Tag: pickups

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The City Kids – Filthy Warmanizers.

The City Kids – forged from Northern grit and Danish flair, a bunch of ragtag, rock n’ roll reprobates, part punk, part sleazy gutter-trash dirt. With a blend of crushing power-chords, gruff vocals, incendiary lead-playing, and pop-focussed harmonies to die for, The City Kids will set up home in your head and refuse to ever leave again

John JJ Watt – Vocals and Guitar

Recently JJ installed a custom one off set of Warman’s into his Vintage V100 VMX. Based upon our Limited Edition run of open clear bobbin Anniversary A5/2 Pickups but wound a little different. The bridge pickup is wound to 8.4 kOhms with an Alnico 5 magnet and the neck is wound to 7.4 kOhm with an Alnico 2 magnet. Both pickups have had a hefty sprinkling of Warmanite in there too for that little extra Va Va Voom.

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Groove Babies – how do they sound ?

You’ve probably seen our Alnico 2 60’s inspired Groove Babies on the website and wondered how they sound. You’re also probably maddened by the fact that we refuse to produce our own sound clips as we believe its better that people put up genuine real world sound clips of pickups that they are impressed with rather than some factory focussed ( and possibly tweaked ) version produced in house by us.

Well after a few months of being introduced we’ve now found a sound clip of the Groove Babies and the link is below.

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Basic guitar circuit wiring.

So here’s todays ramblings on how to do some basic wiring up stuff. A fairly simple arrangement of 2 pickups – a neck and bridge – with a there way switch ( both 8 lug lever witch and 3 way toggle switch variants ) with a master volume and tone control.

The diagrams show this done with 2 single coils but the principle is the same for 2 humbuckers but you might want to swap the 250k pots for 500k pots just to let a bit more of the treble through.

As with all pickup wiring the hot / plus / positive – whatever you want to call them – leads go to the switch lugs and the ground / negative / earth leads connect up into the common earth circuit, which also hooks into the bridge earth wire otherwise it’ll hum like billyoh when you aren’t touching the strings.

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Wiring two pickups and basic controls

Wiring two pickups and basic controls. It’s not rocket science, and nothing to fear. If you can solder, you can wire your guitar.

Wiring two pickups and basic controls. The schematic below shows a two-pickup setup. It has a 3-way selector switch, one volume, and one tone control.

Wiring two pickups and basic controls A Warman guide of how to do it.

It doesn’t matter which brand of pickups you use. Wire colours may differ, but the principles stay the same. Here are some quick tips to guide you.

Checking pickup polarity

Pickups follow the rule: opposites attract.
When using two pickups, you want opposite magnetic poles. Hold their faces together. If they stick, you’re good. That’s north and south attracting.

For three single coils:

  • Bridge should stick to middle.
  • Middle should stick to neck.

With humbuckers, the idea is the same. The screw poles on one should attract to the screw poles on the other.

Wires on single coils

A simple single coil usually has two wires.
Sometimes it’s one cable with inner and outer wires. Sometimes it’s two separate coloured wires.

The inner wire is hot (positive). The outer, wrapped around it, is ground (negative).

It doesn’t matter which you choose as hot. The key is consistency. Use the same wire for hot on all pickups, and the same for ground.

Wires on humbuckers

Humbuckers often have 4 or 5 wires. Here’s the breakdown:

  • The bare wire (often soldered to another) = ground.
  • Two wires soldered together = coil link. Wrap them in tape or heat-shrink. Ignore them for now.
  • The last single wire = hot. This goes to the selector switch or volume input.

That’s all you need for basic wiring. No need to memorise colour codes.

If your humbucker has just one cable, treat it like a single coil. Same rules apply.

Grounding everything

Ground is critical. Miss it, and your guitar will hum like a wasp in a biscuit tin.

Run a wire from the bridge to ground. Make sure all ground points are linked:

  • Pot backs
  • Switch casings
  • Pickup ground wires

Test continuity with a cheap tester. You’ll find them in car parts shops or electronics stores. They have a probe, a light, and a crocodile clip.

Clip to the bridge or a pot back. Touch the probe to each ground point. The light should glow if the connection is good.

A few quid on a tester can save hours of head-scratching.

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We do love the odd here at Warman.

We are always trying to get you geetar people – yes that means you as well lurking there over in the dark corner – to try something different and stop being so constrained by convention, pole spacings and all the other Emperors New Clothes gubbins.

Here’s a little video from Stephen Hookings where he’s done just that, climbed out of his box completely and done something ‘weird’. So without out further ado and introduction here’s an example of Warman Warblades being used in a 5 string bass.