Here’s a schematic of one of these switches, with the connectors N, M and B shown left to right. This is usually called a “three-throw” switch. In each switch position, the common contact is electrically connected to one of the switchable contacts. The core of a blade switch is a mechanism that provides a “common” contact, and then a number of “switchable” contacts – in this case, three (one for each position of the switch). I’ll refer to these positions on the switch as N, M and B for Neck, Middle and Bridge. The standard Telecaster switch is a three-position switch that is wired to give us the three combinations we want: neck pickup, neck and bridge pickups together, and bridge pickup. This is the type of switch you most commonly see on Fender guitars. There are two types of switch commonly used for this purpose. Now that we can switch between our two pickups, let’s advance to the point where we can also choose to have both pickups active at the same time. So we would use a switch where both pickups are connected in the “in-between” phase of using the switch, to provide a smooth transition between sounds. If we used a switch that worked like that, then the effect of moving the switch would be like unplugging the guitar and plugging it in again – and you’d hear a short silence followed by a pop (or perhaps a bang if you’re playing loud). This diagram would appear to suggest that while the switch is being moved, there would be a brief time when neither pickup would be connected. When the switch is in each position, the respective pickup is connected to the volume control. Schematically, the switching would look something like this: Let’s start with a two-pickup system, and a two-way switch that allows us to select between the two pickups. We can also take it as read that the ground wires from all pickups will go straight to a grounding point (like the back of the volume pot) without getting involved with any switching. We’ll continue with that setup, except that when we add additional pickups, we’ll control which ones are connected to the volume control. So far we’ve had one pickup connected to the volume control and then the volume control sends output to the jack. This time we’re going to look at multi-pickup systems. At the end of the last post, we had a 1-pickup circuit with a volume and tone control.
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