Push-Pull Pot Power!
A Push-Pull Pot can add a ton of versatility to your guitar! They are a great way to add a switch, or other cool mods without modifying your guitar too much. You can use them to reverse the phase, split a Humbucker, or trick your guitar out in a fresh way. They can be a little tricky to wrap your head around, but once you get the basics, they are easy to understand.
Table of contents
A Push-Pull Pot, in its most basic definition, is a Potentiometer, attached on top of a Switch.
We refer to the switch as a DPDT (Double Pole, Double Throw) Switch. ‘DPDT’ means the switch has two separate “poles”, or sides to it.
If you’re not familiar with how pots work, we recommend going back to Part 1 and check out our article on pots here.
The Basics of Push-Pull Pots
The Pot
There are two components of a Push-Pull Pot: the Pot and the Switch. Even though they look combined, they are actually separate. As described in our previous article, the Pot is a variable resistor. It has a resistance strip and a sweeper to choose the resistance. Lug 1 is the start of the resistance strip, and Lug 3 is the end. Lug 2, or the middle lug, is the sweeper.
The other part of the Push-Pull pot is the Switch. The DPDT switch has two sides. Side 1 (A – B – C) is entirely independent of Side 2 (D – E – F).
We refer to the center lugs, B and E, as the “common” or inputs of the switch – they stay connected all the time. See below for an illustration of the Commons:
The Switch
There are two separate sides of the switch (hence the ‘double’ in Double Pole, Double Throw). We can call them Side A & Side B. The Selector connects the different terminals on each side. Check it out:
When pushed down, the Selector is selecting the bottom four lugs (B-C-E-F).
- B connects to C
- E connects to F
When pulled up, the Selector slides up and is now selecting the top four lugs (A-B-D-E).
- B connects to A
- E connects to D.
- As you can see, B and E stay connected.
Push Pull Pot Examples
Coil Splitting
Coil Splitting is just one of the many things you can do with a push-pull pot and is a great place to start our understanding of them. You can use Coil Splitting to turn a Humbucker into a Single Coil by sending one of its coils to ground.
For illustration, we drew this out for you below. We used both sides of the switch to illustrate two points:
- It shows how to wire up 3-Conductor and 4-Conductor, and
- It shows that you can tap two separate humbuckers with the same switch, by using both sides.
HOW IT WORKS:
- When the Push-Pull Pot is pushed down, The humbucker is working like normal.
- When the Push-Pull Pot is pulled up, the “Tap” (Red on 3 Conductor, Red, and Green Tied Together on 4-Conductor) is sent to ground, “Shorting out” the coil. The entire Casing of the pot should be grounded, so theoretically, you can ground any wire off of the switch by just running a jumper to the casing.
Partial Coil Splitting
Coil Splitting can sound great on higher output humbuckers, like our Modern P.A.F., and our High Output Humbucker. But what if you have a low-output humbucker, like our Pure P.A.F.? Fear not. You can “Partially Split” the coil, with our Partial Tap Resistor.
How it Works:
When you pull up on the push-pull pot, B connects to A, and your Slug Coil will be sent to ground, only this time, it goes through a resistor. This prevents the whole signal from being grounded by putting a partial short across the coil, instead of a full short. In turn, you’re getting a stronger single-coil sound from your humbucker when split.
PHASE REVERSING
Phase Reversing is a neat little trick when you want to reverse the coil direction of your pickup.
Some find this sonically pleasing, mainly when used with a Blender Pot, which will roll in the pickup’s phase – pretty cool! To do this, you need 2-Conductor Wire. Remember to ground the Shield (Bare). Here’s how to wire this up:
How it Works:
When the switch is in the down position, White connects to White (Terminals E > F), Black connects to Black on Terminals B > C. When pulled up, The phase reverses!
Push-Pull Pot Mods
Two-Tone Caps, One Push-Pull Pot
This mod is pretty cool! With this mod, you can use two different tone caps with one push-pull pot. When pushed down, you can have to say, a .02mfd Cap, and when pulled up, you can have a Fralin Magic Cap, or vice-versa!
How it works:
- The Signal enters the Pot at Lug 2.
- The Sweeper, Lug 2, is connected to one side of the switch, at point E. (This whole thing can be reversed).
- When Pushed Down, the Signal is being sent through Terminal F. When Pulled Up, the Signal is being sent through Terminal D.
