Wiring and Technical Information
A simple drop in replacement using the existing wiring in your guitar is always suggested.
For Bill Lawrence's Hand drawn Wiring Diagrams, Click on any of the links or use your own favorite diagram by following our color code.
Color Code for Wilde and Keystone Pickups
Single Coil Size for Strat
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All Pickups with White/Black/Blue Wires
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All Pickups with White/Black/Red/Green/Blue Wires
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Single Coil Size for Strat
- Neck -- White Wire Hot/Black Wire Ground
- Middle -- Green Wire Hot/Black Wire Ground
- Bridge -- Red Wire Hot/Black Wire Ground
All Pickups with White/Black/Blue Wires
- White Wire -- Hot
- Black/ Blue Wires -- Ground
All Pickups with White/Black/Red/Green/Blue Wires
- White Wire -- Hot
- Black/Blue Wires -- Ground
- Red/Green Wires -- Twist together, insulate with shrink wrap or electrical tape for humbucking OR solder to either a push/pull or on/off switch for split coil.
Height Adjustment (from Pickupology):
The distance between pickup and string is a very important factor for output and sound.
As a general rule for the bridge pickup - put a nickel on top of the pickup under the high E string and play the highest note on that string. Adjust the height on that side of the pickup till the string touches the nickel. Repeat the same with the low E string, but use two nickels on top of each other. If this gives you too much output, you can reduce the height slightly. Don't forget that twice the distance will reduce the output by about 60%, and the sound will lose some lows. NOW, you can adjust the neck pickup to match the output of the bridge pickup. For the sound test, use stage volume.
Height Adjustment for Steel Guitars:
A good starting point for pickup height adjustment:
Start with 1/8th" spacing at the high strings and 3/16th" spacing at the low strings, and then you can raise or lower the pickup accordingly, depending on the instrument, your style of playing, etc. - until it sounds right to your ears.
Wiring Info for Q-filter
We offer two ways of wiring:
1. Standard Q-tone --The filter takes the place of the standard cap at the tone control.
2.Push-Pull or On Off Switch -- 1st Position is the standard tone and the 2nd position is the q-tone
What Capicators and Resistors should I use?
With Bill's pickups and for simplicity, you can usually try the existing wiring in your guitar as a drop-in replacement. The standard cap is .022mf in most cases. Bill's pickups are very versatile, and most of them can be wired to either 250K or 500K pots which is an easy way to mod their sound. The models over a certain inductance range, like the L-500XL, we advise 500K pots or higher. Because Bill calculates all his pickups to avoid a certain harsh midrange peak, the sweet highs are a prominent feature! As a market standard, 250K pots are for singles and 500K pots are for humbuckers. However, Bill personally, as a player, starts with 500K pots on his guitars for both singles and humbuckers. If he needs to reduce its value, he'll wire a resistor over it. For example, a 500K resistor wired over a 500K control will reduce it to 250K.