10 Essential Wiring Tips

1. The Telecaster Bridge Ground

When you have a Telecaster bridge pickup with a metal baseplate underneath, whether copper or steel, there is no need for an additional ground wire. The bridge is already grounded through the mounting screws and the pickup’s own ground connection. Adding another ground wire simply creates a useless ground loop that can potentially introduce extra noise.

2. Never Connect Something Twice

Every connection should be unique. Anything already making physical contact does not need another wire connecting it again. Use a multimeter in continuity mode to check whether two points that should be connected are actually making contact.

3. Potentiometer Casing Grounding

In most cases, grounding the potentiometer casings with additional wires is unnecessary. On Stratocasters, for example, there is usually an aluminium shielding sheet beneath the pickguard that automatically connects all the pot casings together. Musiclily pickguards in particular feature a very large, high quality shielding layer.

Likewise, on Telecasters or any instrument using a metal control plate, there is no need to connect the pot casings together with wires because the metal plate itself already does the job. Still, always verify continuity with a multimeter. Occasionally, certain control plates or shielding materials fail to make proper contact. This sometimes happens with black coated control plates, for instance. In those cases, simply use a small file to scrape a little metal near the potentiometer holes to expose bare metal. Once exposed, the grounds will connect properly again.

The same principle also applies to some hardtail bridges. Your multimeter is your best friend. Use it.

Figure 1: You can test the ground connection even pointing one lead of the multimeter to the bridge plate and the other to the jack ground. There should be perfect continuity.

Gibson-style wiring is a different matter entirely. Normally there is no metal plate beneath the potentiometers linking the casings together, so the pot casings do require a dedicated ground connection. Personally, I use the shielding braid of the vintage style Musiclily output wire to link all the casings together.

Be careful not to create a ground loop here. With traditional vintage braided wire, the two volume pots are usually already connected together. You only need to connect the braided shield to one of the volume pots, then continue through the tone controls and finally to the output jack. Not only does this create a neat grounding chain, but it also helps secure the output wire in place and prevents accidental short circuits.

4. Stick to the Plan

Copy and learn.

Study hundreds of existing wiring layouts to understand how problems are solved and how proper connections are made. Personally, I studied thousands of vintage instrument wirings in order to learn the most common layouts, especially Gibson circuits. The internet is an endless cathedral of beautiful wiring photographs. Search for them, study them, and recreate them.

Figure 2: Notice how there are just 3 ground wires: the neck and bridge grounds and the jack ground. There is no need to ground the bridge or connect both pot cases. Test anyway with multimeter to be sure that there is perfect connection.

5. Be Smart

Even when copying a wiring layout from the internet, do it intelligently. A wiring job that already looks perfect can often still be improved to make it even cleaner and more efficient.

6. Shielding Is Not Always Necessary

Completely shielding the electronics cavity is not always a wise choice. Shielding exists primarily to combat RF interference, in other words when your guitar starts picking up radio signals.

Otherwise, shielding simply adds capacitance to the circuit.

Some people claim that shielding makes a guitar “quieter”. Technically this happens because all that added copper increases the amount of the overall mass to the ground. However, if your grounding scheme is already properly executed, shielding is often unnecessary. The guitar can be just as quiet without it.

7. Capacitors

The first thing worth saying is that the tone capacitor only significantly affects the circuit when the tone controls are rolled down. When the tone knobs are fully open, the capacitor’s influence becomes so minimal that it is practically negligible.

Another myth worth dismantling is the idea that capacitor type dramatically changes the sound. Technically speaking, the differences are so small that preferring one type over another makes little sense. Still, if we want to become delightfully obsessive, certain capacitor types do exhibit subtle characteristics.

Ceramic capacitors tend to produce a rather aggressive cut. Orange Drops often feel particularly smooth and rounded. Oil capacitors usually create a very gradual, warm roll-off. Tropical Fish capacitors can produce a tighter filtering effect reminiscent of a wah pedal. The differences, however, are extremely subtle and difficult to appreciate while actually playing.

That said, there is nothing irrational about preferring a ceramic capacitor over an expensive Bumblebee. On certain builds, particularly high end instruments, choosing one capacitor over another may simply feel right despite the additional cost.

Personally, I installed 15nF Centralab Bumblebee capacitors from Musiclily in my Les Pauls and noticed an enormous difference in sound, alongside a gloriously vintage appearance. Placebo? Perhaps. But I love both the sound and the aesthetics, and that is more than enough.

Capacitor value, however, genuinely matters. The higher the value, the more high frequencies are removed. I strongly recommend experimenting with lower values because 10nF to 15nF capacitors can open an entirely new sonic landscape by removing only the upper treble while preserving the mids. The result can be wonderfully unique.

Experiment especially with low values if you normally leave your tone controls fully open because you dislike how the guitar sounds when the tones are rolled off. I personally only began using tone controls regularly after experimenting with lower capacitor values.

Otherwise, if it keeps your soul content, stick with vintage standards:

• 100nF on Stratocasters
• 47nF on Telecasters
• 22nF on Gibson guitars

The important thing is being happy with your instrument.