- The other side of the switch is Grounded. When you roll the Tone Pot, more of your highs are being sent to Ground, via whichever cap value you choose.
Engage Treble Bleed
Our Fralin Volume Kit is a great Treble Bleed circuit. If you’re not familiar, the Volume Kit keeps your high frequencies intact as you roll the volume down.
Country, Blues, and Rock guitarists love this as it keeps their crisp highs when they roll down the volume. But what if you need more versatility? Here’s how you can engage it by pulling up on the Push-Pull Pot: When pushed down, your volume knob will act like normal – it will bleed treble to ground. Pulling up on your Push Pull Pot sends your signal through the Volume Kit – your guitar keeps its shimmer!
How it works:
- When pushed down, your signal is entering through lug A, but it ends there, as it doesn’t have anywhere to go.
- Pulling up, A > B connect, and E > D are now connected, connecting the Volume Kit to your circuit.
If you want to reverse this, simply move the Connector Wires (two cream wires in the photo above) to Lugs C & F. This will remove the Volume Kit when you pull up.
Bright Switch
The “Bright Switch” is a simple mod that adds a little extra Treble to your signal.
The Bright Switch works by removing your Volume Pot and Tone Pot from your signal path, which always “load” your signal. Mostly, it’s connecting your guitar’s pickups directly to the output jack. It’s a pretty crazy difference – your guitar sounds bigger, brighter, and louder.
How it works:
The Bright Switch has more parts involved, thus it is a bit more complicated. When your Push-Pull pot is down, all the wiring is the same as a Strat or a Tele. The Signal enters Lug 1 of the Volume Pot, and Lug 1 is also connected to the input of the Tone Pot.
When the Push-Pull Pot is down, Lug 3 and the Cap are both connected to Ground. They connect to ground via connecting to terminals C & E of the Push-Pull pot.
When the switch is up, the ground lifts off of the tone pot and the volume pot. This allows your signal to connect directly to the output jack, with no Load.
Note: Pickups and other electronics get grounded to the back of the volume pot, just like normal. The 3rd Lug just isn’t connected.
Series / Parallel Switching For Humbuckers
Changing your humbuckers from Series to Parallel works well for some humbuckers, especially some higher output humbuckers. You can get some of that “Strat Quack,” and it opens up a whole new dimension for your humbucker. To accomplish this mod, you’ll need a humbucker with a 4-conductor lead. Please note that the color codes are for Fralin Humbuckers only.
How it works:
Red connects to green Green when the switch is down. This is a regular “series” humbucker operation. By pulling up on the switch, Red is now connected to White, and Green is now connected to Black. The “hots” connect, and the “starts” connect together – giving you your parallel.
Push-Pull Pot Odds n’ Ends
Before we wrap up, here are a few things we want to clear up.
Notes On Grounding
You can use anywhere on the Pot’s chassis to ground a signal. So, when grounding wire, you can run it to the metal housing that houses the DPDT switch, or the side of the Pot itself. A neat little trick is to ground wire on the bottom tab at the very bottom of the Switch. (See the image at the top of the page to see what we’re talking about here).
CTS Pots
CTS® has a new type of Push-Pull pot, which can make wiring a little easier. CTS made these contact points easier to reach so that you can fit this pot in more guitars. However, if you’re not familiar with how it’s all connected, it can be a little confusing. Here’s what it looks like:
Instead of running your jumper wires to small lugs, you can run them to full-size holes. The order is a little different, but all the concepts are the same.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope that this article has been helpful and informative. We have Push-Pull pots available on our website here. Now, grab some and get to modding!
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Hi Tyler, sorry to bother you. I’m planning a telecaster build and the configuration is as follows:
Neck: Seymour Duncan P-Rail (a humbucker pickup with a single coil and a P-90 coil joined together)
Middle: Single coil
Bridge: Hot-Rail.
I was going for a standard strat configuration with a 5-way switch but I would also like to be able to split the P-Rail and isolate the single coil and the P-90, as well as being able to split the hot-rail bridge pickup. I wouldn’t want to waste the P-Rail by only being able to use one coil and not the other. I’m not experienced with wiring outside of standard configurations, so I was wondering is there any way to achieve this using push-pull pots as I would like to have three pots (volume, tone, tone) rather than using toggle switches.
