Craig Anderton's 5-Way Tele-On-Steroids Switch
As appeared in the Feb.'93 issue of Guitar Player Magazine

To add some tantalizing tones to your Tele, check out this simple pickup rewiring project (though designed specifically for Telecasters and Tele clones, you can adapt this schematic to any dual-pickup guitar). Basically, it entails retrofitting the stock 3-way switch with a 5-way replacement to gain two extra pickup switching options; a phase switch adds another two sounds. None of this requires modifying the body or pickguard. But first...

The shield blues. Many pickups have two leads: hot and ground. The ground lead often connects to a metal shield or casing around the pickup. Reversing the pickup leads makes this cover "hot"--it will actually act as an antenna for signals and hum. The solution:
  *Carefully disconnect the pickup ground wire from the casing and treat it as the pickup's negative (-) lead, as indicated on the schematic.
  *Run a lead from the casing to any convenient ground point, such as the ground lug on the volume control or output jack.


The big switch Stock Teles have 3-way switches to select neck, bridge, and both pickups. Offered as a replacement part, a standard 2-pole, 5-way Strat switch fits neatly in the same slot as the regular switch. By shorting out the intermediary positions between the three main settings, the 5-way can muster two more positions.

Remove the tone control and replace it with a DPDT switch for the phase flip function. To have mellow bass sound on tap, put the tone control capacitor across the signal line at the fourth switch position. This sounds like the tone control set completely counter-clockwise. The fifth position puts the two pickups in series for a hotter sound.

The new pickup selections are:

  * position 1 (a): bridge pickup only
  * position 2 (a+b): bridge and neck pickup in parallel
  * position 3 (b): neck pickup only
  * position 4 (b+c): neck pickup with tone capacitor
  * position 5 (c): bridge and neck pickups in series

The phase switch flips the bridge pickup wires before they go to the pickup selector, but only affects dual-pickup configurations (switch positions 2 and 5). The 0.005uF capacitor is the tone switch. The higher the value, the more high frequencies it rolls off and the mellower the sound. Try 0.01uF or even 0.02uF for a really deep tone.

The l500pF capacitor increases the proportion of high frequencies as you turn down the volume control, creating a brighter sound for rhythm parts. Smaller values have less effect. This circuit works very well with distortion--turn the volume down a bit and the tone gets a lot more biting, with less bottom.

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