converting seymour duncan wiring diagrams to fender wiring

#CONVERTING SEYMOUR DUNCAN WIRING DIAGRAMS TO FENDER WIRING FULL#

By connecting this middle contact to the jack, as in this diagram, we have implemented a volume control. By connecting our hot signal to the leftmost contact, and the rightmost contact to ground, we can give the middle contact a controllable ‘choice’ between being connected completely to the hot output, completely to ground, or anywhere in between. The outer two are connected to either end of a resistive strip, and the middle one is connected to a ‘wiper’ that moves across the strip as the knob is turned. This is what it looks like:Īs you can see, there are three contacts on the pot. A volume control uses a potentiometer, which is the component that lives behind the knobs on a guitar. Turn It UpĪ kill switch is OK, but even more useful is a volume control. Now we have a kill switch that truly silences the guitar when engaged. In the ‘off’ position, it’s connected straight to ground (while the hot output from the pickup isn’t connected to anything at all). With this switch, in the ‘on’ position, the hot jack contact is connected to the output of the pickup. Instead, we need a switch that still completes the circuit, but cuts the pickup out of the equation, like this:

We’re not ensuring that the two contacts are at equal voltage. However, when we use this switch to cut the signal, this scheme would actually cause the same noise we hear when we have a cable plugged into the amp but no guitar. You might think that we can simply add a mini-toggle switch in the hot wire to cut the output from the pickup, like so: Cut That Out!Īssuming we don’t want to stop there, the simplest next step would be to add a ‘kill switch.’ This is a switch that silences the guitar in one position and allows the signal through in the other.

#CONVERTING SEYMOUR DUNCAN WIRING DIAGRAMS TO FENDER WIRING FULL#

This week we’ll be taking more steps towards a full understanding of guitar wiring. Last week we got to the point where we had a guitar with one pickup and no controls.

Converting seymour duncan wiring diagrams to fender wiring