Guitar Wiring

• Can you repair/modify my guitar?

  Sorry, no – I’m not a professional guitar tech. I’m just an amateur tinkerer and do this for fun in my limited free time. In my blog and videos, I’m sharing my experiments and tweaks on my own guitars, and hope you can learn from my mistakes and my successes, and gain confidence to try this stuff yourself! However, if you think you have a question I can help you with, feel free to get in touch and I’ll do my best to help.

• How do I wire up my guitar?

  First, please search on line for wiring diagrams and resources.   There’s some great sites like GuitarElectronics.com which have tons of diagrams.   Often schematics are available from the manufacturer’s website (like Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, etc).
  Secondly, use alligator clip leads and a multimeter to assemble, learn and test your circuit, before soldering anything.  This allows you to experiment and really understand what’s happening.

• Can you help me fix my broken wiring?

  I can’t really debug your wiring for you- I’m over here, and you’re over there.

  You can do it! Double-check your wiring, and be very meticulous. Diagram it, and make sure it makes sense. Use a multimeter to confirm that each two points that should be connected together really are connected, and that there’s no undesirable short-circuits. (Set your multimeter to resistance mode, any scale, and test by touching two points with the test leads- if they’re connected, you will see zero resistance. If you see infinite resistance, that means no connection).

• What potentiometers, capacitors and pickups should I buy?

  This stuff is really subjective, so I try not to give out recommendations.  What works for one person may feel or sound terrible to someone else.   Read my thoughts and suggestions in my blog post about this.

• How can I learn more about how to set up and fix my guitar?

  I recommend Dan Erlewine’s Repair Guide and Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great.  You could also try the guitar building books by Martin Koch and Melvyn Hiscock (though I haven’t read those).

• How can I solder a wire to the back of a potentiometer?

  In my video on soldering pot backs, I demonstrated a technique of scuffing up the pot back with some sand paper.

  You also need to make sure that the pot isn’t greasy or oily. Wipe it with a degreaser and let it dry.

  And you need a very hot iron. I set my Weller to 750 degrees.

• How about a diode for the treble bleed circuit?

  In my video about problems with treble bleed in a 3-pickup guitar, many have asked whether a diode could be used as a one-way valve to prevent the signal from passing back through the other volume pot to ground.

  While that might work in a DC circuit, the guitar audio signal is A/C. So, a diode would act as a half-wave rectifier, clipping and distorting the signal.

  Here are some alternative ideas for how to approach this issue.