
| 3) | Neck/Middle Series | Neck Humbucker |
| 4) | Neck/Middle Parallel | Neck/Bridge Coil Tap |
| 5) | Neck | Neck Coil Tap |
Notes:
– The humbucker coil taps work best with something like a Lindy Fralin Unbucker.
– On the Strat style I recommend a bridge humbucker or hot single coil
– The single coils in series is an interesting mod to approximate a humbucker. I’ve also thought about adding a 1M trim pot (with treble bleed) if the increased output is too big compared to the single coils on their own, but realised a series capacitor would probably do the same thing:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/mod-squad-muddy-sounding-neck-pickup
You can get a taste of what the series pickups sound like sounds like here: