In case you missed it, I bought a Squier Starcaster in 2019 and immediately fell in love with it.
But I also wanted to make it better.
First, I did a simple update to the wiring, which you can see here.
And now, once again with the help of Gunstreet Wiring, I’ve updated the wiring again. This time, with coil splits, the ability to go out of phase, and the ability to go all parallel.
It’s called the Black Dog Wiring Harness, and here are the details of it from Sean at Gunstreet Wiring.
In Treble/Bridge position you can use three of the controls.
- Bridge Volume-Coil Cut: When this control engages it changes the bBridge pickup from a hum canceling humbucker to a single coil
- Bridge Tone-Phasing: When you engage the Bridge tone you flip the humbuckers wiring. The hot output becomes the ground, the ground becomes the hot. The sound now passes through the pickup in reverse.
- Neck Tone-Kill Switch: When you engage what would be the parallel in treble position you get a cool kill switch/output limiter
The Middle Position is the most versatile when using the controls.
- Volume Controls-Coil Cut: When these controls engage it changes the pickups from a hum canceling humbucker to a single coil and even a giant humbucker.
- Bridge Tone-Phasing: When you engage the bridge tone you flip the bridge humbuckers wiring. the hot output becomes the ground, the ground becomes the hot. The bridges sound passes through in reverse of the neck pickups.
- Neck Tone-Parallel: When you engage the parallel you hear the two humbuckers turn into four single coils creating a more fuller sound.
Rhythm/Neck position is limited to only two controls as it allows you to use the Neck Volume, and Neck tone.
- Neck Volume-Coil Cut: When this control engages it changes the neck pickup from a hum canceling humbucker to a single coil.
- Neck Tone-Parallel: When you engage the parallel you hear the neck humbucker turn from one big coil to two single coils creating a more fuller sound.
Guitar is Squier Classic Vibe Starcaster with stock pickups.
Amp is Strymon Iridium (round, b)
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Video Transcript
Note: a machine made this, so it’s not perfect, but if you’re hearing impaired and have any questions about what we said, please feel free to ask us in the comments or send us an email with the form below.
Hey, I’m Emily from get offset. And I’m finally back with another video of my Squire starcaster. This has gone through a few iterations. The first video I had of it was just completely stocked right out of the box, very new instruments. And this is I think the third video I’m doing. So the second video I got with my friend, Sean, from gunstreet wiring.
[00:00:27] And we just said a general upgrade of the wiring. So I think the big difference there was switching to 200 from two 50 to 500, uh, pots in the tone, which I thought gave it a much better fuller sound. And it’s way more affordable mod than buying new pickups, which is really expensive though. Often worth it.
[00:00:50] Uh, so. When I talked to Sean, we always agree that I would do two videos. I just want a simple upgrade and I wanted to do something wild. And the wildest thing he does is what he calls the black dog wiring harness. It’s great for two humbucker guitars and there’s a lot going on so much so that I, uh, I took notes.
[00:01:17] I take notes to so that I would know what was, what, so depending on the position, these pots push and pool to do different things and. Each one’s assigned different depending on the position. So we’re going to start here. What’s called the trouble position of the neck.
[00:01:45] What types of room sound I’m using the strive at Iridium I’m using the round, the setting, which is my favorite.
[00:01:57] And, uh, let’s start with the bridge volume, the bridge volume
[00:02:07] right there.
[00:02:16] the bridge volume.
[00:02:23] Okay. So then I turn off the bridge, right.
[00:02:31] And let’s see here it, as in coil
[00:03:09] so next, we are going to pull the bridge tone, which is a phasing. Yeah,
[00:03:21] so that changes, um, just puts a phase. It means the ground is now hot in the hottest ground. Is that. General idea I get of it. So I’d say yes
[00:03:48] and then it’s apparently the neck tone is like,
[00:03:56] Neat some next we’re going to, I’m just going to go to the,
[00:04:13] so the neck volume, just like the bridge volume is a quail cut.
[00:04:41] nice. And then the tone pot is a parallel. So instead of having to. I said having a humbucker, you have two single coils that run parallel
[00:05:05] You can combine that by also cutting liquid.
[00:05:12] All right. So NEC has a little with that. And then the middle position has the most stuff. So, or just a quote, a next single coil or the bridge humbucker
[00:05:34] you could have it the other way round.
[00:05:42] good. Have both single coils.
[00:05:48] that sound compared to a 200 buckers
[00:06:03] I think more of the fault of the pots than either myself or the wiring. So let’s just slap that back on there. I have another guitar that I have, um, put Sue grew on and the little knobby things here when they don’t fit. Right. And I worked with Sean. I know that this should be the correct size pots for these knobs, but somehow quite work.
[00:06:38] So next is the, uh, bridge. And that goes back to that phase.
[00:07:02] That was out of it. And then we have the parallel thing going on with the neck tone. Now, again,
[00:07:13] parallel and that’s,
[00:07:23] so that’s everything I’m going to crank up the gain here a bit.
[00:07:38] single coils in here.
[00:08:21] Two single coils.
[00:08:47] Marshall’s.
[00:10:11] Yeah,
[00:12:47] And that’s in a few minutes, this is the black dog wiring harness from gunshot wiring. Hit Sean up and tell him I sent you. He’s a great human. And he has helped me a lot. Wiring these guys up, not always so easy, especially with the, uh, apples here. Um, but whether you’re new to soldering and wiring or a pro at it, he makes it so easy.
[00:13:16] He’s very available to help in troubleshooting. And I cannot recommend his work enough. Uh, he is a gem and I think y’all should support him. And you know what. He didn’t pay me to do any of this. So I bought this wiring harness myself and I installed it and had him help. And I’m very happy with it. So check them out.
[00:13:38] I really love Gumtree wiring and this wiring harness and enables me to basically have multiple guitars and the same guitar, which is so important for shows when shows come back. Thank you. Like subscribe and leave a comment. If you will. Uh, thanks so much and have a great rest of your day.