
Get convincing “in-between” Strat sounds from Teles and other two-pickup guitars.
This month we'll look at a cool Telecaster wiring that also works with any two-pickup guitar with a master tone/master volume configuration. Designed by the great pickup maker Bill Lawrence, this wiring deals with the so-called half out-of-phase option (more on this in a moment).
Fig. 1 reproduces the relevant page from Bill Lawrence's now-famous scrapbook, where he archived all his wirings as handwritten diagrams. (Thanks to my luthier colleague Ivan "Joe Owl" Franasovic for introducing me to this wiring.)
Bill Lawrence (real name: Willi Lorenz Stich) was born in Germany in 1931 and became one of the country's best guitarists of the post-WWII era. He was a busy session musician and jazz player who performed under the name Billy Lorento. Germany's Framus guitar company even built a signature model for him (the 5/120) that's still available today. Later on, he started a second career in the guitar industry under the name Bill Lawrence. He conceived many groundbreaking pickup designs and other musical instrument innovations. Sadly, he died in November 2013 at age 82, but his music and genius live on.
Basically, this wiring follows the standard Telecaster schematic, but substitutes a 5-way Strat-style pickup selector for the Tele's traditional 3-way switch, unlocking two new tones. Here's the switching matrix:
- Position 1: neck pickup alone
- Position 2: neck + bridge in parallel
- Position 3: bridge pickup alone
- Position 4: neck + bridge in parallel "half out of phase
- Position 5: neck pickup alone with 10 percent less low end than position 1
We all know switch positions 1, 2 and 3 from standard Telecaster wiring (though they appear here in a different order). Meanwhile, position 5 cuts some lows for a slightly brighter tone than position 1, which makes it cool for more prominent rhythm tones and jazz lines. I was skeptical about the value of position 5, but as I experimented, I found I liked it more and more, so I recommend you give it a try as well.
But for me, the highlight of this wiring is position 4, with both pickups together and "half out of phase" with each other, a concept later adopted by Fender for their Jerry Donahue signature Telecaster and by Peavey for their Omniac JD model.
The highlight of this wiring is position 4, with both pickups together and "half out of phase" with each other.
So what the heck is "half out of phase?" I don't want to bore you with electrical theory, so here's a short, simplified explanation.
Phase differences are measured in degrees. Totally in-phase sounds have either 0 or 360 degrees of difference, meaning none. Totally out-of-phase sounds have a 180-degree difference. So half out of phase is either 90 or 270 degrees of difference. You can only achieve a fully out-of-phase effect when using two pickups together with one wired out of phase. (When both pickups are wired out of phase, they sound the same as both pickups in phase, because there are still 0 degrees of phase difference between them.)
But when a signal passes through a capacitor, the voltage leads the current by 90 degrees. In this wiring, one pickup's signal gets routed through a capacitor, shifting the phase by 90 degrees—exactly half of 180 degrees, and therefore half out of phase. Bill Lawrence chose to send the neck pickup's signal through an additional capacitor, connected directly to the 5-way switch. (If you want to dig deeper into the out-of-phase thing, check out this column: https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/phasing-out-how-to-get-out-of-phase-sounds-from-a-stratocaster-1)
So what are the tonal differences compared to a standard out-of-phase sound? The standard version cuts more lows and mids, while position 4 here has a fuller-sounding tone. Half out-of-phase wiring is perfect for mimicking a Stratocaster's "in-between" positions (2 and 4) using a Telecaster. (Even though on the Strat, the two pickups are actually in phase.) This, for me, is the real benefit of this wiring. I encourage you to give it a try and experiment with the pickup height adjustment screws. You really can get something close to the Strat "in-between" sound we all love. That's definitely icing on any Telecaster cake!
You can replace the stock Tele pickup selector with any standard 5-way switch for Strats. Both pots are 250k audio-taper types. The wiring works best with two single-coil pickups, like standard Tele ones. The capacitor connected to the tone pot is your typical tone cap. (Bill Lawrence chose a standard 0.022 µF value, but feel free to experiment with other values to find your personal favorite.) The cap connected to the 5-way switch is the phase-shifting cap mentioned above. Bill selected a 0.01 µF cap. In his words: "You may try caps between 0.005 µF (5000 pF) and 0.02 µF. The smaller the cap, the sweeter the sound."
I think 0.01 uF is a great choice, but this really depends on your particular pickups. I recommend experimentation, fine-tuning to get as close as possible to a Strat's "in-between" tones. The tone pot wiring differs slightly from a standard Telecaster's, but it works as intended, so I left it the way Bill designed it.
