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→Wiring
This uses a volume/tone knob setup that applies to all pickups.
===Ibanez Jem- Super Strat+===The Jem uses neck and bridge humbuckers (in serial) for a strong high-gain tone, capable of heavy distorted rhythms and leads. Guitars resembling the Fender Stratocaster but with humbuckers to focus on distorted sounds are called Super Strats and were very popular in the 80's. But it also has a middle position single coil pickup for sweeter tones. And to get even more versatility, position 2 uses the inner coil of the neck humbucker in combination with the middle pickup. Position 4 does the same but with the inner coil of the bridge humbucker. These pairs of pickups are wound in different directions, creating a parallel humbucker exactly like the original Stratocaster wiring. So positions 1 and 5 sound like humbuckers, while positions 2-4 sound like single coils, with positions 2 and 4 having hum canceling. Again, it uses the a pair of volume/tone knob on knobs for all pickups.
===EBMM JP6===
The EBMM JP6 comes with bridge and neck humbuckers and a 3-way toggle switch. The bridge and neck positions on the switch select bridge and neck humbuckers (operating in serial), respectively. The middle position is a bit unique, though. Typically, the middle position is simply both humbuckers mixed together (they both operate in serial, but are combined in parallel). This gets you a tone that is a combination of their individual sounds. This was not terribly versatile, so EBMM put a twist on this and made the middle position use only the inner coils from both humbuckers. These inner coils combine to make a parallel humbucker that gets a nice single-coil-esque tone, but with no hum/noise. Great for cleans, especially strumming.
Some JP6's have an additional Piezo-pickup-equipped bridge. This creates additional complexity. The guitar has an extra 3-way toggle switch on the top horn. This selects between piezo, magnetic, or both. Additionally, the guitar has 2 output jacks. When in use, one sends the piezo output and the other the magnetics, allowing you to use both simultaneously while routing them to completely different pieces of gear and processing. There are 3 knobs on the guitar - the standard volume/tone, which applies to magnetics only, and one for piezo volume.
I swapped out the Dimarzio Steve's Special/Air Norton originally installed with JP's more current pickups: the Dimarzio Crunch Lab and Liquifire.
| Middle || Pulled || Pulled || Neck and Bridge operating like single coils - a "bigger" tone than just the neck in parallel, but a bit harsh
|}
===Gibson Les Paul - Independent Volume/Tone===
Gibson Les Pauls often come with 2 humbuckers, a 3-way switch, and 4 knobs. The humbuckers are wired to always operate in series, with the 3-way selecting bridge, neck, or both pickups. The knobs are volume and tone knobs, one set for each pickup. This allows greater versatility with the middle position - one pickup can be made more prominent than the other by adjusting relative volume, or can be used to add darkness/brightness to the tone by adjusting the tone and volume knobs. Or you can designate one pickup as the "rhythm" pickup with a lower volume for a cleaner sound, and the other as the "lead" pickup with higher volume to be louder or distort more and stand out. Then instead of switching amp channels/patches, you can just toggle which pickup you are using.
===Ibanez TAM100===
This is a bizarre wiring scheme. Like the Jem, it has 2 humbuckers and a middle single coil, but here the middle coil is not wired to operate by itself, only to "sweeten up" other pickups. Essentially, it is the same as the Jem's 5-way selector, except position 3 is both the neck and bridge pickups instead of the middle pickup. Positions 2 and 4 use one of the coils from one of the humbuckers plus the middle single-coil, with hum-canceling. There is also a mini-toggle switch that causes the humbuckers to operate as single-coil pickups. When using this mode and selecting position 3, you get the two humbuckers out-of-phase, for yet another wildly different sound.
===Treble Bleed===
A treble bleed is a circuit designed to provide more consistent tonal output as you lower the volume knob. Without a treble bleed, the tone will lose more high frequencies relative to low frequencies as you roll the volume knob towards 0, causing the tone to become "dull". Sometimes this effect is desirable, but usually it is not. A treble bleed is relatively simple to install, and the parts cost about $1.
==Actives vs. Passives==
==Major Brands/Models==