8. Potentiometers

The volume control should ALWAYS use an Audio or Logarithmic taper potentiometer. A linear taper on volume behaves almost like an ON/OFF switch, removing nearly all gradual response.

Figure 3: Notice how the ground chain goes from the upper volume, to the upper tone, to the lower tone and, finally to the jack. If you use Musiclily vintage Gibson style wire there is no need to connect the lower volume case to the ground. It automatically connects by the pickup and switch wires.

For tone controls, both Linear and Logarithmic pots can work perfectly well.

Personally, I tend to follow what Fender and Gibson used during their golden years. Leo Fender generally used logarithmic pots throughout, whereas Gibson typically used logarithmic pots for volume and linear pots for tone controls. Still, none of this is sacred law. Experiment and decide what feels best to you.

Regarding values, 250kΩ is typically used for single coils and 500kΩ for humbuckers. These remain the most common choices. Historically, however, Leo Fender also used 1MΩ potentiometers on certain instruments.

As a general rule, the higher the resistance value, the brighter and more aggressive the tone becomes.

Musiclily offers an enormous range of potentiometers for every possible requirement, including Vintage Taper logarithmic pots that provide a particularly smooth sweep. I discovered them fairly recently myself and they feel wonderful on vintage inspired instruments thanks to their gradual response.

For wirings that combine single coils and humbuckers, it is possible to add a 470kΩ resistor to the single coil positions in order to effectively “convert” 500kΩ pots into 250kΩ only for those positions.

Figure 4: If you are forced to make a ground chain between pot cases in Gibson style 4 pots wiring because you use modern wire NEVER make ground loops and stick to this schematic.

9. Treble Bleed

Personally, I do not enjoy installing Treble Bleed circuits systematically on every instrument. Treble Bleeds are fantastic, but I dislike them on vintage style instruments. On modern guitars, however, they can be wonderful because they preserve high frequencies when rolling down the volume.

This is purely a matter of taste.

Musiclily offers Treble Bleed solutions for every preference imaginable. Experimenting costs very little. Trust your own ears and choose whatever truly works for you.

10. Soldering and Wiring

The most important skill is learning to distinguish a good solder joint from a bad one. Once you understand what a proper solder joint looks like, you can immediately tell whether your soldering is good or terrible.

Learning to solder is actually very simple, though surprisingly few people truly know how to do it properly.

A good solder joint appears smooth, shiny, and fully covers all the parts being connected.

Be especially careful with potentiometer casings. Applying too much heat to the casing can easily fry the internal track and permanently destroy the potentiometer.

Many solder joints can feel frustrating and may convince you that soldering is impossibly difficult. Most of the time, however, the problem lies not with your technique but with the solder or the iron itself.

Ironically, despite owning large professional soldering stations complete with smoke extraction systems, hot air stations for SMD work, and every technological convenience imaginable, I still almost exclusively use a cheap 40 or 60 watt soldering iron. Always have.

Solder quality matters enormously. A good 60/40 solder containing decent flux usually solves nearly every soldering issue.

Fair warning: soldering is a craft designed for people with three hands. Normally you must hold the solder, the iron, and the components simultaneously. Thankfully, experience gradually teaches you how to work around this. Sometimes a simple crocodile clip or even a bit of tape can hold components in place perfectly well.

There is only one proper soldering procedure:

• Position all the components together first
• Heat them with the soldering iron
• Apply the solder
• Keep the iron on the molten solder briefly so it bonds properly
• Remove the iron and allow the joint to cool naturally without blowing on it

That is the only correct method.

Solder should always be applied directly to the heated components in a single pass. You do not first melt solder onto the iron and then attempt to reheat it later with the components pressed into it.

As for Musiclily wires, they once again come to the rescue with excellent cloth covered vintage style wiring: pre-tinned, sturdy, and correctly gauged.

The only advice I would give is to avoid wiring with cables that are either excessively long or cut precisely to the millimetre. Experience eventually teaches the ideal length.

The one connection where extra slack is genuinely useful is the output jack. On guitars with separate control plates or pickguards, such as a Telecaster, leaving a little additional wire allows you to lift the assembly later for inspection without stress.

The single most difficult solder joint in guitar wiring is grounding the tremolo claw. Very often the solder seems unwilling to adhere to the metal at all.

There is a secret to making that solder joint work properly: remove the tremolo springs first.

If the springs remain attached while soldering, they absorb the heat from the iron and prevent the claw itself from reaching the necessary temperature.

One final consideration: cloth covered “push-back” wires are called that for a very specific reason. They are not meant to be stripped. The outer cloth insulation is simply pushed backwards in order to expose the inner conductor.

When the wires are particularly short, it is often possible to slide the entire cloth sleeve backwards and trim away the excess. If the wire is longer, the insulation should simply be pushed back temporarily and, once the solder joint is complete, slid forwards again until it nearly covers the solder point.

Do not attempt to use a wire stripper. It will only lead to frustration because traditional vintage style cloth “push-back” wire simply does not work that way.