I thought I could use the volume pot to split the P-rail and isolate the P-90 for example, then I could split the rail using the second tone pot for a single coil, would I then be able to use the first tone pot to split the P-Rail and isolate the single-coil? I’m probably being very ignorant but I just thought I’d ask as I can understand how you explain things. If this is total rubbish just ignore me!
Hey Jodie,
Thanks for this great question. As it turns out, there’s not a way you can easily do this modification. You can do one of the following:
1.) Keep the P90 and the Split Bridge
2.) Keep the Single coil bar (neck) and the Split Bridge.
When splitting a Humbucker, you have a White (Hot), a Black Shield (Ground), and your Red Green (split). Connecting the Red Green to ground leaves you with a single coil left, say, the P90 in this instance. However, to reverse this, you’d need to connect White to Ground and Black to Hot. That would allow you to split the Neck and you’d be left with the Rail.
There may be a way to accomplish this modification, but I’m drawing a blank at the moment.
To do one of the aforementioned mods, you just need (2) Push Pull Pots if you want independent switching of the split, or (1) Push Pull Pot if you want a master split control.
Hope this helps!
Hi Tyler, thanks for getting back to me. I understand what you mean thanks so much for explaining this helps a lot!
Tyler,
I have a Tele I built with a Seymour Duncan Stag Mag in the bridge and a GFS mini humbucker in the neck with a 3-way toggle wired like a regular Tele. I want to add a Razor single coil in the middle and use a push pull pot to split the Stag Mag and activate the single coil when in the up position and the 3- way toggle is in the bridge position. Do not want to split the mini humbucker. Can you help me? The push pull can be either the volume or the tone which ever is easier.
Thanks,
Robert Templeton
Sure, Robert. Thanks for your question. You first need to decide if you’re going to go with a 5-Way switch or not. Either way, you need to identify which leads are the “split” on your Seymour Duncan – usually the “finishes” of each coil, tied together.
You’d run those to your middle posiion lug on your Push Pull Pot, either lug B or E. Next, you’ll need to attach the corresponding lug A or D to ground. Pulling up will give you a coil split. See the diagram, which is illustrated above.
Tyler
Thanks Tyler, but how do I activate the single coil with the push pull? What I’m looking for is: 3 way toggle in bridge position, push pull down, full humbucker.
3 way toggle bridge pos, push pull up, humbucker split, single coil activated. Does this make sense? Thanks Robert.
Yep – it’s the exact way I described. Find the “split” lead, and when it’s pulled up, it gets attached to Ground. Follow the diagram above.
So I cant seem to rap my mind around what is the true significance of the lugs on a pot?
I understand that 1 starts the circuit, 2 is the variable sweeper & 3 is the end of the resistance circuit. But what I cant figure out, is if it matters if 1 & 3 are swapped and if so what is the strategy of choosing which lugs to wire tone controls? For Instance, when using 1 cap. between both tone controls, why does one pickup get wired into lug 2 and one get wired into lug 1 and not 3, but when using 2 separate caps. both pickups can be wired to lug 2 instead of lug 1 or 3? Also how is it that the #1 lug of the vol. can be grounded and still receive signal threw lug 3? and what happens if these are switched besides reversing the vol. direction? Would there be a certain way to wire two master tone controls with two different cap. values?
Maybe Im over complicating it all but it seams to be the one problem I cant find an answer to cause it doesnt seem as if anyone else has brought this particular thing up in any forums Ive been reading. Anyway any help I can get on this would be greatly appreciated!
I have two tone pots on tele I am building. One pot is CTS push pull . I assume I would use this pot on the tone. The other pot is a normal pot. Both pots are 500. I have two humbuckers & I want to be able to coil split both. Also would I need any other additions eg caps & what size would I use.
Hey Paul,
Thanks for your question. If you want to coil split both humbuckers at once, you can run the “Tap” leads (Red / Red & Green on our humbuckers) to one Push Pull Pot. If you wanted independent switching control, you need two Push Pull Pots, one to split the Neck pickup, and one to split the Bridge pickup. It really doesn’t matter which position the pots are in, just whatever you want to grab to split.
Tone caps are really subjective, but I’d start at something around a 0.2mfd.
Tyler
I’m going to leave the blend pot idea for now and go with a partial coil tap for each hum bucker. I’m also going to put in a 2 way toggle switch for neck pickup out of phase.
One more thing, is it possible to have it so that the blend pot (when it’s developed) only affects the pickup volumes when pickup up selector is in middle position? i.e.: when pick up selector switch is on either neck or bridge pickup, the master volume controls the overall volume.
