Some Holiday Guitar Rewiring [saddle transducers]

Determined to make my holiday time off count (whatever that means), I resolved to do some amp wiring (or miswiring or Design by Fault or Unhappy Accident). I even posted my intention to two online groups, hoping that would cement my future actions via intent.

Because I announced my intent to the Universe (and the internet) I got none of it done whatsoever. Due to my heritage I did manage to feel guilty enough to fire up the old soldering iron and have a go at some old guitar wiring projects that had been sitting idle for too long.

#1 - ACOUSTIC GRAPHITE SADDLES w/ TRANSDUCER

I bought a set of replacement saddles for a Strat with piezo transducers. In plain English, this means that I could add an `acoustic’ sound to my electric guitar. The saddles are most likely graphite, as opposed to whatever metal Fender makes their from.

The saddles went in without a hitch. I simply unscrewed the existing cheeseball saddles from the existing cheeseball (Japanese?) bridge and replaced them with the new ones. I’m pretty sure the new ones were a Mike Christian set. It’s been a while since I purchased them.

The only other change is that each saddle has a tiny wire coming from it. These run a few short inches, where they are shrink-relieved and run through about a foot of shielded cable.

Since this was a leftystrat project, it was frought with bizarre difficulties from the start. The guitar is a semi-recent lefty Japanese (or Mexican) body with a Warmoth backwards neck (right-handed, giving it the appearance of a reversed headstock or an upside down neck). This was another Ebay purchase, from way back when I had disposable income (that long ago?). The body is that really interesting Wine Red/Burgundy/whatever they call it). The main reason I got it was the Warmoth neck was advertised as a V-neck- my favorite. The description was pretty accurate (slight V). Also disclosed was that someone tried to install a Fender decal to the headstock, which was done poorly (even by my standards). It is about half-attached so I don’t touch it. The guitar is very playable as-is, definitely moreso than its contemporaries out of the box.

The largest hassle was the replacement neck. For some reason, perhaps an extra fret, the fingerboard hangs over the pickguard, literally locking it into place. This means that every time I need to do some (re)wiring, I have to remove the neck. As I have learned, rather painfully, wood is not my strong suit. For this reason I stick to electronics (which also isn’t my strong suit, but usually works). I know that repeated loosening and tightening of long neck screws will do nothing to help the stability of the connection so I try to get it right the first time.

Anyone who knows me knows that I never get it right the first time. There is an immutable law of computers that also applies to guitars: If you put the case back on, whatever you did won’t work. This means that anything you install on your computer or guitar won’t work if you button the whole thing up. In order to work around this on the guitar one needs to resort to things like not putting in every pickguard screw (or any of them), or not attaching the rear sting plate or anything else you need to fool the guitar into thinking you’re not satisfied that it will work. The moment it thinks you’re going to seal it up like new, it will fail; regardless of the work you’ve done.

Of course there’s another angle to this. Occasionally (only just occasionally, of course) this is due to Modder Error. You know - things like forgetting to solder the output jack wires in place. Or wiring the new pickup backwards. Or mentally reversing the wiring.

Modder Alert: In case you’re not familiar, Seymour Duncan pickups are wired reverse from the known universe. This means that if you’re installing a Duncan pickup in your stock guitar, odds are that you need to wire it backwards. This is mentioned in the Duncan literature as well as the actual instructions with the pickups but I mention it in case you `forgot’ to read the instructions or didn’t get any.

In addition to installing and wiring the saddle pickups, I wanted to replace the stock pickups in the Strat. Digging into my pickup stash, I came up with lots of Strat pickups; some of them even decent-sounding.

I also have a handful of late 70’s Strat pickups. This is no surprise, as I replaced the pickups in every Fender I ever bought. But because late 70’s Fenders are now considered vintage, I should probably sell them for a mint on Ebay. Never mind that they were considered the Dogs of All Time by anyone who played one, it’s apparently ok to refer to them as `vintage.’ I strongly suspect that these years are only considered vintage by sellers, as opposed to buyers, but I digress…

I have a ton of older Duncan single coils. Fortunately Duncan did it right - most (the large majority) of his pickups have little stickers with an alphanumeric code, indicating the model of the pickup. They’re worthless by themselves but you can go to the website and look them up.

Or at least you could look them up. The new design of the website has effectively hidden all information you’re looking for beneath layers of stuff. I literally spent ten minutes combing the site. If you put `identification’ into the search engine, you get nothing. I finally had to use Google to find the relevant page (webmasters take note!).

They say the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them. There are two charts on the site; one for pre-2002 manufacture dates and one for 2002 and later dates. Go ahead, ask me what the manufacture dates are on each pickup in my junk box - I dare you.

But I kid… the two are fairly easily navigable, as the pre-2002’s tend to be two or three characters and the 2002+laters are longer. This did nothing to explain the combinations on the tags that didn’t appear in either list, but I assumed that was part of the fun Seymour et al planned out for me when labeling the pickups in the first place.