While Bill's handwritten diagram is iconic and über-cool as a historical document, I'm including a clearer drawing (Fig. 2) that may be easier to follow.
Next time we'll continue with another guitar mod, but if you'd like to see more ideas from Bill's scrapbook, let me know, and I'll cover them in future columns. Until then, keep on modding!
[Updated 11/18/21]
- Mod Garage: The Strat-o-Tele Crossover - Premier Guitar ›
- Mod Garage: Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster Mods - Premier Guitar ›
- Decoding Jerry Donahue's 5-Way Telecaster Wiring - Premier Guitar ›
Dynamic and pitch control of delay textures pave roads to new compositional and playing approaches in another unusual effect from Latvia’s foremost stompbox provocateurs.
Impressive control over parameters. Coaxes new playing and compositional approaches for players in a rut. High build quality.
Interrelationships between controls will be hard to grasp for many.
$329
Gamechanger Audio Auto Delay
gamechangeraudio.com
From the outset, it must be said there are easier ways to get a delay sound than using Gamechanger’s Auto Delay. But if simple echoes were the sole objective of this pedal, I doubtGamechanger would have bothered. As you may have gleaned from a listen to the company’sBigsby Pedal,PLASMA Pedal fuzz, orLIGHT Pedal reverb, the Riga, Latvia-based company rarely takes a conventional approach to anything they design or release. But what is “conventional” from a guitarist’s point of view, may be something quite different for musicians determined to bend notions of what sound and music are, how it’s made, and by what means.
By Gamechanger standards, the digital Auto Delay (along with its stablemates the Auto Reverb and Auto Chorus) is almost straightforward in concept. It utilizes existing concepts of dynamic delay, control voltage, and modular synthesis as essential parts of its functional underpinnings—which are not exactly unusual in stompbox design. Yet the way the Auto Delay’s functions interact make it feel and sound unique. And while not every player will want to take the time to explore the sometimes complex interplay between its functions, at its best, the Auto Delay prompts unorthodox thinking about the ways touch dynamics or pitch relate to the delay colors you can create, prompting unexpected compositional vectors and a kind of extra-dimensional relationship to the fretboard.
Beat of a Different Drum
Gamechanger’s path to building such unusual sound manipulation machines might seem a curious one when you consider that founder Ilja Krumins and his fellow founders Mārtiņš Meļķis and Kristaps Kalva are rockabilly heads with tastes that include the soulful earthiness of J.J. Cale. But the more accessible side of the Gamechanger design team’s musical interests likely informs the most approachable aspects of the Auto Delay. You can use it like you would any ordinary stompbox echo and take advantage of its three very distinct voices (tape, analog, and digital), copious 2-second delay time, and rangy tone control in order to fashion many compelling delay sounds. This is, needless to say, a vast underutilization of the Auto Delay’s powers.
Routing, Rearranging, and Raging Like a Lunatic
Though you can get lost in the Auto Delay (in good ways and bad), it isn’t necessarily the headache that its patch bay, LEDs, and many switches and knobs suggest. The idea behind the patch bay is simple: Routing a cable from one of the two dynamics or pitch automation input sockets to the level, tone, repeat, or time input sockets means that a change in, say, your picking intensity (dynamics) or where you play on the fretboard (pitch) increases or reduces the value for the parameter you linked to the dynamics or pitch socket. Even if you’ve not been indoctrinated in these methods via modular synthesis, it’s not as complicated as it sounds, and trial-and-error experimentation yields intuitive understanding of these interactions quickly.
The tape, analog, or digital voice can drastically reshape the tone and response of interactions. But so will the fast, rise, and gate dynamics modes, which determine the nature of the dynamic response. Setting thresholds for the dynamic and pitch response is easy. You simply hold down the “auto” footswitch or the bypass footswitch and twist the respective knobs until you reach the desired threshold, which is indicated by the adjacent LED. Like the other functions, getting a feel for how these thresholds work within your playing style takes time. As you might guess, we’ve really only discussed the most fundamental functions here. But in addition to these, you can use alt mode to assign different values to the secondary knobs and toggle between primary and secondary knobs using the auto switch. You can also manipulate the stereo spread or control the clock via MIDI.
The Verdict
The Auto Delay is not for the faint of heart or impatient. Grasping the interrelationships between the controls takes time. In fact, understanding how those interrelationships feel and respond musically will be more challenging for some than understanding how they work conceptually— which, while not elementary, can be sussed out with a careful read of the manual. But when you do find a rhythm and flow with the Auto Delay it can be richly rewarding and even meditative.
