Middle Super 2 direction?

[Counterstriker]

So I was looking at some schematics on Waldo's site and I see that in Tiger the middle super two was normal, but in rosebud the middle P/u was flipped, then it says it had to be wired to stay in phase. Why do you need to change the wiring of you flip the pickup? The tone I really love is this kinda tone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WIzGAYotsg

So if I want to go for that tone should I wire normal? So if I cut the humbucker would I be making the south coil live?

[TI4-1009]

And..... when I wire my lefty should I be cutting the other coil???

[hippieguy1954]

So I was looking at some schematics on Waldo's site and I see that in Tiger the middle super two was normal, but in rosebud the middle P/u was flipped, then it says it had to be wired to stay in phase. Why do you need to change the wiring of you flip the pickup? The tone I really love is this kinda tone http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WIzGAYotsg

So if I want to go for that tone should I wire normal? So if I cut the humbucker would I be making the south coil live?

In that vid, Jerry is clearly playing his Tiger guitar, so wire it like tiger. I don't see the complication. Jerry didn't even start using Rosebud until 89/90. 12/31/89 to be exact.

[hippieguy1954]

And..... when I wire my lefty should I be cutting the other coil???

Righty or lefty makes no difference as far as which coil you cut. Think about it.

[Counterstriker]

Awesome thanks, I just wanted to make sure, Waldo cleared it up in a PM as well!

[mijknahs]

You could wire your coil cut switch so that it flips which coil is tapped. Then you can try the top upper coil or the bottom coil. I did that for a while since I never used the humbucker setting. I definitely like the upper (neck side) coil the best. Now I have the switch set to coil tap/humbucker again.

Jim

[TI4-1009]

And..... when I wire my lefty should I be cutting the other coil???

Righty or lefty makes no difference as far as which coil you cut. Think about it.

Well... the way I see it, if you have the pickup oriented the same righty or lefty- say wire end "down", and you run the same two wires (black and white?) to the cut switch, then the active coil won't be in exactly the same location in both guitars. If it's the coil closest to the bridge on the righty it will be the coil closest to the neck on the lefty.

[hippieguy1954]

I don't think so, if I take my righty guitar and put it on me as it were a lefty, the same coil is still cut when I flip the mini toggle.

[TI4-1009]

I agree with you on that, but you're just flipping the same guitar upsidedown- nothing CAN change.

Here's the back of a Super 2:


When you install a pickup you normally put it in with the wire end "down"- towards the control routing- righty or lefty. When you cut one of the coils, it has to be one or the other. On your righty, lets say it cuts the coil closest to the neck.

If I install the same pickup in my lefty, wire end down, that same coil on my guitar is now going to be the one closest to the bridge- the pickup is in the same orientation as your righty, but the neck and the bridge are now facing in the opposite directions. The guitar has "rotated east and west", but the pickup is still oriented "north and south" the same as your righty. Unless- I install it upside down- then the cut coil will be in the same place as the cut coil on your righty.

There are some pickups made for lefty guitars, but it usually has to do with a skew across the length of the pickup if there is something different on the bass strings and the treble strings (pole height for example). TLike most pickups however, the Super 2 is only made "righty". Cutting one coil would be the only thing that would make a lefty-righty difference.

But back to your example- when you flipped your righty over to be a lefty- the Super 2 is now oriented "upsidedown"- the wire is coming out the "top".

[hippieguy1954]

Your correct. Being a righty, it's wierd wrapping my head around how a righty is upside down and backwards (like me sometimes ) for lefties. I think mijknahs's post above is very clear. I think we are all in agreement. So, the options seem to be either flip the pickup or wire it so the coil of your choice is cut.

[TI4-1009]

Yeah, we're ending up somewhere near the middle of this discussion. I'm seeing that there is only one coil that can be cut out, you can't choose which one. I guess the only question is does it make any difference in sound or tone if the active coil is that 1/2" one way or the other? I'm guessing you can't get "more Jerry" than Jerry

[mijknahs]

Yes, it matters 1/2" one way or the other. When I first installed a Super II in an old PRS EG, the location was a little closer to the neck than where it would be in the Tiger and the coil closest to the bridge was the best sounding one. In my current guitar, the coil closest to the neck sounds the best.

And yes, you can choose which coil is tapped depending on how you wire the pickup and switch. Like I said, I had the switch wired so that it switched between the neck and bridge coil on the middle pickup so I could get more sounds.

Jim

[Counterstriker]

Hey Jim, I have a On/On/On switch that I'm thinking of putting to use when I wire my carvin up this weekend, I'm low on cavity space so I can only have on 2 switches on the guitar (one Master tap for neck and middle only) and the FX loop. But can you wire 2 humbuckers up to one On/on/on switch so you can select the coils?

[mkaufman]

The Bob Weir Cowboy does just exactly that. It has one switch which simultaneously converts both outside pickups to single. Not sure of the exact switch used...

mk

EDIT: guessing DPDT switch so that each pickup can run out of the switch independently

[mijknahs]

Hey Jim, I have a On/On/On switch that I'm thinking of putting to use when I wire my carvin up this weekend, I'm low on cavity space so I can only have on 2 switches on the guitar (one Master tap for neck and middle only) and the FX loop. But can you wire 2 humbuckers up to one On/on/on switch so you can select the coils?

Unfortunately I'm not much of a wiring expert but I know you can wire a switch so that it controls both pickups. I have a Gibson Les Paul XR-1 that has one mini switch that splits the coils on both pickups at the same time. I suppose you can wire it so that it switches coils instead of going from humbucking to single coil.

The reason I did it was to see if I liked one coil better than the other. In the end I only really used the neck side coil so I wired it back to humbucker/split. I found the wiring diagram online. I'll try to see if I can find it again because I forgot now how it was wired exactly.