Telecaster replacement pickup wiring question

[teamjeffo]

Good morning all! It's been a while since I've been here. Fatherhood, work and lack of pocket money have all been contributing factors

I've recently decided and committed to modding my '83 MIJ Telecaster, and committed to buying (awaiting delivery) of a handmade "Martin A Smith" wide range humbucker (https://www.martinasmith.com.au/coll...mbucker-single) from downtown Perth, WA for the neck.

After I pulled the trigger and paid for it, I had an afterthought about the wiring and pots...

Martin will supply me with a 1meg pot to compliment the new pickup, but then I thought about the stock bridge PUP? I assume the pots in the Tele are 250k, and from what I've read the bridge is going to be UNBELIEVABLY bright if going though a 1meg pot.

Now I am the first to admit I know next to zero about electronics. Can someone offer me any advice? The only possible solution I came up with was buying a control panel with three knobs, and hopefully find a wiring diagram online, but so far I've come up with nothing.

Just to complicate things a little more, I want to be able to split the new WRHB too. I have the original control plate for the tele which has a switch on it (was for phasing before I disconnected it), which I thought I could utilise.

[WeirdBits]

You have some options:

You can alter how the pickups are connected to the switch so that a resistor is linked in for the bridge only pup position to reduce the effective value of the 1M volume pot (albeit with some side effects).

Or, instead of just the resistor, add a cap/resistor filter combo to drop off some of the highs to warm it up a bit to compensate for the 1M pot.

Or, compromise for both pups and see how a 500K pot sounds.

Or, I guess you could even try using a dual 250K/500K pot and set it up so the bridge get the 250K wafer and the neck adds in the 500K wafer giving effectively 750K. Just throwing out some quick ideas.

[teamjeffo]

Thanks mate! It might take a while to digest this and wrap my head around it, but I will certainly look into your suggestions!

You have some options:

You can alter how the pickups are connected to the switch so that a resistor is linked in for the bridge only pup position to reduce the effective value of the 1M volume pot (albeit with some side effects).

Or, instead of just the resistor, add a cap/resistor filter combo to drop off some of the highs to warm it up a bit to compensate for the 1M pot.

Or, compromise for both pups and see how a 500K pot sounds.

Or, I guess you could even try using a dual 250K/500K pot and set it up so the bridge get the 250K wafer and the neck adds in the 500K wafer giving effectively 750K. Just throwing out some quick ideas.

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[teamjeffo]

I was thinking, and I don't know if this is possible, could I have two different volume pots and sacrifice the tone which I never use?

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[WeirdBits]

Yep, you certainly could.

[DarkMark]

Noob question...
If you have no tone pot, what tone would you expect? Treble or bass sounding? I assume volume pot resistance comes heavily into play as the only variable.

[Simon Barden]

It's going to be a brighter sound. That's why they make 'no load' tone pots where the pot (and therefore the capacitor) are taken out of circuit when turned up to 10, and the pot is only brought into play when the pot is turned down to 9 or less.

If the sound is too bright without the pot, you can always wire a 240k or 270k resistor and a 0.047uF cap in series between the output and ground to simulate the effect of a tone pot set to 10.

[teamjeffo]

Million dollar question: is anyone able to make a wiring diagram for me? Happy to wire some PayPal bucks for somebody's time.

I've ordered the following for the LRHB in order to split;
https://www.evatco.com.au/cts-1-meg-...sh-pull-single

I'm going to re-use one of the existing 250k pots and the 3-way selector.



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[Simon Barden]

Have you asked Martin Smith what the sound of the split humbucker is like? I was just wondering, as the pickup has three exposed and presumably three hidden poles, with the hidden ones further away from the strings because of the cover, so there might be quite an imbalance in output between the top 3 and bottom 3 strings in split mode. In humbucker mode this is balanced by the other coil being the reverse orientation, so all strings have one loud and one quieter coil/pole-piece combination.

You may find that the split coil option isn't that great as a result. Or it might sound good. But you might want to ask before bothering with it. At least you'd know what to expect without then worrying about it.

[teamjeffo]

It's going to be a brighter sound. That's why they make 'no load' tone pots where the pot (and therefore the capacitor) are taken out of circuit when turned up to 10, and the pot is only brought into play when the pot is turned down to 9 or less.

If the sound is too bright without the pot, you can always wire a 240k or 270k resistor and a 0.047uF cap in series between the output and ground to simulate the effect of a tone pot set to 10.

Simon (or "Swami Simon, the Patron Saint of Luthiers" as I shall hence forth know you), would you suggest a cap and resister per pick-up?

Also, what are the pros and cons of 240k v 270k?