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For many guitarists, a Strat equipped with a bridge-position humbucker and two single-coils (HSS) offers the ultimate in sonic flexibility. If you have a guitar configured this way with a 5-way switch, there’s a way to make it even more versatile without adding any additional switches or hardware.
Project overview. We’re going to rewire the 5-way switch to coil-tap the humbucker in position 2. (Note: We’re using the usual numbering scheme that identifies the solo bridge pickup as “position 1” and the solo neck pickup as “position 5.”) You still get the fat, full humbucker sound in position 1, but in position 2, the humbucker goes into single-coil mode. Wired this way, position 2 offers a combination of middle and bridge single-coils, and you get much closer to that classic, clucky middle-plus-bridge combination Strat players love. One complaint about an HSS Strat is that in position 2, the humbucker sonically overwhelms the middle pickup. This coil-tap mod goes a long way toward eliminating that problem.
The two tone controls continue to function as normal, operating independently on the neck and middle pickups, and you get an expanded tonal palette consisting of five distinct sounds: solo neck or middle single-coils, two combined single-coil settings (neck-plus-middle or middle-plus-bridge), and, of course, the full-throttle solo bridge humbucker.
I recently did this mod on a HSS Strat loaded with a PRS Tremonti bridge humbucker, two stock Fender single-coil pickups, and a standard CRL 5-way blade switch. I’ll use the Tremonti to explain the mod, although the color of its wires may differ from those in your humbucker. Also, some switches work differently from the typical Fender 5-way we’re showing in these diagrams. That said, the essential concept remains the same, so with a little ingenuity you can apply this mod to most humbucker-equipped Strats or Strat-style guitars.
Tools and materials. To complete this mod, you need a 30- or 40-watt soldering iron with a small tip, a roll of .032" diameter 60/40 rosin core solder, some stranded 22-gauge cloth-covered wire, a 5" curved hemostat clamp (preferably with rubber-coated handles to protect your fingers from heat), and a medium Phillips screwdriver.
Tip: Never use a soldering gun around an electric guitar—it can damage your pickup magnets.
Getting started. First, take off the strings and detach the pickguard. Stash the screws in a safe place. Place a small towel or cloth on your guitar to protect the finish and then turn the pickguard over, being careful not to tug on any wires.
Next, check out Image 1, which shows how a standard Strat 5-way switch is wired. After familiarizing yourself with this diagram, correlate it to your 5-way switch.
Okay, it’s time to detach a few wires from that switch. Unsolder and remove the jumper wire that connects both sides of the blade switch so they operate together. Removing the jumper lets us use each side of the switch independently.
But wait! We’ll also unsolder the output wire from the lug marked “output to volume.” (This wire connects the 5-way switch to the input lug of the volume pot. Leave this wire soldered to the volume pot.) Later, you’ll re-solder the disconnected end to the opposite side of the switch. Because this output wire shares a switch lug with one end of the jumper, you might be able to unsolder both at the same time.
Once you’ve detached the jumper and output wires from the switch, unsolder the two tone-control wires from it. (Don’t remove the wires from the tone pots.) As with the volume pot wire, you’ll soon re-solder the two tone control wires to the other side of the switch.
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Coil-tapping the humbucker. First, make sure you know which two wires make up the series link in your humbucker. The series link is the start of one coil and the finish of the other coil in a four-conductor humbucking pickup. When combined, these two wires join the two coils in series.
If these wires are grounded, one of the coils is turned off. On our PRS Tremonti humbucker, the red and green wires are the series link. Black is the primary output and white is the ground.
Grounding the red and green wires coil-taps the humbucker. Take a moment to study Image 2, which shows the 5-way switch configured for coil-tapping in position 2.
Now solder the series link wires to the top-right lug, as shown. (Again, the color of your series link wires may be different.) Then, still following the diagram, solder a ground wire from the switch’s third right-side lug to the back of one of the pots. Now position 2 runs the series link to ground and coil-taps the humbucker.
Tie up loose ends. Remember the output wire that’s still attached to the volume pot? It’s time to reconnect it. As shown in the diagram, solder it to the fourth lug on the left (spring) side.
Now we’re ready to connect the tone controls to the switch. Solder the wire for the lower tone control (tone 2) to the second left-side lug—the same lug used by the middle pickup’s lead wire. Next, solder the wire from the upper tone (tone 1) to the third left-side lug, which is shared by the neck pickup’s lead wire.