Because it can reshape your relationship with the fretboard and your sense of touch, this is a great tool for extracting yourself from ruts, whether in technique or mood. And if you’re a musical tinkerer, the Auto Delay can provide much of the same satisfaction and sense of discovery you experience working with a synthesizer—particularly if you enjoy working in the hardware realm rather than on a computer screen. One should consider the scores here as especially subjective and on a sliding scale. The Auto Delay’s many sonic and functional idiosyncrasies will be nectar to some and poison to others. And more than most pedals, you should probably have a firsthand experience with the thing before you decide how and if it fits your musical objectives. For many restless players, though, the Auto Delay will be a deep well of musical provocation and ideas.
Cory Wong and his Flyers comrade Mark Lettieri do a little show-and-tell at their summer camp.
Back in March 2022, we caught up with Cory Wong in the middle of an international tour to film a Rig Rundown. This time around, we found Wong with his Fearless Flyers pals sticking in one spot, at Cory Wong’s Syncopated Summer Camp. The four-day, four-night summit, held in Nashville, brought together ace players like Ariel Posen, Larry Carlton, and Sonny T to offer clinics on all things rhythm. Aside from the camp, Wong and his fellow guitar Flyer, Mark Lettieri, both had new releases to celebrate: Lettieri’s recent solo record, Can I Tell You Something?, dropped in July, and Wong’s Live in London and Starship Syncopation came out in May and July, respectively—plus, the Flyers’ new EP was released in February.
Both Lettieri and Wong toured us through the guitar gear they brought along for the camp.
Brought to you by D’Addario.The Wong Way
Wong’s starter is, unsurprisingly, his Fender Cory Wong Signature Stratocaster. This is an off-the-rack model, and the sapphire blue transparent satin lacquer finish demonstrates the beautiful alder beneath it: “Sometimes a guitar is made out of the right piece of a tree,” says Wong. Other features on the model include deluxe locking tuners, a 6-screw tremolo system, Seymour Duncan Cory Wong Clean Machine pickups, and an American Ultra Modern “D” neck profile.
Founder's Keepers
At John Mayer’s suggestion, Wong had Fender create him a “founder’s model” of his signature guitar, with some just-so appointments that can’t be had on the standard production instruments. Those include a bound fretboard and a unique, one-off finish.
But Wong doesn’t get too attached to his guitars. He often auctions them off to benefit a non-profit that gets free guitars into the hands of kids who need them.
Another Wong novelty: his fingers don’t sweat much, so he only changes his strings about once every three months, despite plenty of playing time. When the time comes, he uses Ernie Ball .010s from either the Slinkys or Paradigm series.
Neural Network
Through a Shure GLXD16 wireless system, Wong runs his guitar into his Neural DSP Quad Cortex, which runs a beta version of his Archetype: Cory Wong plugin, based off of a melding of a Dumble and a Fender Twin. The signal hits an onboard envelope filter and rarely used pitch shifter, then exits out the effects loop into a Wampler Cory Wong Compressor, Jackson Audio The Optimist, and a Hotone Wong Press. The signal goes back into the Quad Cortex, where there’s a preset phaser, stereo tape delay, and modulated reverb, plus a freeze effect. Two XLR outs run to front of house, while two run to Wong’s Mission Engineering Gemini 2 stereo cabinet.
Fiore di Latte
Lettieri flies with his signature PRS Fiore (and wears a matching shirt to boot). The model, which he began designing with PRS in 2019, has a swamp ash body, maple neck, 25 1/2" fretboard, nickel frets, and a pickup system that allows for 11 different combinations—the ultimate studio weapon. He runs it to his board with Revelation Cable Company cables. Lettieri strings it with Dunlop .010s, and strikes them with Dunlop celluloid picks.
Lettieri Goes Low
Lettieri also calls on this PRS SE 277 baritone guitar. He’s swapped the pickups for a Lollar P-90 in the neck position and a gold-foil in the bridge. He tunes it to A standard and runs .014–.072 strings on it.
Little Wing
Lettieri sticks with tubes, running into a PRS HDRX 20—a 20-watt combo intended to capture the roar and power of Hendrix’s Marshalls in a more practical package.
Chopping Block
Guitar pedals weren’t the intended application for Lettieri’s pedalboard—it was meant for chopping veggies, but that didn’t stop him from slapping his stomp tools on the cutting board.
His signal first hits a Keeley Monterey Custom Shop Edition, followed by an MXR Deep Phase, J. Rockett HRM, J. Rockett Melody OD (Lettieri’s signature), Pigtronix Octava, and a Dunlop DVP4, all powered by a Strymon Ojai. A TC Electronic TonePrint Plethora X5 pedalboard handles coordination and switching between the devices.
