I've recently put a gorgeous Mojo Jazzmaster Tiesco gold foil in the neck position of a tele with a (equally gorgeous) Oil City Wapping Wharf. Each pickup on it's own sounds amazing, and the serial position (via 4 way switch) is huge and raucous. I've adjusted the height of each to where the outputs (in volume terms) sound balanced and the single pickup sounds are to my taste. I'm loving the guitar now and it's jumped ahead of it's sibling to be my go-to electric.
The parallel position (traditional tele middle setting) just doesn't work for me though, as it's overwhelmed by the neck pickup sound. My assumption is that this is because the gold foil in the neck's resistance is around 6k, compared to around 10k in the bridge, so in a parallel circuit the current takes the path of least resistance - mostly through the neck. Volume and tone pot are both 250k.
While this is something I can, and probably will, live with, I've found myself wondering whether there's a way to add a resistor in series with the neck pickup in the middle position. I'm guessing this would need some kind of superswitch with a dedicated pole, and would darken the tone of the neck (not necessarily a bad thing in the parallel position, I'd think). Anyone got any ideas?
Comments
What you want, in my opinion, is a resistor taking some of the neck signal to ground and a treble bleed for it.
Am I wrong in thinking that the mismatched resistances are the reason why the neck is so dominant when the pickups are parallel?
The tapped (10k setting) bridge pickup's actual 'loudness' will be around the same as the neck as the higher DCR comes from the wire gauge not the number of turns. Were the Wharf wound with 42awg wire the DCR would be about 7.0k tapped and 10k flat out. The wire gauge is chosen with the Wharf to add compression to the mid tones.
So tapped I would not expect a Wharf to balance very easily with a 'Foil' as they are quite close in output and the Foil has the advantage of being on a louder part of the string.
With the Series/Parallel thing ... are you sure your wiring is correct?
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