Wiring a HSS for Series / Parallel using push pull

[djeans]

Hello,

I was hoping someone could help me out - I've searched all over the web, but haven't found a good explanation for how to do this with my setup. I have a strat with HSS setup with a Bill Lawrence USA L500XL in the bridge that I would like to wire to a push/pull tone pot for switching from Series (down position) to parallel (up position). The pickups are chosen via 5 way toggle switch.

Bill Lawrence USA didn't have any wiring diagrams that I could find, or even an explanation of what wire is what, but I did find this on another site.



Any help as to how to wire this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[newey]

djeans-

There are several different ways to do this. The diagram below was the way one of our Elders, UnklMickey, felt should be the "universal" method:



The colors correspond to the BL wire colors. Please ask any questions, but (hopefully) this is pretty self-explanatory.

[djeans]

Right on! thanks for the reply.

I'm on my way to band practice right now, but will try this out when I get back.

I'll let you know if it works.

[djeans]

Just one quick question tho, as Im looking at this, which would be the side closest to the actual pot, the top or the bottom? Just so I don't wire it backwards.

[newey]

I should also mention that the diagram is a bit stylized, in that I didn't show the orientation of the pot and switch together. This matters only to be sure the series position is the "down" position.

On the diagram, when the bottom lugs are connected, it's in series- which should be correct with your switch if you hold it upright, with the pot shaft at the top.

But when wiring it from underneath, keep the proper orientation in mind.

EDIT: I missed your question as our posts crossed, but I anticipated it anyway.

[djeans]

Wired up, and I *think* it is working.

What I was going for was an almost single coil tone without the nasty hum that comes with a single coil.

With the pot down, it sounds normal, tone knob works as I would expect.

With the pot up, the pickup has slightly less output, but the weird thing is as I roll the tone knob backwards, I get an out of phase sound. Not necessarily a bad sound, just not what I was expecting. Reminds me of Mark Knopfler's tone on "Money for Nothing".

Perhaps I connected the tone pot wrong.

[newey]

The coils in parallel will have less output, that's as expected.

If you had connected the tone pot "wrong", then you'd notice the same thing when in series. ("Wrong" is in quotes since there are a couple of ways of wiring a tone pot, and the alternatives aren't necessarily "wrong").

Same is true if the wiring were out of phase, it would be OOP on both settings.

I suspect that what you are hearing is the normal parallel interaction of your two coils when the load of the tone control is applied.

But to explore this further, we'll need more info: How you wired the guitar, how many tone controls, and their values.

[djeans]

1tone 1 volume.

You may be right that it is just how they sound in parallel. Either way, I'm happy with the sound right now, so I'm going to keep it this way.

Tanks again for the help.

[djeans]

Looks like I spoke too soon. While I'm ok with the thin, phasey sound on the bridge pickup on parallel setting, I'm not ok with it on the 2 single coil pickups, which is what's also happening. Regardless of whether the push/pull is up or down, and regardless of where the tone knob is, both the neck and middle pickups have the thin nasally sound to them, which they didn't have before. So, now I'm fairly convinced that I connected something wrong.

The volume pot is 250k, the tone pot is 500k.

Here are a couple of pics of the tone pot wired up, and one of the switch as well. I had to lengthen the pickup wires to get them to the tone pot, but I used the same color wires so it would be less confusing.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

EDIT:
Got the pics to work .

[newey]

Regardless of whether the push/pull is up or down, and regardless of where the tone knob is, both the neck and middle pickups have the thin nasally sound to them, which they didn't have before. So, now I'm fairly convinced that I connected something wrong.

Are they thin and nasally by themselves, or when combined?

[djeans]

Individually, which probably means it can't actually be a phase issue, I guess. Maybe I messed up the tone pot or something. I could record a short snippet of what each pickup sounds like and post it if that would help.

[newey]

Yeah, it's not phasing if they do it when only one pickup is selected.

I don't see anything obvious in you wiring.

The volume pot is 250k, the tone pot is 500k.

Were either of these replaced as part of this mod?

Did you redo the wiring to the output jack when you did the mod?

It's unlikely to be a bad connection, usually that's either a go/no go situation. So I'm grasping at straws a bit here. Possibly a bad pot, perhaps too much heat applied. Otherwise, reversing the output connections could cause some funky workings.

Other than that. I got nothin' . . .