Wiring Wizard
Pick a pickup layout to see a signal-flow wiring diagram, switch-position table, and control layout for that configuration.
Pickup Layout
2 Humbuckers, 3-Way Toggle (Les Paul-style)
Wire Key
- Hot — main signal into a control
- Signal — output after that control
- Tap — a parallel feed (tone control, coil-split)
- Ground
Wire colour by pickup
- Neck pickup
- Bridge pickup
Diagram
Click any wire or connection in the diagram to see what it does and why.
Reading This Diagram
Reading a pot's lugs
Viewed from the solder-lug side (the back of the pot) with the shaft pointing up — the orientation shown here, and the standard StewMac / Seymour Duncan / DiMarzio convention — the three lugs fan out along the bottom: lug 1 (left) is always ground, lug 2 (centre) is always the wiper — the one electrical point that actually moves as you turn the knob — and lug 3 (right) is the input on a volume pot, but unused in this standard tone-control wiring.
Reading a switch's terminals
Toggle and blade switches don't have lug numbers printed on the part itself, and different manufacturers' own diagrams number the same switch differently — so terminals here are labeled by what they do instead of a lug number. An "in" terminal is where one pickup's hot signal enters the switch. "out" (or "common out" on a 5-way blade) is where the signal for whichever pickup(s) are currently selected continues on to the volume pot — click that wire, or the switch itself, to see exactly which position(s) light it up.
The colors and dash patterns here are this diagram's own key (see Wire key above), not your actual pickup's wire colors — those are specific to each manufacturer's own code (Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Fender etc. all use different colors for the same "hot"/"ground"/"coil tap" roles), so a generic diagram claiming to show one brand's colors would often be wrong for your actual pickups. Check your pickups' own documentation, or see Seymour Duncan's wiring diagram library (seymourduncan.com/resources/pickup/wiring-diagrams) and DiMarzio's equivalent for brand-specific color-coded diagrams.
Controls & Switch Positions
Controls: 2 Volume + 2 Tone (independent per pickup)
| Position | Active pickups |
|---|---|
| Up | Neck only |
| Middle | Neck + Bridge together |
| Down | Bridge only |
Standard/common wiring for this configuration — plenty of real guitars use variants (different tone-control routing, added series/parallel switching, treble-bleed mods). Verify against your specific pickups’ colour code before soldering.
Wiring Wizard
- Pickup layoutHH
- Push-pull coil-splitNo
2 Humbuckers, 3-Way Toggle (Les Paul-style)
Wire Key
- Hot — main signal into a control
- Signal — output after that control
- Tap — a parallel feed (tone control, coil-split)
- Ground
Wire colour by pickup
- Neck pickup
- Bridge pickup
Diagram
Reading This Diagram
Reading a pot's lugs
Viewed from the solder-lug side (the back of the pot) with the shaft pointing up — the orientation shown here, and the standard StewMac / Seymour Duncan / DiMarzio convention — the three lugs fan out along the bottom: lug 1 (left) is always ground, lug 2 (centre) is always the wiper — the one electrical point that actually moves as you turn the knob — and lug 3 (right) is the input on a volume pot, but unused in this standard tone-control wiring.
Reading a switch's terminals
Toggle and blade switches don't have lug numbers printed on the part itself, and different manufacturers' own diagrams number the same switch differently — so terminals here are labeled by what they do instead of a lug number. An "in" terminal is where one pickup's hot signal enters the switch. "out" (or "common out" on a 5-way blade) is where the signal for whichever pickup(s) are currently selected continues on to the volume pot — click that wire, or the switch itself, to see exactly which position(s) light it up.
The colors and dash patterns here are this diagram's own key (see Wire key above), not your actual pickup's wire colors — those are specific to each manufacturer's own code (Seymour Duncan, DiMarzio, Fender etc. all use different colors for the same "hot"/"ground"/"coil tap" roles), so a generic diagram claiming to show one brand's colors would often be wrong for your actual pickups. Check your pickups' own documentation, or see Seymour Duncan's wiring diagram library (seymourduncan.com/resources/pickup/wiring-diagrams) and DiMarzio's equivalent for brand-specific color-coded diagrams.
Controls & Switch Positions
Controls: 2 Volume + 2 Tone (independent per pickup)
| Position | Active pickups |
|---|---|
| Up | Neck only |
| Middle | Neck + Bridge together |
| Down | Bridge only |
Standard/common wiring for this configuration — plenty of real guitars use variants (different tone-control routing, added series/parallel switching, treble-bleed mods). Verify against your specific pickups’ colour code before soldering.