4-Way Switching For Your Tele
We get asked about 4-Way Switching a lot. It’s a simple mod that when added to your Telecaster, puts your pickups in Series, instead of Parallel. You can get a pretty beefy tone with both pickups on like this, and it adds a new dimension to your favorite guitar.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARALLEL AND SERIES?
In a standard guitar, like a Strat or a Tele, your pickups are in Parallel. What this means is each pickup has its own path of output. For instance, the White (hot) leads connect to the switch, and the Black leads attach to Ground. Series wiring puts your pickup’s outputs into your other pickups. To illustrate, we’ve made an illustration:
Parallel Wiring gives the pickup the shortest possible distance to the Output Jack. Series wiring gives the signal a much greater distance to travel. The signal experiences more resistance, thus getting bigger and beefier as a result.
You might have noticed a volume drop when you switch between pickups in the middle positions. With Parallel wiring, the perceived sound decreases when combined with another pickup.
For instance, if you only selected your Bridge pickup, it’s output is 100%. When combined with another pickup, say, the Middle pickup, it’s output seems to drop by approximately 25%. The combination of the Bridge and Middle might result in a total combined output of, say, 50%.
Series wiring combines the pickup signals in a way where the volume is louder and thicker. When your pickups are wired in series, the combined signals would equate to 200%.
Note: the above percentages are only used for explanation, and are not accurate.
HOW TO WIRE 4 WAY SWITCHING:
With a 4 Way Switch, you get the following switching capabilities:
- The Bridge
- Bridge and Neck in Parallel
- Bridge and Neck in Series
- The Neck
To wire it up, take a look at the following diagram:
Note: If your Neck Pickup has a cover, you will need to separate the jumper connecting the cover to ground and run a separate wire off of the cover to be grounded separately. For a How-To, check out our guide here.
How It Works:
Position 1: Bridge Only
Neck White = Connected To Output
Neck Black = Connected to Nothing*
*(Since this is the coil wire, the Neck pickup doesn’t have continuity)
Bridge White = Connected to Output
Bridge Black = Hard Ground to Pot
Position 2: Bridge & Neck Parallel:
Neck White = Connected To Output
Neck Black = Ground
Bridge White = Connected To Output
Bridge Black = Hard Ground To Pot
Position 3: Bridge & Neck Series:
Neck White = Connected To Output
Neck Black = Bridge White
Bridge White = Neck Black
Bridge Black = Hard Ground To Pot
Position 4: Neck Only
Neck White = Connected To Output
Neck Black = Ground
Bridge White = Connected To Nothing
Bridge Black = Hard Ground To Pot
If you know this is the mod you would like to do, you can order our pickups with a “3-Wire Neck“. What we will do is give you a lead that runs off of the cover. If you already have a Tele Neck and want to convert to a 4-Way Switch, you will need to solder a wire to your cover and remove the ground connection from your coil. Basically, clip the jumper wire that grounds your cover to your black lead. To see how this mod is performed, check out our guide here: Convert your Tele Neck into a 3-Wire Neck
We hope you found this article helpful! Give us a call or shoot us an email with any questions.
I need to mod a single humbucker with standard 4 conductor wires and ground.
Series, parallel, series with tone and complete bypass of volume and tone controls.
Any suggestions on accomplishing this simply?
Thanks,
Zim
Thanks Tyler… you are absolutely right. I found the issue…. in an effort to save space, I pushed the tone cap down too far and the leg was touching the tone pot. I separated that connection and all is well.
Freakin awesome mod!! And I love the switch positioning you have here with the neck and bridge in the 4/1 spot. Much better than having the neck pickup on the 3 spot.
After doing this, my tone pot completely kills the volume when turned all the way down. When I get to about 1 or 2, the volume cuts out completely. What gives?
Hey Ben,
Something is definitely not wired right on this. It can be a few different things – can you take it to a luthier for analysis?
Also, the switch pictured above is the Oak Grigsby 4-Way Switch. Make sure that you have the same switch, different manufacturers might work differently.
Tyler
Hi,
Great article, explains everything nice and clear.
I am looking at carrying out this mod on my Tele. I have JBE Danny Gattons, which I believe have a hot, cold and separate ground wire, so should work OK. But I can’t decide whether to go for a 4-way switch or a push/pull tone pot switch. I guess the push/pull will just bypass the 3-way and output the pickups in series, and when the switch isn’t engaged, the 3-way will just operate as normal.
I’ve found a lot of articles and forums talking about the 4-way mod, but hardly any mention using a push/pull instead. Is one method better than the other? are there any advantages to using a 4-way switch over a push/pull or is it just personal preference?
Hey Sam,
It’s really personal preference whether or not you go with the Push Pull or the 4-Way Lever. The benefit of the Push Pull is that you can simply engage the Series sound whenever you want – like a “fat switch”. Pushing back down on the push pull pot will disengage the series sound, allowing you to jump back right into whatever pre-defined position you had.
Stay tuned, we may be doing an article on this mod in the near future.
Tyler
I have a bit of the opposite problem. I have a neck pup with three conductors, but I only have a three way switch and I don’t want to convert to four way. What do I do with the third conductor? I’d really appreciate the help!
Alex
Hey Alex,
It really depends on your pickup. Usually, the 3rd conductor is for coil splitting a humbucker. If that’s the case, you can check out our article on that here.
Other than that, you can only do the 4-Way Series / Parallel mod with a 4-Way switch. If you didn’t want to do anything with the 3rd Conductor, simply tape it off with some masking tape.
Tyler
Thanks I appreciate it!
Hello, I’m building a Tele Partscaster. I bought a custom 4-way 920D built control plate. Instead of 1 tone and 1 vol. knob it has concentric knobs (ea. knob controls volume with a ring at the base controlling tone).
My question is do I ground the metal neck pickup cover the same way or do I need to solder a jumper to next pot as well? Thanks.
Daniel,
Usually the plate connects all the metal, so grounding one thing essentially grounds everything. Avoid ground jumpers, as this will create a ground loop. You’ll need to ground the Neck Cover to the back of the volume pot / wherever else everything is grounded. Just make sure the Tele Neck cover is separated from your coil.
Tyler
Hi, Tyler, my name is Steve. Do I understand you’re a Virginia guy? I live in Front Royal and, coincidentally, have a 28 year old son named, Tyler. Anyway, my question is does anyone make reverse ( volume pot in front, switch in rear ) control setup with 4 way switching?
Stephen,
Yep – based out of VA here, with the shop. We make the control plate that you’re looking for, starting at $85.00 – Available here.
Tyler
I am building my tele with a p90 in the neck, and a normal bridge, and this is my first build, will the four way still work with the p90? this is my first build, so i don’t have much experience of how this works.
Hey Colin,
It will work fine, just make sure you get 2-Conductor lead for your P90, or it won’t work.
T
Good day.
How would one perform this mod with a covered humbucker (2 conductor wire) in the bridge position, or is that not possible? Thanks.
Dave,
It should be possible, but the switching will be different. If you had a Humbucker with multiple leads in the Neck, you could separate the chassis ground from the coil ground and perform this mod as described above. We don’t have the diagram for completing this mod using your bridge as the series connection.
Tyler
The few I wired up from directions had Bridge, Both in parallel, Neck, Both in series after install. But the description here looks like it is different. Can you explain why not have the sounds like the description and instructions for 4-way switches we buy?
Doug,
This is our favorite schematic and function. Bridge / Bridge – Neck in Parallel / Bridge – Neck in Series / Neck. It’s easier to use going from the Bridge and Neck position. You can find Fender’s original diagram all over the web, even though the switches are the same.
Cheers, Tyler