Parallel Wiring vs Series Wiring: Explained & Demo’d

Parallel Wiring vs Series Wiring: Explained & Demo’d

Parallel wiring is the standard way most guitars are wired. The dc resistance output when two pickups are in parallel is: (neck pickup X bridge pickup) divided by (neck pickup + bridge pickup). If both pickups are 8k dc resistance, the output in parallel is 4k.

In series wiring, the signal goes from one pickup into the other, essentially functioning as one big humbucker. The dc resistance output when two pickups are in series is: neck pickup + bridge pickup. If both pickups are 8k dc resistance, the output in parallel is 16k.

2002 Epiphone Les Paul (Korea)
Alternate Dimension P150 neck pickup and Alternate Dimension bridge P90 through 250k CTS pots, Bourns 250k push/pull pot, TonePros roller tune-o-matic, and a (stock) licensed Bigsby tremolo played with Curt Mangan Strings. Run directly into a Bugera V5 guitar amp used as a head to power an early 1990s Peavey 4X12, mic’d with a Shure SM57 through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo into my iPhone 12 MAX PRO and edited in iMovie. No additional equipment, filtering, or effects were used.

Alternate Dimension P150 neck — 3.3k - alnico V
Alternate Dimension P90 bridge — 9.6k - alnico V
Both pickups in parallel — 2.45k
Both pickups in series — 12.2k
(dc resistance measured with multimeter through all the electronics; not calculated using the formula)

www.StonewallPickups.com