Shop the Fearless Flyers Rig
TC Electronic TonePrint Plethora X5 Pedalboard
Keeley Monterey Custom Shop Edition
EarthQuaker Devices introduces Gary, a versatile fuzz and overdrive pedal designed by Lee Kiernan of Idles.
Gary started as a simple request to create a compact version of the now discontinued Gray Channel, which was a mainstay on Lee’s board and a big part of his main drive tone. This was all fine and good, and sounded quite sick, but Gary was demanding that we look deeper and explore his dark side a little more, Gary after dark, Saturday night Gary. So, we sat him down and began the trek of figuring old Gare-Bear out once and for all. The result is a real exercise in light and dark; smooth to shredded and everything in between.
Gary’s right brain consists of a dynamic and destructive fuzz that is both domineering and interactive. It is a ripping fuzz tone with an envelope-controlled variable pulse width and enough volume to blow everything up. This nasty little fuzz turns the signal into a square wave and allows you to dynamically adjust the duty cycle with pick attack. Yes! Controls the sensitivity of the envelope. When this is all the way down you will get an unadulterated thick and heavy square wave fuzz tone that will sustain for days and go dead quiet when you stop playing. As you increase the Yes! control, the envelope becomes more interactive, and the pulse width narrows the harder you hit it. As the pulse width narrows, the tone becomes more nasal and biting until it gets so narrow that Gary goes to his dark place and disappears completely. In other words, with higher sensitivity settings, the sound will disappear entirely and come cruising back to Gary’s big guy tone. With proper playing dynamics, this creates a very cool effect that can sound like an exploding amp coming in and out of life, blown through a phase shifter.
This effect can also be controlled with an expression pedal for manual operation or for finding just the right pulse width to cut through the mix for a set-and-forget operation. When using an expression pedal, Yes! operates in conjunction with the expression pedal to set the peak of the sweep. Set Yes! to the desired stopping point and express yourself as you please without worry of taking Gary over the edge!
Oosh acts as the master volume for Gary’s nasty side. There is an insane amount of volume on tap so use this control wisely!
Gary’s left brain displays his softer side. This is a simple and natural sounding overdrive that keeps your tone lively and drives your amp crazy. This side is based on the green channel of our Gray Channel, which is our take on the classic little yellow overdrive that started it all for us. Lee used this pedal with the clipping switch permanently set to the middle position, which removes all the diodes from the circuit, producing a full-bodied, cutting opamp distortion with plenty of volume on tap. We have reproduced that tone here with exacting precision. Go sets the opamp drive and can range from a simple full-range clean boost all the way up to a smooth and natural distortion. In conjunction with That’s It, which is the master volume for the drive side, you can use Gary’s softer side as a clean boost to push your amp into overdrive or turn up Go and use all of Gary’s internal magic to create the finely tuned dirt you desire.
Gary’s signal path is fuzz into overdrive for total tonal integrity and cannot be changed. This is where Gary put his foot down, and we obliged.
Each and every Gary was softly brought to life by the delicate hands of EarthQuaker Devices in the elegantly unrefined canal-front city of Akron, Ohio USA.
USA MAP/List price: $199.00
Gary Automatic Pulse Width Modulation Fuzz and Dynamic Natural Overdrive - YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.EarthQuaker Devices Gary Automatic Pulse Width Modulation Fuzz/Overdrive Pedal
Automatic Pulse Width Modulation Fuzz PedalThe Hummingbird Studio EC features a mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top, a Round SlimTaper profile mahogany neck, and L.R. Baggs electronics.
The Hummingbird has become more versatile and expressive than ever with the introduction of the Hummingbird Studio EC, Hummingbird Standard EC, and the Hummingbird Rosewood EC. Equipped with cutaway bodies that provide improved access to the upper frets of the Round SlimTaper profile mahogany necks, L.R. Baggs electronics, and shipped in hardshell cases, they’re ready for you to take them wherever the muse carries you.
Hummingbird Standard EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12” radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Standard Rosewood EC
- Rosewood body and sides with a Sitka spruce top gives more bass and harmonic complexity
- Mahogany neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 12” radius
- L.R. Baggs VTC electronics
- Gloss finish with full-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard
Hummingbird Studio EC
- Mahogany body and sides with a Sitka spruce top
- Utile neck with a Round SlimTaper profile and 16” radius
- L.R. Baggs Element Bronze electronics
- Satin finish with one-color Hummingbird graphics on the pickguard