An iPhone photo app makes this new Squier Tele look old. Duncan's Vintage Broadcaster Set makes it SOUND old.
Sometimes an antiquated idea can acquire new relevance.
Example: The ancient Fender Broadcaster wiring scheme, in which the guitar has no tone control per se, but the second knob acts as a pickup-blend control. I wired up a guitar this old-fashioned way, with some very surprising results.
My experiment had other motives: I wanted to check out Seymour Duncan’sVintage Broadcaster Set, which replicates those earliest Telecaster-family pickups. And once again, I wanted to see just how much of a sonic upgrade a simple pickup replacement could bestow on a humble guitar: in this case, a cheap, Chinese-made Squier Telecaster.
Check out the results in the demo video.
With the Broadcaster blend wiring, the middle pickup-selector position gives you pure neck pickup. Switching to position 3 (regular neck position on standard Teles) engages a tone-filtering capacitor for a much darker neck-pickup sound. The second knob does nothing in positions 3 and 2, but when you move to position 1, it fades in the neck pickup along with the bridge pickup. Fully clockwise, you get the usual position 1 sound. Fully counter-clockwise, you get the usual position 2 sound. And anywhere in between (this is the cool part) you get tones you simply can’t get from regular Tele wiring.
This wasn’t my first encounter with this wiring. But like many players who’ve tried it over the last 60 or so years, my first reaction was that position 3 was simply too dark to be of much use, and I was reluctant to sacrifice a proper tone control. (BTW, this wiring predates the Fender Precision Bass. Back in the day, this may have been as close as you could get to a good, amplified solidbody bass sound.)
But in the years since I’ve last tried the blend setup, I’ve spent a lot more time with Tele-family guitars, and I’ve realized that, while I use the tone knob often, I tend to use it in two specific ways:
- • to roll of a smidgen of highs on the bridge pickup
• to roll all the highs off the neck pickup for EBow playing, or for creating bass parts in bands without a bassist (like my current group, Mental 99).
Meanwhile, I rarely find myself hanging out for long in the middle position, with both pickups engaged. It’s not a bad sound, but it never seems to thrill me like the brilliant bridge and fat neck sounds do.
The blend arrangement (or at least the modded version I detail below) affords all the tone control I need. Switching to position 3 gives me an instant bass and EBow setting. I don’t miss not having a dedicated tone control for the bridge, because mixing in a bit of neck tames the nastiest highs. And oh my, there are some terrific sounds available along the range of the blend knob in position 1!
Here’s the wiring diagram from the Seymour Duncan site, with my notes added in red:
The value of the capacitor linking the selector switch and volume pot determines the darkness of the position 3 sound. (There’s a deeper discussion of tone control caps in this post.) I tried several other values, and prefer a slightly less dark .033uF cap, and that’s what you hear in the demo for both guitars. However, after playing a gig with the Trussart (which is substantially warmer in tone than a classic Tele), I’m going to replace its .033 with an even less dark .022uF.
I temporarily replaced the resistor in the circuit with a B50K pot so I could choose the optimal resistance value.
Meanwhile, the resistor on the selector switch determines how much of a volume drop you get when switching to dark position 3. I temporarily replaced the resistor with a B50K pot so I could audition different values. My favorite setting: no resistance at all. I simply replaced the resistor with a jumper wire, and balance feels about right. (Again, that’s what you hear in the demos.)
I performed these mods switches less than 24 hours ago, but I’m sold! I have all the control I need. I spend much less time adjusting pots. And I love the blend pot’s in-between shadings. It’s an easy project, too.
Has anyone else tried this? More important, has anyone tried it and not hated it?
love the looper stuff joe.
Shucks. Thanks for the kind words. 🙂
I’ll second dan – awesome looping!
This mod is really interesting. I think I like the Tele tones more than you do, but I’m thinking I need to try adding a blend pot in on the middle pickup of a Strat now. I like the Tele bridge pickup sound, but find the bridge pickup of a matched Strat set a little too thin. Going to an overwound bridge pickup can make for better tone, but destroys the bridge/middle position which is my fave Strat tone (and often makes the in-between position buzz as well). Maybe bringing in a little middle pickup with a blend will fix the problem.
Can you tell us what your signal chain looks like? Are you miking the amp here or going direct?