With this new configuration, the tone controls still function as before: Tone 1 is active whenever the neck pickup is selected, either solo or in combination with the middle pickup, and tone 2 is active when the middle pickup is selected.
This is how the switch should work:
• Position 1 = bridge humbucker (no tone control engaged).
• Position 2 = tapped bridge humbucker plus middle single-coil (tone 2 engaged on middle pickup).
• Position 3 = middle single-coil (tone 2 engaged).
• Position 4 = middle plus neck single-coils (tone 2 and tone 1 independently engaged on middle and neck single-coils, respectively).
• Position 5 = neck single-coil (tone 1 engaged).
To confirm the switch is working correctly, lightly tap the pickups with your hemostat as you change positions on the 5-way switch. You can test the volume and tone pots by gently rubbing the pickup pole pieces with the hemostats while turning the controls.
Once you’ve tested the switch and are satisfied that everything is right, re-attach the pickguard, string up your guitar, and enjoy the new, coil-tapped sound of position 2.
Phase Check!
When you coil-tap a humbucker and combine it with the middle pickup in position 2, you should hear a robust dual-pickup tone—sweet, singing, and perhaps a bit clucky. If instead the sound is weak and shrill—and it lacks the punch of either the bridge or middle pickup by itself—the two combined coils aren’t in phase.
To correct this, simply reverse the lead and ground wires from the two stock single-coils—the guitar’s middle and neck pickups. In other words, unsolder the ground and hot wire for each pickup and swap their roles (the former ground wires connect to the 5-way switch and the former hot wires are now grounded on the back of a pot). The solder points remain the same, but each pickup’s two wires trade places.
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For the first time in the band’s history, the Dawes lineup for Oh Brother consisted of just Griffin and Taylor Goldsmith (left and right).
Goldsmith’s lyrics spoke to me the loudest, with lines like “Well, you can judge the whole world on the sparkle that you think it lacks / Yes, you can stare into the abyss, but it’s starin’ right back” (a casual Nietzsche paraphrase); and “Oh, the snowfall this time of year / It’s not what Birmingham is used to / I get the feeling that I brought it here / And now I’m taking it away.” The way his words painted a portrait of the sincere, sentimental man behind them, along with his cozy, unassuming guitar work and the band’s four-part harmonies, had me hooked.
Nothing Is Wrong and Stories Don’t End came next, and I happily gobbled up more folksy fodder in tracks like “If I Wanted,” “Most People,” and “From a Window Seat.” But 2015’s All Your Favorite Bands, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Folk Albumschart, didn’t land with me, and by the time 2016’s We’re All Gonna Die was released, it was clear that Goldsmith had shifted thematically in his writing. A friend drew a thoughtful Warren Zevon comparison to the single, “When the Tequila Runs Out”—a commentary on vapid, conceited, American-socialite party culture—but it still didn’t really do it for me. I fell off the Dawes train a bit, and became somewhat oblivious to their three full-lengths that followed.
Oh Brotheris Goldsmith’s latest addition to the Dawes songbook, and I’m grateful to say that it’s brought me back. After having done some catching up, I’d posit that it’s the second work in the third act, or fall season, of his songwriting—where 2022’s Misadventures of Doomscrollercracked open the door, Oh Brother swings it wide. And it doesn’t have much more than Dawes’ meat and potatoes, per se, in common with acts one or two. Some moodiness has stayed—as well as societal disgruntlement and the arrangement elements that first had me intoxicated. But then there’s the 7/4 section in the middle of “Front Row Seat”; the gently unwinding, quiet, intimate jazz-club feel of “Surprise!”; the experimentally percussive, soft-spoken “Enough Already”; and the unexpected, dare I say, Danny Elfman-esque harmonic twists and turns in the closing track, “Hilarity Ensues.”
The main engine behind Dawes, the Goldsmith brothers are both native “Angelinos,” having been born and raised in the L.A. area. Taylor is still proud to call the city his home.
