Guitar Wiring Site VI

2 Humbucker Guitar

Custom Wiring II

Super Seven Switching™

To see nine different guitars wired with Super Seven Switching™ click here.
You could get some constructive ideas about changing the appearance of your guitar.

The guitar shown above is a Dean Vendetta XM recently purchased for $100 and recently rewired with the circuit shown here:

The disadvantages of this modification are:
• It will definitely change the appearance of the guitar.
• It is a complicated circuit and somewhat difficult to wire.
• If you want to stay with the original pickups, (as I did), you will have to remove both humbuckers and wire these with 4 conductor wiring as described here.

As for the advantages:
• The required seven switches (hence the name Super Seven Switching™) are extremely easy to obtain (six SPDT and one DPDT)
• All of the switching positions have no dead spots.
• It will produce forty distinct tones (72 if you include the phase switch options).

If you want to know how this switching circuit works, go to the previous wiring page and scroll down to the "How It Works" section.

Still, you will probably find that learning the switching of this guitar is even more important and useful.

Switch Instructions
The top half of the diagram below shows the way the switches are placed on the guitar. For clarity, the phase switch is not shown and the humbucker coils have been lettered.
Rather than thinking of the wiring as six switches, think of it as three switch pairs:
• neck humbucker coil switches (orange circles)
• neck and bridge pickup selection switches (gray circles)
• bridge humbucker coil switches (yellow circles)

Looking at the bottom half of the diagram, we see that each of the "switch pairs" can have four switching positions.
For example, the 4 neck humbucker positions are:
1) Coil 'A' is active.
2) Coil 'B' is active.
3) Both coils 'A' and 'B' are wired in parallel.
4) Both coils 'A' and 'B' are wired in series.
The bridge pickup switches work in a similar manner except they switch coils 'C' and 'D'.
The pickup selection switches have a similar switching pattern except that they switch pickups and not the individual coils.

In the table below, if you look at the left column, the 3 numbers indicate the switching arrangement (with the neck/bridge switch pair being the middle number).
For example, 1 3 2 means both pickups are wired in parallel (in relation to each other) and coils 'A' and 'D' are active.
When just the Neck or just the Bridge pickup is active, we will call the inactive switch pair 'position 0'. This means if just the neck pickup is active, the arrangements of the bridge pickup switches have no effect whatsoever on the sound.

Here are all 72 switching combinations:
"HC" in the rightmost columns indicates hum-canceling.
The phase switch position in the first 8 pickup combinations does not affect tone
nor does it affect hum-canceling and so it is not shown for those 8.

Number	Relationship of Neck & Bridge Pickups To Each Other	Neck Pickup	Bridge Pickup
1 1 0	Neck Pickup Only	Coil A Only	Not Connected
2 1 0	Neck Pickup Only	Coil B Only	Not Connected
3 1 0	Neck Pickup Only	In Parallel	Not Connected	HC
4 1 0	Neck Pickup Only	In Series	Not Connected	HC
0 2 1	Bridge Pickup Only	Not Connected	Coil C only
0 2 2	Bridge Pickup Only	Not Connected	Coil D only
0 2 3	Bridge Pickup Only	Not Connected	In Parallel	HC
0 2 4	Bridge Pickup Only	Not Connected	In Series	HC
Number	Relationship of Neck & Bridge Pickups To Each Other	Neck Pickup	Bridge Pickup	Ph In	ase Out
1 3 1	Neck & Bridge in Parallel	Coil A only	Coil C only	***	HC
1 3 2	" "	Coil A only	Coil D only	HC	***
1 3 3	" "	Coil A only	Parallel	***	***
1 3 4	" "	Coil A only	Series	***	***
2 3 1	" "	Coil B only	Coil C only	HC	***
2 3 2	" "	Coil B only	Coil D only	***	HC
2 3 3	" "	Coil B only	Parallel	***	***
2 3 4	" "	Coil B only	Series	***	***
3 3 1	" "	Parallel	Coil C only	***	***
3 3 2	" "	Parallel	Coil D only	***	***
3 3 3	" "	Parallel	Parallel	HC	HC
3 3 4	" "	Parallel	Series	HC	HC
4 3 1	" "	Series	Coil C only	***	***
4 3 2	" "	Series	Coil D only	***	***
4 3 3	" "	Series	Parallel	HC	HC
4 3 4	" "	Series	Series	HC	HC
Number	Relationship of Neck & Bridge Pickups To Each Other	Neck Pickup	Bridge Pickup	Ph In	ase Out
1 4 1	Neck & Bridge in Series	Coil A only	Coil C only	***	HC
1 4 2	" "	Coil A only	Coil D only	HC	***
1 4 3	" "	Coil A only	Parallel	***	***
1 4 4	" "	Coil A only	Series	***	***
2 4 1	" "	Coil B only	Coil C only	HC	***
2 4 2	" "	Coil B only	Coil D only	***	HC
2 4 3	" "	Coil B only	Parallel	***	***
2 4 4	" "	Coil B only	Series	***	***
3 4 1	" "	Parallel	Coil C only	***	***
3 4 2	" "	Parallel	Coil D only	***	***
3 4 3	" "	Parallel	Parallel	HC	HC
3 4 4	" "	Parallel	Series	HC	HC
4 4 1	" "	Series	Coil C only	***	***
4 4 2	" "	Series	Coil D only	***	***
4 4 3	" "	Series	Parallel	HC	HC
4 4 4	" "	Series	Series	HC	HC

This project is an awful lot of work and don't attempt to wire this all in one night. (I sure didn't).
However, when you finally have this all wired up, you will find that all that extra work was worth it.

Some people, when they rewire a guitar, also like to change other parts as well (the pickups, the bridge, the tuners, etc). I like to keep everything original, as is the case with this guitar. (and the OLP guitar on page 5)
Just think that when you are finished, you kept all the original parts, you made all the changes and you have made a tremendous difference in the sound versatility by adding just a few switches.

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