BTW, I continue to love the Steelcaster. It costs more than a carload of Squiers. It’s worth it!
Ooh, that sounds interesting. And now I’m really eager to do a three-pickup Tele using the same blend-the-middle idea. Every play with the bridge + neck Strat sound? It’s really sweet and very usable.
Signal chain? For that video in particular? Let’s see…guitar through homemade delay, trem, and reverb pedals, into that Tremolux amp and white cab with an Alnico Blue that you see behind me. Royer R-121 mic to Avalon 737 preamp to Apple’s Logic Pro. Plus the looper, of course, in line after the pedals. I use something like that for a lot of the demos on this site, though a fair number are through the amp simulators in Apple’s MainStage.
I won’t argue with you about the Steelcaster. I haven’t loved a guitar that much since I was a kid — or at least since before I worked as a jaded guitar mag editor. James Trussart’s stuff has so much character and vibe. Quirky as hell, but for me, his instruments have a character and point if view I just don’t get from a lot of otherwise excellent modern guitars.
Whoops, didn’t see your response until I was visiting your NAMM report!
On the Strat… I’ve played axes with the 3 miniswitches and have to admit that I haven’t been a big fan of the bridge+neck tone. Oh great, now I’ll have to wire up a Strat with TWO blend knobs…
Third that on the loopin’! Sounds creepy cool. :thumbup:
That does seem to be such an interesting wiring scheme. I must admit that I am one of those that traditionally rarely used my tone control. Just left it wide open most of the time and changed pickups to get varying tones. But since doing a bunch of looping myself I have started using the tone control a lot more. It’s very nice to layer up the darker and brighter tones you can get using the tone knob. Just so you don’t keep layering the same frequency range. It makes me kind of wonder why you don’t see more ‘pick-up blending’ knobs nowadays. Seems like a cool idea, that should work in a number of different guitar/playing styles.
I’m not trying to be creepy! I just turned out that way!
I know what you mean about the tone controls — for a long time, I never used them either. To be honest, passive tone controls don’t usually sound very good — or at least not as good as when the circuit is wide-open. Often it’s better to trim highs at the amp, or better still, with your playing technique. And like you, looping got me deeper into using the tone pots, because as you’ve surely learned, you have to work extra hard to differentiate the looped layers to keep them from congealing into sonic oatmeal.
I love a good Telecaster tone, too. But whenever I try to play my early ’90s Am Standard Tele lately, I simply sound like ‘Mr Icepick is Turning Up the Treble.’ Everyone else sounds great on the almighty Tele. Playing with the tone pot doesn’t seem to help me, either.
I may just need a new set of pickups.
Well, the Tele can be what a friend of mine once called a “tough love” guitar. It doesn’t necessarily flatter you the way some guitars do. But nothing sounds better in the right pair of hands…
Besides finding the right pickups (which can definitely help!), you might try different amps, or even different picks.
Another random idea: old-school nickel strings, which tend to be less trebly than modern formulations.
Can’t live without my blend knob , strat master volume and tone plus blend between the bridge and neck just allows you to find the fun spots of sound if and when you need them.
Cool stuff … I’ve used the blend-neck pot on my Strat for ever, it seems. Same deal … just a pinch of neck and the bridge sounds sweeter. What was the looper, if you don’t mind my asking?
Thanks! I’m totally going to set up a Strat that way now. Did you replace one of the volume pots with a blend knob?
The looper is a Boomerang III, which I wrote about here.
So, I have been a Gibson player most of my life, and I use the “both” position a lot and use both volumes to blend (and I mess with tones too). I play a strat and tele a lot , but mis this blending ability, so this thread is really cool. But I use the tone control fully (it took a little trial and error to get the right setup). BTW I love the neck + bridge comby on my Strat and I use it a lot (I’ve got a Duncan JB in the bridge, tapped both single and dual). So here is the question: can we wire it to get both? Have three knobs, Vol/Tone/Blend with a switch for blend that disables/enables it? This could be cool with the three-pickup set up too..on a tele…o boy….can it be done?
In response to Ben, this is the standard wiring system on the Kinman K-9 system, which I have on 2 of my Strats. And you have two options for the tone knob, standard or hi-fi (there is a switch on the pot), the latter working more like a wah tone filter, which I love. Plus, there is a push-push knob on the blend knob so you can get the middle and bridge PUs in series. Very, very cool.