Photo by Jon Chu
“I have this working hypothesis that who you are as a songwriter through the years is pretty close to who you are in a dinner conversation,” Goldsmith tells me in an interview, as I ask him about that thematic shift. “When I was 23, if I was invited to dinner with grownups [laughs], or just friends or whatever, and they say, ‘How you doin’, Taylor?’ I probably wouldn’t think twice to be like, ‘I’m not that good. There’s this girl, and … I don’t know where things are at—can I share this with you? Is that okay?’ I would just go in in a way that’s fairly indiscreet! And I’m grateful to that version of me, especially as a writer, because that’s what I wanted to hear, so that’s what I was making at the time.
“But then as I got older, it became, ‘Oh, maybe that’s not an appropriate way to answer the question of how I’m doing.’ Or, ‘Maybe I’ve spent enough years thinking about me! What does it feel like to turn the lens around?’” he continues, naming Elvis Costello and Paul Simon as inspirations along the way through that self-evolution. “Also, trying to be mindful of—I had strengths then that I don’t have now, but I have strengths now that I didn’t have then. And now it’s time to celebrate those. Even in just a physical way, like hearing Frank Zappa talking about how his agility as a guitar player was waning as he got older. It’s like, that just means that you showcase different aspects of your skills.
“I am a changing person. It would be weird if I was still writing the same way I was when I was 23. There would probably be some weird implications there as to who I’d be becoming as a human [laughs].”
Taylor Goldsmith considers Oh Brother, the ninth full-length in Dawes’ catalog, to be the beginning of a new phase of Dawes, containing some of his most unfiltered, unedited songwriting.
Since its inception, the engine behind Dawes has been the brothers Goldsmith, with Taylor on guitar and vocals and Griffin on drums and sometimes vocal harmonies. But they’ve always had consistent backup. For the first several years, that was Wylie Gelber on bass and Tay Strathairn on keyboards. On We’re All Gonna Die, Lee Pardini replaced Strathairn and has been with the band since. Oh Brother, however, marks the departure of Gelber and Pardini.
“We were like, ‘Wow, this is an intense time; this is a vulnerable time,’” remarks Goldsmith, who says that their parting was supportive and loving, but still rocked him and Griffin. “You get a glimpse of your vulnerability in a way that you haven’t felt in a long time when things are just up and running. For a second there, we’re like, ‘We’re getting a little rattled—how do we survive this?’”
They decided to pair up with producer Mike Viola, a close family friend, who has also worked with Mandy Moore—Taylor’s spouse—along with Panic! At the Disco, Andrew Bird, and Jenny Lewis. “[We knew that] he understands all of the parameters of that raw state. And, you know, I always show Mike my songs, so he was aware of what we had cookin’,” says Goldsmith.
Griffin stayed behind the kit, but Taylor took over on bass and keys, the latter of which he has more experience with than he’s displayed on past releases. “We’ve made records where it’s very tempting to appeal to your strengths, where it’s like, ‘Oh, I know how to do this, I’m just gonna nail it,’” he says. “Then there’s records that we make where we really push ourselves into territories where we aren’t comfortable. That contributed to [Misadventures of Doomscroller] feeling like a living, breathing thing—very reactive, very urgent, very aware. We were paying very close attention. And I would say the same goes for this.”
That new terrain, says Goldsmith, “forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do. I’m really excited in that sense, because it’s like this is the first album of a new phase.”
“That forced us to react to each other and react to the music in new ways, and all of a sudden, we’re exploring new corners of what we do.”
In proper folk (or even folk-rock) tradition, the music of Dawes isn’t exactly riddled with guitar solos, but that’s not to say that Goldsmith doesn’t show off his chops when the timing is right. Just listen to the languid, fluent lick on “Surprise!”, the shamelessly prog-inspired riff in the bridge of “Front Row Seat,” and the tactful, articulate line that threads through “Enough Already.” Goldsmith has a strong, individual sense of phrasing, where his improvised melodies can be just as biting as his catalog’s occasional lyrical jabs at presumably toxic ex-girlfriends, and just as melancholy as his self-reflective metaphors, all the while without drawing too much attention to himself over the song.
Of course, most of our conversation revolves around songwriting, as that’s the craft that’s the truest and closest to his identity. “There’s an openness, a goofiness—I even struggle to say it now, but—an earnestness that goes along with who I am, not only as a writer but as a person,” Goldsmith elaborates. “And I think it’s important that those two things reflect one another. ’Cause when you meet someone and they don’t, I get a little bit weirded out, like, ‘What have I been listening to? Are you lying to me?’” he says with a smile.
