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Why Every Guitar Should Have Push-Pull Pots

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Push-pull pots can turn a regular guitar into an insanely flexible tonal solution for every occasion. Most commonly used for eliciting single-coil-like tones from humbuckers, players can sometimes underestimate what all push-pull potentiometers can do. But that’s a mistake, because they can work all kinds of magic while hiding invisibly in the routing your guitar already has. Unless your goal is to keep a guitar true-to-factory condition, keep reading. We’ll show you how great these small components really are.

 

The Rise of the Push-Pull Pot

With the ever-increasing number of 4-conductor humbucking pickups, push-pull pot mods have exploded around the guitar industry. Not only are players adding them to their favorite instruments, but more and more guitar makers are adding them to their factory offerings. Heck, even Gibson offers Les Pauls with these pots.

And why wouldn’t they? The pots can give an LP the soul of a Tele, an HSS Strat a vintage-correct vibe, and much more. Also, with travel restrictions and costs being what they are, touring guitarists can easily carry one or two axes on a flight for all their tones. And, of course, push-pull pots can usually be installed and removed without any permanent changes to your guitar or affecting its original tonal performance.

 

Tech Tips

4-conductor humbuckers are a modern way of wiring the pickups with pickup leads coming from both coils of the pickup. This lets you wire them together as a standard humbucker or any other way you can imagine. It also allows you to set up two separate wiring schemes that are selectable with your push-pull pot. While vintage-correct humbuckers only offer two conductors, most modern pickups are available in 4C configuration.

 

push-pull pot

Push-Pull Possibilities

Let’s see what these powerhouse pots can do.

 

Tech Tips

You can find wiring diagrams for most of these schemes and more here. And check out this article for tips and tricks on performing these mods on your guitars.

 

Single-coil Tones from Humbuckers

Coil Splitting

The most popular use of push-pull pots is splitting the coils of a humbucking pickup for single-coil tones and operation. If you want to get country-approved twang from your SG or capture vintage Strat bridge pickup bite from your HSS setup, this is the way to do it. By shutting one of the humbucker’s coils off, the other is free to act as an actual single-coil pickup, with all of the chiming top end, twang, and noise you’d expect.

Parallel Wiring

If you want single-coil-like tones but can’t take the hum, try adding parallel wiring to your push-pull pot. Running each coil of the same humbucker separately lowers the output and results in a clearer tone. It might not be as single-coil sounding as coil-splitting, but it does still buck the hum.

 

Single Coil Power Control

Coil Tapping

Did you know you can get two output levels from single coil pickups if they are designed for it? You can! It’s done by “tapping” the pickup. Tapped single coils have an additional lead wire placed halfway through the coil wind, allowing you to lower the pickup’s output when the switch is engaged. The lowered output not only eases up on your amp’s front end, but it takes on a bit more top end, rolls off some lows, and is a bit more jangly. Push your potentiometer back down, and your pickup lights up with its full power and tone. It’s like having a built-in boost switch right onboard your guitar.

Blower Switch

Another great way to get a passive power boost is through a Blower Switch mod. In essence, a Blower Switch mod hardwires your pickups directly to your guitar’s output jack, bypassing the rest of your electronics. This increases the pickup’s output and adds more top-end. No battery required!

Learn more about the Blower Switch here.

 

Tech Tips

Many players prefer wiring their coil-tapping and Blower Switch mods to the pot’s down setting. That way, they get the output boost when they pull up. With push-pull pots, it’s up to you.

 

Tone Shaping

All the other wiring schemes here require the use of a 4-conductor pickup. But you can perform this tonal tweak to any electric guitar. All you need is one or two of your favorite capacitors and the push-pull pot itself.

By wiring the capacitor directly to the correct lugs of the potentiometer, you get the perfect high- or low-pass filter every time you pull the switch. Joe Satriani’s signature Ibanez JS2410 is a perfect example. By engaging the guitar’s push-pull volume control, you introduce a specifically tuned high-pass filter, rolling off some bass for more clarity and chime.

And it can go the other way too. Change up the capacitor value, and you can cut top end, warming up your signal on the fly. It’s like rolling your tone knob back the perfect amount with the flip of a switch.

 

Reversing Phase

When guitarists imagine the sound of out-of-phase humbuckers, early Fleetwood Mac comes to mind. Peter Green and Greenie, his 1959 Les Paul now owned by Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, seared that tone into the hearts and ears of blues and rock players for the rest of history. But he wasn’t the only player tweaking his LP’s voice. Jimmy Page’s famous “Burst” also boasted killer out-of-phase tones thanks to some inventive and hidden switching.

Today, getting out-of-phase humbuckers is easier than ever, thanks to push-pull pots. We even have wiring diagrams for getting both the Green and Page circuits without adding a single new hole to your precious guitar.

   

 

Active Control

Push-pull pots aren’t just for the passive pickup purists. They’re also a sleek and low-profile way to control the goodies active electronics afford. They’re great for activating and controlling sustainer pickups in the neck position. Or add an active boost circuit to the mix, and you can torch your amp’s front end in an instant.

 

On/Off Switch

Single Pickup Control

Using a push-pull pot as an on/off switch is the most straight-ahead mod on the list. But for some 3-pickup guitars, it can expand the tonal possibilities.

Wire your Stratocaster neck pickup to a push-pull. Turn it on when the 5 way switch is in position 1 to add it to the bridge pickup, for combined Tele-like tones. Leave it up in position 2 to have all three pickups active.

You’ll have 7 tones instead of the standard 5!

Killswitch

Staying with the on/off switch idea, push-pull pots also make great killswitches. Now you can have complete silence between songs in the set and your parts within the song.

 

Let’s Talk Tone

If you have any other questions about adding a killswitch to your guitar, don’t hesitate to reach out. We also offer a free, in-depth web course on how to wire your electric guitars. And don’t forget to dig into the Seymour Duncan blog. There’s a ton of in-depth information on our different designs, how-tos, tone demonstrations, and a lot more.


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