stereo wiring?

[oettam]

hi everyone,

any suggestion for a simple (but worth) stereo wiring?
I was thinking something like a simplified Brian May OOP wiring but with splitting pickups into the two channels
I can't find much online

thanks

[newey]

Jun 9, 2023 13:35:33 GMT -5 oettam said:

I can't find much online

Not too many people do this. I have a long-languishing stereo Tele project, got to find the time to finish that one of these days- along with about 10 other projects . . .

My strategy was (and is) the neck pickup to one channel, bridge to the other, with separate output jacks to go to 2 different amps, or they could be summed via a Y-box into a single amp. I had a custom Tele body made up with the 2 jack routes to the lower edge.

The trick part of the wiring was the use of a TRRS switching jack on Jack B, so that, if a plug was inserted into Jack A, and no plug in jack B, the switch in jack B remains closed, so the signal from both pickups goes to jack A, you plug it into a single amp and it functions like pretty much any Tele (although it has a N + B series option as well).

The other way to do stereo, which was what Gretsch did (and does, I think there are reissues), is to use stereo pickups. This type of pickup is actually 2 separate coils, side by side, such that one coil senses strings 1-2-3 while the other senses 4-5-6, so one channel is the lower strings (and for either of the 2 pickups) and the second channel the upper ones. The channel separation is nowhere near perfect, given the nature of magnetic coils, but I've always thought those guitars sounded pretty cool. Gretsch made stereo guitar amps for these guitars, with a 15" speaker for the bass strings and 2 8" speakers for the treble channel. Stereo guitar cables were needed.

When I was a kid back in the late '60s, my dream guitar was a Gretsch stereo White Falcon; Mike Nesmith of the Monkees played one and I would drool over it. Neil Young has played one for years, too.

Earlier, back in the 1950s, Gretsch also used a different method for the stereo- neck pickup to one channel, bridge to the other, each pickup having just one coil, but with the neck pickup only having pole pieces for 4-5-6 and the bridge pciup only having pole pieces under 1-2-3. The strings without the pole pieces would still sound out, but muffled. Here's a video of that style of guitar, which is overly long with lots of ads, so you might want to skim through it: