A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF WIRING OPTIONS - Deaf Eddie

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ABOUT SPECIFIC HUMBUCKING PICKUPS:We’ll start with looking at a Gibson pickup’s color code.. Notice that the way Gibsonwires their pickups, the SCREW coil is “first” – the screw coil’s negative lead isconnected to ground. This means that you must run the coil-shunt jumper to the hot sideof the pickup’s output to keep the screw coil active.On DiMarzio pickups, it's actually a bit easier to wire the coil-shunt jumper - because ifyou follow the factory specs, the SLUG coil is first, connected to ground. If you switchthe shunt jumper to ground, it shunts the slug coil, leaving the screw (second) coil active,which is typically what you want.
On Seymour Duncans, if you follow the factory specs, the SCREW coil is first, closestto ground. This means that you must shunt S-D pups to hot to keep the screw coil active.Why did they build them that way? My BEST GUESS is because this is also the wayGibson builds their humbuckers (seee above). When you coil-shunt a Gibson humbucker,the coil-shunt jumper goes to the output of the pup - NOT ground - to shunt the slug coiland keep the screw coil working. Remember, the original Gibson humbucker wasdeveloped LONG ago, before hot-rodding yer axe was the rage it is today, and eventualmods to the pup were probably never a design consideration...FWIW: AN ALTERNATIVE FOR GIBSON AND S-D PUPS:The alternative to shunting-to-hot (which can be a pain) is to wire the pups in theopposite phase indicated in their documentation (by the Seymour Duncan color code, thiswould use the black wire as ground, and the green wire as hot - for Gibsons, the red wirewould be ground, and the black wire would be hot). If you wire BOTH pickups this wayon double-humbucker axes, it has the ease of the DiMarzio-style “shunt to ground”wiring, but keeps the screw coil active. On Fender AmStd Fat Strats, this is exactly whatFender did with the Seymour Duncan humbuckers they use so that they will play in phasewith the Fender single coils.If you are installing a Gibson or Seymour Duncan humbucker on a Strat, and you findthat this " reversed phase" installation makes the humbuckers sound out of phase with thebrand/model single coil pups that you are using, it is simply a matter of reversing thephase of the single coil pickups to get them all back IN phase. As the typical Strat-stylepup has no metal base plate or conductive parts, there are usually no repercussions toswapping the hot and ground leads. There are exceptions - some aftermarket Strat pupsDO have metal baseplates, and are two-conductor wired…sheesh!
Page 1 and 2: A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF WIRING OPTION
Page 3 and 4: Pickups wired PARALLEL/out of phase
Page 5 and 6: SPECFICALLY HUMBUCKERS (and P90s):A
Page 7: A LOOK AT SOME HUMBUCKING PICKUPS:T

A BRIEF DISCUSSION OF WIRING OPTIONS - Deaf Eddie

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