GFS wire colors

[Dougfir]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to guitar wiring and have been having a tough time trying to translate wire colors for a project I'm working on with two humbuckers.  I am planning on using a wiring diagram (a rather complicated one with splittable coils, series/parallel switches) that was created for Seymour Duncan wire colors.  However, I'm using a pair of GFS Quick Plug pickups(Fat Pats).  Seymour Duncan labels their wires as North Start(black), North Finish(white), South Start(green), South Finish(red), but GFS labels their four wires as:  Hot/Positive (red), Ground (black), Shield Ground (bare) and Coil Tap (white).  I cannot get anyone at GFS/Guitar Fetish to translate their wires to North Start, North Finish, South Start, South Finish for me.  Can anyone here help?  I did look at a suggested website that had every manufacturer labled this way, but their GFA example was not a Quick Plug and had 5 wires. 

Thank you!!

[curtisa]

Seymour Duncan (SD) -> GFS:

1. SD North Start (Black) = GFS Hot (Red)
2. SD North Finish (White) + SD South Start (Green) = GFS Coil Tap (White)
3. SD South Finish (Red) = GFS Ground (Black)

The GFS pickup you have sounds like three-conductor wiring, instead of the four-conductor that the SD uses. With three conductor wiring the junction between the two coils of the humbucker (North Finish/South Start) is hardwired together inside the pickup and brought out as a single wire. This is done for some cost savings on GFS's part, and to simplify the wiring for the end users who will most likely just want to implement a coil tap (hence GFS's terminology for their White wire). The drawback is that if you have any super fancy wiring that does oddball things with each coil that requires diddling around with each of the four individual terminations on the humbucker, you'll be limited in what you can achieve.

For this reason the equivalent wiring on the SD pickup for item 2, above, is to join both White and Green together. This common connection point is the equivalent of the single White wire on the GFS pickup. Essentially every time you see both Green and White joined together on an SD wiring diagram, substitute your single GFS White. If, however your SD wiring diagram shows Green and White going in different directions and through something like a switch, you might be out of luck.

The GFS Shield Bare also goes to ground. There'll be one on the Seymour Duncan pickups as well, even if it's not explicitly described in their literature.

Odd that GFS couldn't provide this information. Seems like that should've been easy for them to look up...

 

[Dougfir]

Thank you, Curtisa!  That's really helpful.  It's also a real bummer.  I got these pickups because an aquaintance had used them for a split coil project like this, and they sounded great and were much cheaper than say, Duncan 59's which can be split like that.  He'd used the same wiring diagram (which does call for white and green to go in different directions).  I think the difference was that his were older and not using Quick Plug.  I might be out of luck with these...

GFS doesn't have any way to contact them except for an email address and I wasn't having much luck getting them to answer my question. 

Since you seem to know what you're doing, I'm attaching a picture of the wiring diagram.  Am I correct in saying that I can't do this with these pickups?

 

Thanks again!

 

[curtisa]

My apologies. I've given you a bum steer and mixed up SD red and green wires. The correct SD wiring translation should be:

1. SD North Start (Black) = GFS Hot (Red)
2. SD North Finish (White) + SD South Finish (Red) = GFS Coil Tap (White)
3. SD South Start (Green) = GFS Ground (Black)

So you should be good to go with your GFS pickup substitution. SD red + white is notionally equivalent to GFS white.

Edit: the above is only true for the bridge pickup in the diagram you've posted. The series/parallel option on the neck pickup is impossible using the GFS.

[Dougfir]

Oh, ok.  That's good news.  Looking at the diagram, I see how that makes perfect sense for the bridge pickup, where red and white go together.  How would you do that with the neck pickup though?  I really appreciate the help, Curtisa!

[curtisa]

You can't. It's an unfortunate limitation due to GFS's decision to pre-wire the junction of the two humbucker coils and only provide you with one wire.

You could wire the neck humbucker the same as the bridge, but you'd lose any humbucking ability when you have the two single coils in series or parallel. The combinations where both pickups are active might sound a bit different too. Basically it will "work", but it won't sound as originally intended.

[Dougfir]

I see.  That's a bummer.  I guess for now, I will just wire this one in the standard humbucker way.  I'm guessing there's a way to have the bridge pickup splittable and not the neck, but the truth is, I'm new to this and need a pretty good diagram to have any hope of wiring this correctly, so perhaps the standard wiring will be be a good start for me.  Some day, I can get a pair of different pickups and do the wiring I'd hoped for.  I really appreciate your help! 

[Dougfir]

An update and a question:  I expressed my dissapointment to GFS about the wiring of their Quick Plug leads and it turns out they make leads with the tratitional 5 wire format as well.  They're sending me a pair, for free.  So, that's pretty cool of them. 

Back to the schematic then.  One last question:  Would you assume that the diagram was drawn as if you're looking at the backs of the pots and switches, and not as if you're looking at the face of the guitar?  Just want to make sure I'm using the right lugs...

[Bizman62]

6 hours ago, Dougfir said:

So, that's pretty cool of them. 

That's pretty effing darn cool of them!

 

6 hours ago, Dougfir said:

Would you assume that the diagram was drawn as if you're looking at the backs of the pots and switches

That's the way I've been looking at them, and that's the way they illustrate the diagrams using photos of actual pots and switches and other electrickery.