Installing new pickups is one of the most common ways to upgrade a guitar. It’s a straightforward and very gratifying way to improve the sound, and often changes the look too. It’s also a chance to add more sonic features, like coil splitting or out of phase sounds.
The Guitar
The customer had a Woodrite Switchblade that he loved but wasn’t happy with the sound. With its Jazzmaster-style layout there were lots of options! The customer had already decided they wanted Fishman Fluence Signature Series Tosin Abasi pickups installed, but we had to chat about how to use all those switches. There needed to be balance between options and functionality.
The Pickups
The Tosin Abasi Signature Set is unique in the way it makes multiple coil combinations available, in conjunction with the different voices. Even the magnetic circuit is tuned, with pole pieces and a blade magnet combined in the neck position for authentic single coil interaction.
Fluence pickups are very versatile, with options to switch voicing between a regular PAF style humbucker and a higher gain modern sound, plus wiring for coil split to sound like single coils. With so many options, we had to decide which switches would be used. The final decision was to have the upper switch split the coils on both pickups, and one of the lower switches take care of the two voices. The other two switches would switch each pickup on or off, and the knobs would stay as volume and tone controls. The roller knobs on the upper bout would be unwired.
Wiring
Now I had to draw up a diagram and start rewiring. Fluence pickups have very handy colour coded wiring to make it easy. At one end, the wires have a plug that slides into the underside of the pickup. The pickups come with pots of the correct impedance. You can’t use standard 500k pots for active pickups.
Fluence pickups are active and require a 9V battery, so I also had to route for a battery box on the back of the guitar. Wiring the negative wire from the battery clip to the ring on the stereo output jack allows the power to be turned off when the guitar is unplugged.
Results
The guitar then needed a setup with 12-gauge Ernie Ball strings. The result was one fantastic sounding (and looking) guitar and one very happy customer.