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Since most of us fix or make guitars, we have probably heard something about the cease and desist letters Fender has sent out concerning the Stratocaster. I thought I would offer some thoughts. As always, caveat emptor. There are three basic ways to protect intellectual property under Federal law. Patent, trademark, and copyright. Each protects different things, and has different underlying legal theories. Lets begin with pate…

Just sharing some info to procrastinate my nth attempt at getting this thing together. and some venting. If you get one of these in with electronic issues, estimate high. Customer brought in a Gretsch Rally in pieces that he picked up from the last repairman (who died), and just wants it to play. Minor binding repair and a weirdly-angled zero fret were relatively easy to deal with. The dead electronics are the main problem.…

Friends, I am looking for a wiring schematic that shows how to set up 2 humbuckers, each with their own Volume pot -- no Tone in this circuit. Everything I have has some type of Tone control in the circuit. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Friends - I have an unexpected problem with my 1989 P Bass-Plus. I suspect that the Series-Parallel switch is grounding out (ie, short circuiting) when the 3-position pickup selector is in the P pickup position (disengaging the J pickup and all 3 pickups). I am waiting for feedback from Fender as to whether there is both a wiring diagram for this bass and the possibility of getting a direct replacement switch. Has anyone worked on these…

So, I have a chinese or DIY like 2 band bass preamp installed on a one pickup Ibanez bass. However, I'm stuck in the process of getting it connected. Basically the preamp has these connection cables: Red - 9v Black - Ground White - preamp out Blue - preamp in Yellow - Treble (?) Orange - Bass (?) The circuit has 1 pickup,1 vol, 1 concentric (bass/treble). I'm stuck connecting the concentric pot. Could you help me with that, please?

Hey y’all, I’ve got a customers Strat in, and it had a 30 year old preamp or boost circuit in it that died. So we’re gutting it and replacing it with a standard Strat kind of layout. However, the system was done with individual mini switches for each pickup. The customer would like it to function similarly. I’ve tried to do up the wiring from scratch but haven’t had luck getting it to work as I want. To put it simply, we just want it to be…

Hi there! I am trying to find an schematic to make a circuit I'd like to try. That would be the Gilmour neck PU always on Strat Mod but in a way that connects that extra pickup in series with the rest instead of paralel like in the original gilmour circuit. The thing is I don't even know if it possible to do it that way or how many switches woud you need to do it in the simplest possible way. If you have any feedback, clues, tips or whate…

Hey all, I could use some help with wiring up my telecaster. I'm fully aware this might be weird, but I thought it'd be a fun side project. So to get to it, first is the pickups. I plan on having a Staple P90 in the neck, a bill paisley secret agent pickup in the middle, and a normal tele pickup in the bridge. I'd like to have it wired mostly normal on a 3 way switch, where it's Neck, Neck + Bridge, Bridge. I'd also like the Neck P90 to…

I recently did a rebuild on a Strat where I went with 2 pickups and a 3 way switch. Goal mess to have an independent volume for each pickup and a master tone. I also added a coil split for the bridge. I went pickups direct to volume pots, pots to the blade switch, and out of the switch to the tone, then to the jack. Issue is the volumes are not fully independent. When in the middle position if I cut the volume to either pickup it acts a…

I've done the Fender Grease Bucket Circuit mod on a lot of Strats and it always works. A customer recently brought in a 335 kit for wiring. It got 3-TV Jones humbuckers, each wired to a Seymour Duncan Triple Shot Mounting Ring, 3 separate volume controls and a master tone with the Grease Bucket circuit. My client wanted to see a clear diagram of the wiring, so I got GuitarElectronics.com to generate one. I've used them several times in…

I've got a bit of a head-scratcher here. Gibson 498T bridge pickup with low output and thin sound. It ohms out to spec (14K), each coil individually measures fine but in situ it is very weak compared to the much lower output 490R in the neck. I even tried wiring it to it's own pot and jack outside of the circuit and it's still super weak compared to the neck. Any thoughts?

Hello fellow Looths, I had a question in regards to a curious issue from a customers guitar. The guitar was brought to me in part because the customer was having an issue where the guitar was intermittent and would ground out. It's a partscaster with an HH pickup configuration, one volume, one tone, 5 way switch, and the tone control splits the humbuckers. The pickups are quick connect Dimarzio's. I took the pickguard off and noticed tha…

Hi. I recently got a strat where the middle pickup cuts out intermittently. I cleaned and, using a multimeter, tested all the components. As far as I can tell the pickup itself has an internal break somewhere. After testing the components I wired the middle pickup directly to an output jack. Tapping the top of the pickup caused the output to toggle on and off. I also re-soldered the leads at the pickup eyelets but that didn't resolve the…

Any electronic wizards know how this switch would be wired for a simple volume / tone circuit for two single coil pups? I cannot find a good answer using the internet search so far. A diagram for dummies would be amazing.

Someone in a Facebook group shared this site www.saturn-guitar-circuits.com and I wanted to pass along to this group. It's a non-comprehensive collection of the guitars coming out of post WWII Japan. The circuits are easy and nothing we haven't seen before. What's more interesting to me are the catalogued instruments. Being able to look at a pictorial guide and know the difference from something made in the Fujigen factory vs. Matsumoku…