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→Wiring
I don't recommend trying to get every possible pickup sound out of a single guitar. Here's the wirings I've used for my guitars:
=== Common Wirings === =====Classic Stratocaster=====
My Yamaha Pacifica originally came with a bridge humbucker and two single coil pickups. This is a nice setup - the bridge humbucker is good for heavier distortion tones, but you still have the middle, middle + neck (hum canceling), and neck positions for a decent variety of single coil tones. Unfortunately the stock pickups were not great, so I switched them for a pair of humbuckers. I've since gotten other guitars that do the hard rock sound much better, so this is transformed back to the classic Stratocaster setup with 3 single-coils.
The real Stratocaster uses one volume and two tone knobs - one tone knob is dedicated to the neck pickup and the other to both middle and bridge, volume applies to all pickups. Mine just has a single tone knob.
=====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 a pair of volume/tone 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.
I swapped out the Dimarzio Steve's Special/Air Norton originally installed with JP's more current pickups: the Dimarzio Crunch Lab and Liquifire.
=====Ibanez RGA8 - Versatile Setup=====
The stock pickups in this guitar were the worst I've ever heard on any guitar. They were replaced by a pair of Dimarzio D'Activators - very aggressive humbuckers. I wanted a versatile setup with these, so I used push/pull volume/tone pots with DPDT switches. So not only do my volume and tone knobs work by twisting them, they can actually be toggled by pulling them out or pushing them in. Each switch is wired to one pickup, so it controls whether the pickup is using parallel or serial operation. This gives all of the following options:
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=====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 inner coils of the humbuckers out-of-phase, for yet another wildly different sound.