Hey Joe, I was wondering if you could give me a hand… I followed these instructions for my tele, and double and triple checked all connections, but no matter what I do my vlume knob doesnt work as nice as it should. It sounds like a faulty connection but everything is soldered according to the diagram… I’m using a neck Tele Hot Rails minibucker and for the bridge I’m using a standard tele pickup with two wires leaving… if you look up the wiring page for the Hot Rails wiring I’m sure you can see what I changed to accommodate the minibucker. I cant figure out for the life of me what’s going on! I’ll try a few other things when I get the chance but a reply would be MUCH appreciated! (I can upload anything at request, video of the problem, wiring diagrams, pictures). And also, a deeper explanation: when I move the volume knob occasionally I get a crackling and sometimes in certain positions (usually close to all the way on or all the way back) I get nothing but feedback… The blend knob is working fine as is the three way switch.
Never mind! Got it all figured out. Turns out it was a faulty potentiometer in the volume position. Fixed that and its working like a charm! Thanks for the great wiring idea Joe! 🙂
Cool. Please tell us how you wind up using it!
great demo joe!
i wired mi Tele this way with SD Jazz humbucker in the neck position. After installing 500K volume pot for humbucker I realised that the bridge SD vintage broadcaster pickup was too thin and fairly unusable. Now it’s a great sounding, all around setup. I’m wondering about the blending pot. I have 250K no load tone and it’s fine but what would it be when to use 250 volume pot or 500K tone (linear)? Would it change the way the pickup blends?
I’m glad you liked the demo, Mateo! 🙂
But I don’t quite understand you question — are you saying that simply changing the volume pot from 250K to 500K after swapping the neck pickup made the bridge pickup sound better?
No no! After installing 500K volume, bridge pickup sounded too thin and harsh. In this broadcaster wiring it seems to sound good. Maby the possibility to blend the pups makes it nice sounding because I can roll unwanted highs off by blendind a bit of neck pup. My blend pot is 250K tone pot. I’m wondering what is the best blending pot ( 500K or 250K, linear or audio )?
I like this setup because I’ve got goods of traditional single coil bridge and middle (by blending) and also fat neck humbucker.
Have a good day :))
Actually, the very first thing I’d try is to adjust the pickup height. I’d experiment with moving the bridge pickup as close as possible to the strings, and then lowering the neck a lot more than you might think advisable, just to see what happens. Your bridge pickup should sound twangy/clangy, but not thin per se. I wonder if the louder/fatter Jazz neck pickup just makes it sound tinny in comparison, and this is a pretty easy way to check. Let me know what you hear! 🙂
Thanks for this simple advice!
I raised the bridghe pup and lowered the neck humb. Now they are quite balanced in volume and the single coil gained some “body”.
I also added 350K resistor parallel to bridge pup hot cable to tame highs a bit ( 500K would be better but I don’t have one at the moment 🙂 because of 500K volume.
And I used 0,01uF cap in 3rd position.
Nice sounding and versatile setup :))
Hi Joe!
I’m turning my Esquire into a Tele. I was going to have it wired with no treble control on the neck, only the bridge, setting my amp sound to suit the neck and then using the treble as a sort of preset for the bridge.
This wiring scheme affords so many more options, and with the blend pot set half way I’m assuming I could still get the standard mid position sound. Currently my guitar is still an Esquire and the switch in the neck position, clean has an underwater, slightly out of phase nasal sound.
Oddly enough, with overdrive added it compresses and sounds like an SG!
Which is nice…but not really usable for me.
My question is: Can the blend pot be assigned as a bass roll-off in the “dark” switch position, in addition to functioning as a blend pot in the bridge position? Or does that require an extra pot?
Thanks, Dan
Hey Joe,
nice looping!!!
Is it possible to add a third poti (tone poti for all the positions) in the space between the original two (volume and blend)?
What would the wiring look like?
Thanks
Matt
Hi Matt! You’d add it the usual way, just by soldering the tone control to lug 3 of the volume. By the way, if you’re not aware of it already, you should know there’s a great free library of wiring diagrams at Seymour Duncan: https://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/
I recently installed a similar circuit in amy Micawber build and I absolutely love it. With a PAF humbucker in the neck and a hot tele bridge pu, this thing can create a huge range of tones.
