Help: ES-1F Wiring Mod (phase and series/parallel)

Hi All.

I'm about to start an ES-1F build with my son (diary to launch shortly) and am having trouble finding a wiring diagram to accomplish something which I thought would be fairly straightforward. That is:

1. Neck Volume push/pull to put neck pickup out of phase
2. Bridge Volume push/pull to put both neck and bridge pickups in series (with each other)

I'm not seeking to do any coil splitting, or changing parallel/series configuration within any humbucker.

I have purchased ToneRider Alnico II Classic pickups with 4 conductor wiring.

I found one wiring diagram, but it seems to be for two single coil pickups.
Attachment 44478

If anyone has a wiring diagram to accomplish this (with 50s wiring), I would be most grateful!

Mathew

The diagram is basically just the same, just with different pickup wire colours. In that diagram, white is the ‘hot’ signal from the pickup, black is the ground. For the Toneriders, red is ‘hot’, green is ground. The black and white wires stay connected to each other and to nothing else, so leave the black heat shrink on them.

For each pickup, the exposed shield wire goes to the back of a pot. You don’t connect it to the green wire as you would for a basic 2 vol/2 tone arrangement.

I will say now that two humbuckers in series will sound a hot dull mess. With single coils, you can do it to get more output and a thicker, less bright tone. But compared to single coils you are already starting out with a thicker, less bright tone. You double up the pickups’ inductance when wiring in series, so the resonant peak is moved further down the frequency range and you loose all your treble and gain a lot more low mids. It’s why you aren’t finding series wiring diagrams for humbuckers and its not a feature on other guitars. At best it would be a speciality tone that you use once in a blue moon, but not for everyday use.

Thanks Simon.

I think I can map the diagram across to Toneriders from your clear explanation. Putting the exposed shield wire to the back of a pot; connecting the black and white wires together and heat-shrinking them unconnected to anything; and running the remaining red 'hot' and green ground as per the diagram; all makes sense to me. Thank you for your clear explanation.

I understand what you're saying about tone. In-series is generally pretty useless because it's too dark; and out of phase is generally pretty useless because it's too thin. Intent is to combine the two for a cutting lead sound in bespoke situations.

If anyone else has a better wiring diagram, feel free to chime in. Otherwise, I'll wire IAW the diagram earlier in this thread.

The Toneriders should come with the black and white wires pre-soldered and heatshrinked. I’ve just put some of their Alnico IVs in a guitar and that’s how they came. I just wish their leads were a bit longer as I had to extend one of them to fit in an ES-1.

Technically it’s ‘polarity reversal’ rather than ‘out of phase’. It’s not ‘too thin’ a sound on humbuckers to be useful, or we wouldn’t have classics like ‘Need your love so bad’, though IMO it is too thin on single coils to be anything other than a special effect.

I don’t think you’ll get a ‘better’ wiring diagram. All wiring diagrams tend to use colour codes for a particular manufacturer and you have to swap the colours over for other manufacturers’ pickups.

Let us know what it sounds like!

Thanks, Simon.

Indeed, this is a bit of an experiment, but I'll let you know how it sounds. ‘Need your love so bad’ is a gorgeous sound - so if it's only usefulness is 'polarity reversed' humbuckers, I'll still be delighted.

Build diary to commence shortly!

I now remember that I had a Kent Armstrong Hot Motherbucker in an Ibanez RG. Four thin single coils in one pickup. A mate of mine always uses the ‘cool’ version as the bridge pickup in his guitars. He put it in for me and it was wired as either two humbuckers in series or in parallel. The series mode was very dull and flat sounding to me, parallel was much better and clearer. The DCR was around 28k, so even parallel mode was hot enough to overdrive a clean channel. I took it out after a while and put some (better than the original) Ibanez pickups back in.

Interesting to hear what the polarity-reversed series mode sounds like. As each pickup is hum-cancelling, you don’t have any hum issues. But you still get the doubled inductance, so it won’t sound as bright as a single humbucker. But overdrive/distortion will add a lot of upper harmonics back in.

It looks like series mode bypasses the neck volume control, so only the bridge one works in that mode, so if you select just the neck pickup you’ll get silence. Which is a good thing in a way, as if both volumes were connected, you’d get the equivalent of a 250k volume pot resistance to ground, which would knock-off even more treble.

As usual, Simon has covered all the important stuff about running humbuckers in series. The only thing I'd add is that Mathew also wants to use vintage tone wiring which complicates it further as you have your tone pots hanging off the output side of the volumes, so they are essentially connected directly to the 3-way... so volume and tone combinations impact all throughout the circuit(s).

Anyway, I promised Mathew some diagrams, so here they are.

