Travelling guitar.

[DarkMark]

So here is my ES-3 wiring diagram for my tone rider pickup.
I’ll be using the donated pickup which has two wires.
Questions to follow in the next post.

[DarkMark]

Ok, this pickup has the longer wire so I assume it is the neck pickup.
Which wire goes to the back of the volume pot and the pot sticky out bit?
What constitutes as Earth? I know people talk about running a wire to the bridge somehow, is that what I have to do for both pots and the jack output?

[Sonic Mountain]

The bare wire is the earth which should go to the back of the vol pot. The white wire is the hot wire which goes to the pot tang.. although in a 1 vol 1 tone arrangement I normally put it on the centre tang, what you have in your diagram will work though. The bridge needs to be earthed, but it doesn't need to be earthed anywhere in particular. To the back of a pot is fine. I'd probably put a bridgeing earth wire between the back of each of the pots as well, for insurance.

[McCreed]

The white wire is the hot wire which goes to the pot tang.. although in a 1 vol 1 tone arrangement I normally put it on the centre tang...

How does that work?
The centre lug is the wiper output.

[Sonic Mountain]

...no I'm insane. I just checked, centre out is how I have it, not sure what I was thinking.. but theoretically would it matter? Aren't you just increasing the resistance between those two points of contact, so it doesn't really matter which is in and which is out.

[DarkMark]

Thanks Sonic! That’s a good start.
I’m still just a little confused about Earth.
The earth wires leave the pots and output and go....where exactly?

Edit: And thanks McCreed for double checking.

[jugglindan]

...no I'm insane. I just checked, centre out is how I have it, not sure what I was thinking.. but theoretically would it matter? Aren't you just increasing the resistance between those two points of contact, so it doesn't really matter which is in and which is out.

No, it doesn't matter. On a three lug volume voltage divider control, you could have centre as in or centre as out with the third terminal to ground. Either way you get a variable amount of signal dumping to ground. I typically use centre as out though since that lines up with the schematics. Just don't have center to ground and input and output on both ends. That won't work.

The other thing to watch with both the volume and tone is that the direction of the knob can change depending on how you hook things up.

[Simon Barden]

This is one way to wire up the controls using braided output wire.



If not using braided output wire, just replace the braid connections with a number of single wire connections.

The 'vintage' style wiring just means that the tone capacitor connects to the volume pot centre lug (output), instead of the left-hand lug as shown in your ES-3 diagram (input). It makes the tone and volume controls a bit more interactive, but it also keeps the tone brighter when you turn the volume down without the need to fit a treble bleed capacitor+resistor kit.

[McCreed]

Yeah, I should have said "traditionally" centre lug as out.

[jugglindan]

Well, now I feel uncomfortable about my last answer. Yes, it's true that if you connect lug 3 to ground, then regardless of whether the input signal goes to lug 1 or the wiper lug 2, you will get full volume at one end of the pot adjustment, and no volume at the other. But the way it happens and the view seen by the input and output circuits is different. With input to lug 1, output to lug 2, and lug 3 to ground, the input circuit attached to the pot sees the full pot resistance R to ground regardless of where the pot is set. It's the output connection that moves from the input down to ground.

But if you swap things around so the input goes to the wiper lug and the output to lug 1 then the input circuit sees a variable resistance ranging from R to zero, when the input circuit is shorted directly to ground, producing no volume. At the no volume setting, rather than the output being shorted to ground, the output is still connected to the full resistance R. It just doesn't get any signal because the input goes straight to ground instead.

Summarising my perhaps faulty logic:
- output on wiper, the input circuit sees a constant resistance, and the output sees the variable resistance, leading to reduced signal strength as the wiper moves closer to ground (or further away from the input signal).
- input on wiper, the input circuit sees the variable resistance, and the output sees a constant load with variable signal strength.

So whether the wiring matters or not depends on whether the input circuit copes gracefully with the output being shorted to ground or not. Guitar pickups might not matter, but on an effect pedal or amp you might not want to wire it like this as it might cause too much current to flow.

Or at least I think that's what might happen. I am still (re)learning this stuff, and I might have it all wrong here. I have certainly done that before.

I should probably make a diagram, but meh.