Nice web site
Nice creative demos and mods suggestions
Nice playing on the looper with the Trussart ! Wow.
Just got myself a 99 Nocaster that was modernized. Your video convinced me beyond a reasonable doubt that Blend is the way !
You are 100% right. Nothing sounds better than a Tele in the right hands !
Rock on and thanks for your videos.
Pat
Hi Pat! Happy holidays. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. Oh man — I bet the Nocaster sounds killer with that wiring. Good luck!
Hi Joe. The Nocaster as is sounds terrific ! But i haven’t done the wiring change just yet. I’m waiting for my Glendale saddles to arrive, and then i’ll happily report on your modified wiring schematic. My first language is french not english. What do you mean when you write ” … balance feels about right” when you go with no resistance at all (jumper wire mod). Thanks. And a happy new year to you ! Pat from Montréal.
Hi Joe. The Nocaster as is sounds terrific ! But i haven’t done the wiring change just yet. I’m waiting for my Glendale saddles to arrive, and then i’ll happily report on your modified wiring schematic. My first language is french not english. What do you mean when you write ” … balance feels about right” when you go with no resistance at all (jumper wire mod). Thanks. And a happy new year to you ! Pat from Montréal. Cheers !
Hi Joe. Just received my “Newcaster” modded with your wiring (.022 uF + jumper wire and Glendale saddles) and i absolutely love all 3 pickups configurations. The “dark circuit” now producers a sweet sound when doin’ clean fingerpickin’ and is very “Fuzz” friendly as well. Thanks for your video and instructions. Blend is the trend ! Cheers. Pat
Hi Joe,
Found your tutorial and planning to do the same thing.
What are your pot types? Audio / Linear ?
Hi Tijs! I almost always use audio-taper pots, as do most other players. But I sometimes use linear pots when installing onboard effects. For example, a gain pot for an onboard overdrive.
Hey Joe, love your playing and your musical imagination. I tried your Nashville middle pickup blend wiring on a coodercaster with gold foils and now I love the sound of adding a bit of the out of phase middle pickup to the bridge, but I also love the sound of bridge and neck full on in phase, considering this broadcaster wiring scheme for a tele project but adding a phase inverting switch to the neck and maybe a master volume, wondering if adding more pots and switches to the system may adversely effect the tone, any thoughts?
Oh, yay! I’m glad you found it useful. I love the neck + bridge combination on three-pickup guitars, and almost always far more than the usual blend combinations on a standard Strat. Adding a switch doesn’t affect generally affect the tone (until you throw the switch, anyway). But adding additional pots does — they always exert SOME loss on the signal, though the benefit may outweigh the cost. You just have to experiment and listen. I haven’t spent a lot of time with phase-inversion switches, other than in the Page-influenced Les Paul projects. That’s just me — after all the experimentation, I tend to come back to single-pickup settings most of the time. Let me know how it goes!
Hello Joe! I was planning to do this mod on my Telecaster and after watching your video on Youtube I am even more excited to try it! One question: does the pot that blends the two pickups together needs to be a special “blender pot” or something, or is it just a regular 250K audio taper pot? (Is there a specific pot that you would recommend for this?)
Hi Carlos! Sorry it took me so long to reply. The pot in question is just a regular 250KA.
Hello Joe. Thanks for such an awesome video and demonstration of this kind of wiring. I am planning to install this wiring on my Tele, and I just wanted to ask you: do you need a “blender pot (250K) for this to work properly? Or can you use (and Fender originally used?) a standard, 250K audio taper potentiometer for the blend control?. Thank you very much
Hi, Joe! I found the exact same thing that you did and removed the resistor completely and replaced it with a jumper. Is there a way to add tone control to position 2? I feel like if I wire another cap somewhere in there it should be possible, right? I used the same wiring diagram above and only replaced the resistor with a jumper, otherwise everything matches the above schematic.
Thanks!
Hi Eric, and sorry for the slow reply! Man, I had to go back and reread about that wiring — I wrote this s long ago! Anyway, yes, you could totally add a bridge tone control — just install your basic 250k tone pot with a cap of choice between the selector output and the output jack. But also consider just adding a single cap on a switch, which wouldn’t require another pot. You could even replace one of the extant pot with a push/pull pot, with the treble-cutting cap activated in the pot’s out position.