All of them use vintage tone wiring and each does things slightly differently, so the switching options and effects of the pots varies. Note: all the diagrams were done in a bit of a rush so there may well be some glaring issues that I've missed or messed up, so use at your own risk.


These first two are a standard style and use the spare side of the series push/pull to switch either the input or output from the Bridge volume. This gives a 'mute' position when the Bridge is selected in series mode, and all pots remain connected in some way.

Option: 1
Attachment 44535
The output from the Bridge volume is disconnected from the 3-way toggle when in series mode, but the Bridge volume and tone will still have an effect in the middle and neck positions as they are connected to the Bridge pickup.

Option 2:
Attachment 44536
On this one the Bridge volume input (the Bridge pickup) is disconnected from the pot in series mode, but as the vintage tone is on the output side it still has an effect when the Bridge pup is part of the circuit. And, the volume setting affects how much the tone pot works so there is still a lot of interaction.

Option 3:
Attachment 44537
The above variant swaps things around by having the phase on the Bridge rather than the Neck, and feeding the Neck into the Bridge pickup when in series mode. Also, as it doesn't do any switching on the volumes, you have sound in all positions in series mode. The downside being all pots in circuit and the tones will both be having effects.

Option: weird
This last diagram is a little more experimental, and I don't think I've seen this type of switching used for this sort of layout. Essentially, the Bridge volume and tone pots are wired to share a path to ground and this gets disconnected when you switch to 'series mode'. This disables the Bridge tone control completely and changes the Bridge volume from a voltage divider to a variable resistor. The advantage of this is that you only have the Neck volume and tone as a path to ground in the circuit, which should help to retain more of the highs, and the Bridge 'variable resistor' can tweak some of the sounds (slightly).

In the bridge position in series mode turning down the Bridge volume from '10' will increase the resistance between the Bridge pickup and the output. This should reduce the volume a little and thin out some of the lower frequencies as the resistance will affect them more (in theory).

In the middle position in series mode the Bridge volume 'variable resistor' will be in parallel with the Neck pickup in series with the Bridge. At '10' the Neck pickup gets shorted out and you just get the sound of the Bridge. However, as you turn down the volume it will increase the resistance between the Bridge+ and the 3-way toggle, which causes some of the Bridge signal to go in series through the Neck and some to bypass it via the resistance path. This gives you *some* slight ability to fade the Neck in series with the Bridge. But, it is only limited and will probably be more 'switchy' than expected with all Bridge at '10' and then a lot of Neck almost as soon as you start turning down... so don't have your hopes set too high.

Attachment 44538

I tested the above layout the other day and it seemed to work pretty well, but it was a rough test so your mileage will most likely vary.

Also, remember that you're got to stuff your wiring into the ES through the F-holes... which isn't easy even with simple wiring. That's why I've drawn them with the jack connecting to the switch and then branching to the volumes/tones. If you use shielded wire for your jack-switch connection and then shield links from the switch to the pots, it will help keep things quiet and hopefully allow you to manipulate them more easily. Getting the jack then switch into the body and then making your pickup connections to the push/pulls one are a time may make the process safer and easier... with less screaming and throwing of things when wires break off.

Good luck and ask questions if you have them.

There is one other possibility I should mention, but it only applies if you want a single fixed series configuration with one pickup out of phase(polarity).

If this is the case, the you could replace the two push/pull pots with a single Fender S1 pot. The S1 is a 4-pole push/push pot… so with one button press you could disconnect the bridge volume and tone, bypass the 3-way toggle, reverse the Bridge pickup and link it in series to the Neck pickup and have that go through the Neck volume and tone as master controls direct to the output. Press the button again and it would be back to normal.

But there are caveats:
1. The S1 only has ~9.5mm of thread length, so it would be borderline to get a washer and nut on it through the top of the ES.
2. The S1 uses a specific type of 2-part knob, so your style choices are limited.
3. The S1 is a deep body full sized pot, ~24mm diameter, so it’s probably 4-5mm wider than you can fit through an ES f-hole. And, you can’t squeeze it through sideways like a normal pot. So the only way to fit it would be to cut an access hole in the back of the body, reinforce it, and make a cavity cover so you can feed the wiring in from the back. Difficult, but not impossible.

It’s an option, but not something I’d recommend unless you’re really determined.

Having just wired some full sized-pots with medium length shafts into an ES-1, I’m pretty sure a short-shaft pot wouldn’t work. With the medium-shaft CTS pots I used, there was only just about enough room to fit a locking washer underneath and a washer and nut on the top. I tried with a flat washer underneath the locking one and there wasn’t enough thread poking out to get the nut on.

A 4-pole On/On mini-toggle, if you can get one with enough thread, would probably the simplest overall fixed series solution. Especially when it comes to stuffing the wiring through the f-hole.