Taylor Goldsmith's Gear
Pictured here performing live in 2014, Taylor Goldsmith has been the primary songwriter for all of Dawes' records, beginning with 2009’s North Hills.
Photo by Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography
Guitars
- Fender Telecaster
- Gibson ES-345
- Radocaster (made by Wylie Gelber)
Amps
- ’64 Fender Deluxe
- Matchless Laurel Canyon
Effects
- 29 Pedals EUNA
- Jackson Audio Bloom
- Ibanez Tube Screamer with Keeley mod
- Vintage Boss Chorus
- Vintage Boss VB-2 Vibrato
- Strymon Flint
- Strymon El Capistan
Strings
- Ernie Ball .010s
In Goldsmith’s songwriting process, he explains that he’s learned to lean away from the inclination towards perfectionism. Paraphrasing something he heard Father John Misty share about Leonard Cohen, he says, “People think you’re cultivating these songs, or, ‘I wouldn’t deign to write something that’s beneath me,’ but the reality is, ‘I’m a rat, and I’ll take whatever I can possibly get, and then I’ll just try to get the best of it.’
“Ever since Misadventures of Doomscroller,” he adds, “I’ve enjoyed this quality of, rather than try to be a minimalist, I want to be a maximalist. I want to see how much a song can handle.” For the songs on Oh Brother, that meant that he decided to continue adding “more observations within the universe” of “Surprise!”, ultimately writing six verses. A similar approach to “King of the Never-Wills,” a ballad about a character suffering from alcoholism, resulted in four verses.
“The economy of songwriting that we’re all taught would buck that,” says Goldsmith. “It would insist that I only keep the very best and shed something that isn’t as good. But I’m not going to think economically. I’m not going to think, ‘Is this self-indulgent?’
Goldsmith’s songwriting has shifted thematically over the years, from more personal, introspective expression to more social commentary and, at times, even satire, in songs like We’re All Gonna Die’s “When the Tequila Runs Out.”
Photo by Mike White
“I don’t abide that term being applied to music. Because if there’s a concern about self-indulgence, then you’d have to dismiss all of jazz. All of it. You’d have to dismiss so many of my most favorite songs. Because in a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.” (He elaborates that, if Bob Dylan had trimmed back any of the verses on “Desolation Row,” it would have deprived him of the unique experience it creates for him when he listens to it.)
One of the joys of speaking with Goldsmith is just listening to his thought processes. When I ask him a question, he seems compelled to share every backstory to every detail that’s going through his head, in an effort to both do his insights justice and to generously provide me with the most complete answer. That makes him a bit verbose, but not in a bad way, because he never rambles. There is an endpoint to his thoughts. When he’s done, however, it takes me a second to realize that it’s then my turn to speak.
To his point on artistic self-indulgence, I offer that there’s no need for artists to feel “icky” about self-promotion—that to promote your art is to celebrate it, and to create a shared experience with your audience.
“I hear what you’re saying loud and clear; I couldn’t agree more,” Goldsmith replies. “But I also try to be mindful of this when I’m writing, like if I’m going to drag you through the mud of, ‘She left today, she’s not coming back, I’m a piece of shit, what’s wrong with me, the end’.... That might be relatable, that might evoke a response, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily helpful … other than dragging someone else through the shit with me.
“In a weird way, I feel like that’s the whole point—self-indulgence. And then obviously relating to someone else, to another human being.”
“So, if I’m going to share, I want there to be something to offer, something that feels like: ‘Here’s a path that’s helped me through this, or here’s an observation that has changed how I see this particular experience.’ It’s so hard to delineate between the two, but I feel like there is a difference.”
Naming the opening track “Mister Los Angeles,” “King of the Never-Wills,” and even the title track to his 2015 chart-topper, “All Your Favorite Bands,” he remarks, “I wouldn’t call these songs ‘cool.’ Like, when I hear what cool music is, I wouldn’t put those songs next to them [laughs]. But maybe this record was my strongest dose of just letting me be me, and recognizing what that essence is rather than trying to force out certain aspects of who I am, and force in certain aspects of what I’m not. I think a big part of writing these songs was just self-acceptance,” he concludes, laughing, “and just a whole lot of fishing.”
YouTube It
Led by Goldsmith, Dawes infuses more rock power into their folk sound live at the Los Angeles Ace Hotel in 2023.
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