One of the first hitches was the preponderance of R’s. R didn’t appear in either list so I was a bit flummoxed. It occurred to me that it might mean Reverse wind/reverse polarity, which really bit the big one because I had so many of them. For those not familiar, reverse wind/reverse polarity will not affect anything in any way when used by itself: when used in combination with a `normal’ pickup, it will become humbucking, as in `it won’t hum.’ This is why Strat pickups are noisy and Les Paul (dual coil or humbucking) pickups aren’t. In the beginning [insert holy Leo Fender music] the three Strat pickups were all wound normally. They weren’t even wired to be used together; the first pickup switches had three positions. In the seventies manufacturers began to put out aftermarket switches with five positions, so you could use combinations of pickups instead of one at a time. When using two pickups, the guitar would still hum like normal. If one of the pickups were reverse wind/reverse polarity, they would buck hum (hence humbucking) or be quiet. There is no tonal difference - just way less hum.

So having a box full of reverse wind/reverse polarity pickups is essentially the same as having a box full of `normal’ pickups, in that they’re going to hum regardless. This was not what I wanted; it was just what I had. In addition to this (and just to complicate things needlessly), my rear pickup is a Duncan JBjunior, which is a humbucking pickup that fits in a single coil slot. It has two tiny coils instead of one large one so it is quiet. If I only use one of the two coils, it’s every bit as noisy as a generic single coil pickup but it combines with another pickup much better (and bucks hum too!). I accomplish this with a push-pull pot switch, which either pushes or pulls on one of the volume or tone controls and functions as an additional switch without drilling holes.

Got all that?

So there I sat, with three mismatched pickups, trying to figure out a way to wire the whole thing for maximum versatility (and failing). One very important decision was going to be whether to wire the saddle/acoustic output straight to the guitar output, a stereo output, or a totally separate output (the output wire was hanging outside the guitar anyway). There are serious advantages and disadvantages either way:

• Use the standard output jack: this keeps things simple from the wire perspective in that you don’t need a special jack or cables. If you go this way, you probably want a separate volume control for this output
• Use an external jack: if the wires don’t get in the way, you have a completely separate output and nothing interferes electrically or tonally. They are completely isolated. Of course you have to mount the output somewhere…
• Use a stereo output jack: now you need a special cable, which means you need one and a spare at very least. You can go stereo at the guitar to either two mono output cables or run it into a box and split it there. These are not stock so you had better have spares - you can’t go to the local store and purchase one. This still keeps the two output separate and is preferrable to a standard jack.

Also keep in mind that piezo pickups are noisy and high-impedence.  Optimally you want to have a preamp on the guitar to keep the noise down and allow longer cable runs.  Even a ten foot cable without a preamp will be noisy and experience loss.  You will want to amplify the two outputs separately, especially if you like to play distorted… the saddle output is very clean and won’t sound pleasant distorted.  You can run this to the p.a. or a separate stage amp.  You have way less control if you run it into your regular guitar amp.

So, with all that on the table, what to do?   Simple, I know.

I decided on the following:

• master volume, master tone, blend control (blends the rear pickup into whatever is selected)
• stock pickup switch and pots except for one 250k push-pull pot w/switch
• push-pull switch would drop one coil from the rear JBjunior

I suppose now would be a good time to print the schematic and wiring diagram that I used.  It would also be a good time to admit that I don’t have a printed schematic and can’t draw into this blog software.  I’ll figure something out eventually.  If you’re really curious, email me privately and I’ll describe it in detail.   The wiring is mostly available on the web already.

With the exception of the fact that I didn’t have reverse wind/reverse polarity pickups, the project worked out well.  When I say worked out well, I mean eventually.  As I mentioned, it’s never right the first time.  There’s always a miswiring or mental transposition.  To make matters more fun, the left-handed have to wire things differently so the controls feel normal.  They’re always wired backwards out of the factory.  I don’t know about you but I want the guitar all the way up when the knob says TEN, not ONE.   So, a few backwards pot wirings and neck removals later, I got the guitar up and running.  I also got another guitar wired the same way with the exception of not having saddle transducers on it.

The blend control works very well.  If I’m using the front pickup I can now blend in the rear for a different and more pleasing tone, kind of like you get with both pickups in a Tele or Les Paul.  When I get back inside the guitar, I will remove this from the blend control and put it on a switch; either a new push-pull pot or the second half of the existing one.  I have little use for the blend control - I’m happy with either off or on.

Because I had never tried out the saddle transducers, I wired them externally.   This was extremely amusing to watch because the wires kept interfering with the high E string and onlookers got to watch me fumble and curse.  That aside, I plugged the acoustic output into the amp by itself and was instantly rewarded with a decent acoustic sound.  The nature of piezo pickups is to be tinny and lacking in low end; these did not disappoint.  They were pretty noisy too.  But overall, I think they’ll make a great addition to my overall tone bag.  I will probably wind up wiring the saddles internally to a stereo jack.  I’m thinking it will sound really good when put lightly on top of the electric tone.  I’m not sure I’d use it as just an acoustic guitar yet… I’d need to experiment a bit more first.   

The verdict from my wife and her visiting sister was that it sounded very much like an acoustic guitar when run by itself. 

Of course now I’ll have to remove the neck again to wire it for the last time.   Well, the last time until I get some new pickups for it anyway…..you know… the kind that are reverse wind/reverse polarity….