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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Tele wiring

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10/10/1997 3:57 PM
Matt D	Tele wiring Howdy y'all Question-regarding a normal tele, does anybody know a way to eliminate the tone control from the neck pu only? Thanks for the thought!

10/12/1997 4:40 AM

Here are a few suggestions:
#1. Use a push-pull pot for the tone control, with the switch section wired to bypass the tone control.
#2. Use a Fender TBX control which essentially removes the tone control from the circuit when set to 10. Along similar lines, I read a post here that explained how to accomplish the same with a regular tone pot by taking it the cover off and using an exacto blade to shave off the resistive material at the 10 position. For hard-core DIYers.
#3. I usually put in a 5 position strat switch in my Tele's and wire it up so that it is in-phase when the switch is down towards the bridge and out-of-phase when the switch is up towards the neck (the neck pickup is in the middle of the switch). You could run the lead from the tone control to the in-phase lead from the bridge pickup.

Modified tele wiring using strat selector switch:
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........[Com-HOT+]...[Br Bk]...[Neck Wh]...[Br Wh]
[Br Wh]...[not connected]..[Br Bk]...[Com-Gnd]
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The black wire from the neck pickup would be connected to ground on one of the pots. If you connected the lead from the tone pot to the white wire from the bridge pickup, the tone control would be active in positions 4 & 5 (neck & bridge in phase, and bridge only). NOTE: some replacement pickups reverse the colors here so that black is the normal hot output and white is normally connected to ground.
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Position 1: bridge only (out of phase- may hum a bit more depending on how the pickup was wound)
Position 2: bridge & neck parallel/out-of-phase
Position 3: neck only
Position 4: bridge & neck parallel/in phase
Position 5: bridge only
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The Seymour Duncan site has an interesting diagram which shows how to use a DPDT switch in conjunction with a 3 way selector switch to add series linkage for a louder and fuller sound. (With series linkage you definitely want to have some sort of phase switching to get that series/out-of-phase sound which sounds like a wah-wah pedal kicked back to a middle position!)
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Steve Ahola

10/12/1997 7:04 AM
Matt D	Thanks for the great tips. I hadn't thought about a five way switch! Matt

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