Pickup Wiring Options
In this article, Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe Guitars gives an in-depth explanation of pickup coil wiring options. Note this information is provided in the context of humbuckers, but applies just as well to a pair of single coil pickups that are RWRP relative to each other. You may also find my earlier posts useful: Humbucker Wiring and Coil Splitting, and Pete’s previous article on Coil Splitting/Tapping.
Thanks again to Pete for the permission to post this here!
January 2013
Howdy!
In this Tech Tips newsletter I would like to discuss the wiring options possible with a single humbucking pickup which has a four conductor output cable with an independent ground lead.
The following information applies not only to conventional humbucking pickups with side by side coils, but also to stacked humbuckers and humbuckers in other size formats or configurations.
In this newsletter I do not plan to cover the details of wiring one or more switches to accomplish the possible coil configurations described below. A great deal of useful information on this topic is provided on the Stewart MacDonald website, the Guitar Nuts website and on www.deaf-eddie.net
First, let’s start with the basics:
Waterslide Decals
Here’s the table of contents for the whole DIY pedal building series:
- Intro to DIY Pedal Building
- Beginner’s Course in Sketchup, Modeling a 125B Guitar Pedal Enclosure
- Drilling a 125B Guitar Effects Pedal Enclosure
- Pedal Enclosure Finishing: Surface Prep, Priming and Painting
- Using GIMP to Create Pedal Artwork
- Printing and Applying Waterslide Decal to Pedal Enclosure
In this final installment on finishing your own guitar effects pedals, I demonstrate how to print and apply the waterslide decal to the pedal, and apply a durable clear finish. In previous videos, I showed how to model, drill, and paint the enclosure, and design and prepare the artwork and labels in GIMP.
I use clear waterslide decal paper, and print on my inkjet Canon Pro9000mkII. After printing, and waiting a while to ensure the ink is dry, I spray on a few coats of Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear acrylic to protect the ink during the soak. Then, after the clearcoat dries for 30 minutes or so, I trim the paper to final dimensions and soak the paper in warm water. When the decal starts to move freely from its backing, I wet the surface of the enclosure and slide the decal directly onto it. I iron out the bubbles with wet fingers, and adjust the decal into its final position, being careful not to stretch the decal.
Coil Splitting and Coil Tapping
In this article, Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe Guitars gives an in-depth explanation of humbucker coil splitting and tapping. You may also find my earlier posts useful: Humbucker Wiring and Coil Splitting.
Thanks again to Pete for the permission to post this here!
October 2012
Howdy!
The topic for this tech tips newsletter will be Coil Splitting and Coil Tapping.
Coil Splitting and Coil Tapping are two methods which can be used to extend the range of tones on can get from a magnetic pickup.
First, a few definitions:
Coil splitting refers to disabling one of the two coils of a humbucking pickup by shunting that coil’s output to electrical ground.
Coil tapping is most often used to describe a single coil pickup which has a coil start and more than one coil end (output tap).
Because I intend to devote most of this article to Coil Tapping, let me start with Coil Splitting.
Using GIMP to Create Pedal Artwork
Here’s the table of contents for the whole DIY pedal building series:
- Intro to DIY Pedal Building
- Beginner’s Course in Sketchup, Modeling a 125B Guitar Pedal Enclosure
- Drilling a 125B Guitar Effects Pedal Enclosure
- Pedal Enclosure Finishing: Surface Prep, Priming and Painting
- Using GIMP to Create Pedal Artwork
- Printing and Applying Waterslide Decal to Pedal Enclosure
The next step in finishing up the pedal that we’ve modeled, drilled and painted previously, is to prepare the artwork and labels.
In this tutorial, I will demonstrate how to compose your pedal artwork in GIMP, the free GNU Image Manipulation Program. I’m using GIMP 2.8.2 on Windows, but it also runs on Mac and Linux. More
All my YouTube comments have disappeared!
[Update 10/11/2012: What a relief! All my old YouTube comments appear to have been restored successfully. Thanks to the YouTube team for correcting the situation so promptly.]
[Update 10/10/2012: Some news: I received an email from the youtube team saying “A small number of YouTube users may have had their comments deleted as a result of an error on our part”. They sent a link to a reinstatement form, which I submitted, and I now wait with fingers crossed for a speedy and successful recovery. Here’s a link to that form, if you feel you’ve also been affected by this issue!]
Today I noticed something completely depressing! I was looking back at some older comments on one of my videos and I noticed that none of my comments were there. When I clicked on someone’s reply to one of my comments “in reply to John Cooper (Show the comment)”, it popped up a dialog saying “The comment no longer exists”.