Vintage/Current wiring switch?

[thePENTIUM]

Hey fellas,

First of all awesome forum, Ive been a guitarnuts member for a while, although haven't had time to post much. Great job recreating it.

I've got a '96 telecaster, and I had a friend change it over to 60's wiring. It sounds great, but Im starting to miss the sound I got out of the original wiring. Here's my question. Is there any way to wire it up so that I can switch between a 60s wiring configuration and a current telecaster configuration?

I could set up a complete second control box with seperate controls but it would be much more convenient to have a single switch that will "turn on" vintage wiring.

Thanks in advance
~Pent

[JohnH]

It is probably not hard since tele circuits are very simple, and as far as I know the basis ones are all based on having neck, bridge or both in parallel.-Youd have to identify the circuit that you had and what you have now. They did change the tone capacitor value to a lower value for the newer circuits. Are there other differences? Would you be able to identify two diagrams that youd like to switch between, the Fender ones are all on their site eg heres a current one:

www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdfs/ADTELE/SD0104600DPg2.pdf

John

[thePENTIUM]

Well it seems the only difference is the way the jack is wired in with the volume and tone pots...

www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdfs/60STELE/SD0131600APg2.pdf

www.fender.com/support/diagrams/pdfs/ASTELE/SD0108400APg2.pdf

Whats the best way to do this?

[JohnH]

I dont think there is much difference in how these two circuits would sound, except for the value of the tone capacitor. The 60's one has a higher value, which would cut more treble when you turn the tone control. Does that agree with how you recall the difference in sounds? If that is what you are looking for, electrically its easy - see below.

There are some other differences which have been applied to Teles, this link shows some info:

www.kinman.com/images/inside/toneWorkshop/tone/Tele_Wirogram.PDF

Some are fitted with another bypass capacitor to reduce treble loss as you turn down the volume (top centre in the kinman diagram). It also refers to a period when the pots were 1M Ohm rather than 250 k.

However, assuming that the pots were not changed and the only difference is the main capacitor, a switch could be provided to change the value from 0.05mF (microfarads) to a lower value. It should make it brighter sounding.

The switch could be incorporated into a new push-pull tone pot, which, provided the body has enough depth, would not involve any work to the body or control plate. Alternatively it could be mounted as a mini-toggle switch. I think this would look good - shiny chrome to match the tele control plate. You'd have to be confident in drilling though - it would need to be dead centre and in line between volume and tone controls to look right. No problem if you have access to a bench mounted drill - just a 1/4" hole needed. Shame to mess up a classic design by getting it wrong though!

Before contemplating any of that, Id advise a couple of tests to check the sound in a reversible way, to make sure its what you are after. If you unsolder one end of the tone capacitor, if any of this is going to help, you should get a noticable difference in brighter tone (of course the tone pot wont do anything then). If you then fix another 0.033mF capacitor in series with the other (ie between the two disconnected points you have just unsoldered), the net capacitor value is 0.02mF, very close to the 0.022mF in the 90's diagram. Does that give you the sound you seek?

If that checks out, then you can wire them like that, with a simple switch to short out the 0.033mF to swap between the two settings.

If you wanted to extend the idea further, instead of a normal two position toggle, you could get a similar looking on-off-on toggle. Put three caps in series and wire the switch to bypass none, one or two of them to get a simple 'varitone' circuit. the third cap could be 0.015mF, for a net 0.009mF value with all three in series. This would give you control to high cut the top frequencies, with less effect on mids.

Thats probably enough for now - does any of that sound like what you are after? If so I can help with a diagram if you would like - what do you think?

John

[TooManyWires]

I'm not sure if this would be any help, but a significant while ago on the old forum, I helped a guy out who wanted to do essentially the same thing. He had a tele and he wanted to be able to switch between the original '52 wiring, and the '67 wiring, which is the same as current wiring as far as we could see at the time. I have the diagram to do that but I can't figure out how to post it. The downside is that it requires an 8PDT on/on switch, which the guy who was doing the mod seemed to have a few of, but I didn't realise they were all that easy to come by. The pickup combos we came up with were as such:

'52 wiring:
Neck w/no tone (dark)
Neck w/tone (bright)
Bridge w/tone

'67 wiring:
Neck
Neck + Bridge (Parallel)
Bridge

If you think that would be useful in any way, let me know and I'll e-mail you the diagram. If not, then thats great too.

[thePENTIUM]

Hey yeah that would be awesome! Please do. I sent you a personal message with my email address.

thanks a bunch
Pentarino