Wiring Diagram: Hermetico's LP Exchanger mod 2

Classification

Guitar Modded

Gibson Les Paul


Description

• HH Pickup layout (4 conductors)
• 1 Swiftcraft 3-way toggle switch
• 2 volume pots with pull/push
• 2 tone pots with pull/push

Difficulty Level

Hard

Features

• Provides standard LP combos, plus a high variety of other combinations.
• Independent volume and tone for each pickup.
• Enhanced version of Jimmy Page's wiring design

Wiring Diagram

Click on the diagram for a full sized view.

Comments

Jimmy Page's wiring mod achieves a lot of different combinations but, in my honest opinion, it does it in a way that isn't easy to recall and, some of the combinations produce just silence (the guitar shuts up).

The Exchanger 2 mod is my own take around the Jimmy Page's mod but, making controls easier to map in your mind so, you will be able to easily achieve exactly the combo you were looking for.

 

Each Tone pot splits its corresponding pickup.

Neck Volume puts Neck pickup out-of-phase (changes polarity).

Bridge Volume puts both pickups in series, overwriting the 3 positions of the 3-way (instant booster).

 

But there are some tricks hidden under this design.

Default, NT splits the neck pickup to outer coil but, if you have also BT up, selected coil is inner, instead.

Default, BT splits the bridge pickup to inner coil but, if you have also NT up, selected coil is outer, instead.

Also, the NV (neck volume), when changing the polarity of neck pickup (OOP) is reverting which coil is split by the NT pull/push.

 

In this way, we are achieving one more unique combo than in JP's wiring mod and, the best of all: there is no combo that can accidentally shut up the guitar!.

 

Click on this picture to see a full size of the list of combos:

 

 

In red, unique combos (that appear at least once in that list).

Notice that when the serial switch is up (BV = Bridge Volume), the three positions of the 3-way toggle switch have exactly the same combination. Once you push down BV, whatever the combo that was before in the current position comes back.

By example, imagine we had BV = down, NV = up, NT = up and BT = down and we had selected Rhythm position, we should have selected Neck Inner Coil but, once BV is up, we are having Bridge humbucker in series with Neck Inner Coil Out-of-Phase.

Imagine that, while in series, we change to Treble position. There is no change in the sound, since we are getting the same combo but, once we push down BV, we are getting Bridge Humbucker, instead.

 

As in the case of JP's wiring, volume controls are independent and allow you to mix both humbuckers at your taste but, when both pickups are in series (BV = up), both controls are also in series so, rolling off a bit  one will also reduce the overall volume and, totally rolling off one we will shut up the guitar. In this case, the neck volume acts as some kind of master volume.

 

In the middle position (and in parallel, BV = down), you will achieve different nuances by mixing each pickup at different levels, since some frequencies will be reinforced while others will be dimmed.

Also, when in middle position and out-of-phase (NV = up), the different volume levels for each pickup, will give you different textures of the out-of-phase sound (Peter Green's mod), some are edgier, some are more subtle.

Just experiment with all this.