Brilliant! I’ll watch this space. Thankyou.
Hi. I justed started an instrument making course and I’m building a tele style guitar with 2 humbuckers. I would like to have the capability of switching the neck humbucker out of phase (possibly with a push pull style pot). I would like then when pickup selector is in the middle position, I can blend the two volumes of each humbucker in any ratio I want. Is this possible? Ideally I would like to be able to achieve all this with one pot; or if that’s not possible, then an extra pot just for blending. I only want the blending function to work when the knob is pulled up. i.e.: I only want the 2 humbucker volumes to be affected by the blend functionality when the knob is in the ‘up’ position. Do you think this is achievable? Thanks.
Hey Fred,
That’s not possible at the moment…however, we have two custom pots being developed by CTS at the moment. One of which is a Push Pull Blender, which you’ll be able to achieve this modification. Look early next year for the pot.
Tyler
Any news on this Push Pull Blender? That sounds fantastic! Cheers.
Is it possible to have 2 pickups connected to one push/pull pot for coil splitting and then ANOTHER push/pull pot for phase flipping?
I’m trying to decide between that for a set of humbuckers, or using a free-way switch (6 position toggle switch) and a push/pull together.
Hey Brad,
If you have 3-Conductor Lead, yes. The Red Leads from the 3-Conductor would go to the Coil Splitting Push Pull Pot, and one of the White and Black Leads from one pickup would go to the Phase Reverse Pot. You can use the diagrams listed on this page.
Tyler
Longtime lover of Fralin pickups and customer service here!!
I need help please! I am wanting to wire 2 single coil bass pickups to a CTS push/pull pot for series/parallel switching.
Thanks in advance!
Great article! I’m in the process of replacing the electronics in my Les Paul. I’ve got a P90 (2 wire) in the neck and Humbucker (4 wire) in the bridge, and I have 4 push-pull pots available (2x vol, 2x tone). Any wiring suggestions?
I definitely want to coil split the humbucker, and I like the idea of the Bright Switch.
Jason,
Thanks for writing us. There’s truly a lot you can do. I would imagine you wouldn’t need all of the push-pull pots, as Les Paul wiring can get exponentially tricky. If you were to do something, I would do 3 Push Pull Pots, (1) Push Pull coil-split for the humbucker on the bridge, and (2) Bright Switches on the Tone.
Tyler
Hello ! I have a 2006 Gretsch 5120, with the stock pu’s…( I know…I should replace them…maybe someday ). Anyway, I have a 500k push-pull pot that is wired up to be a volume pot, with treble bleed, both up or down, but when you pull it up, it also does a very nice bass cut. It’s worked in a variety of guitars, so I thought I would replace the Master Volume control in the Gretsch, and the volume with treble bleed works great, up or down…but the bass cut isn’t happening. It’s been a while since I’ve used the switch, so I’m wondering if some other wire, or cap, or resistor might be missing, or maybe because there are 2 other neck and bridge volume pot’s, plus a tone control to deal with…do I need to hook up all of those controls also ? This pot was always a drop in type deal and always worked great…can you direct me to a shematic/diagram that could help ?
Thanks, Tim Coulter.
Thank You for this article! I’ve been wondering for a while how to use two tone caps with one pot and couldn’t find the wiring anywhere. I figured out how the caps go but had no idea how to connect it to the pot lugs etc.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the Bright Switch in the up (on) position doesn’t actually bypass the volume pot. It lifts the ground to the vol pot, but the signal goes through the pot (which then acts as a variable resistor/rheostat). So even when the bright switch is on, turning the vol pot will still lower the volume. It does bypass the tone pot, however, so there might still be a small volume or treble boost.
I have a passive five string Schecter bass (Raiden) with a push/pull tone pot that changes the dual coils to single when pulled up. I’d like to keep my bridge pickup as a humbucker and only split the coil on the neck pickup. Would I just remove the appropriate black jumper ground wire (A or D) to achieve this?
Thank You
Gavin
Gavin,
It’s tough to tell you exactly what to do as I can’t find the exact wiring diagram for your bass. However, you can identify which lead off of the bridge pickup is going to the push pull pot. All you would need to do is remove the ground connection to that lead. I recommend studying the diagram above on how coil tapping works, and relate it to your specific situation. There should be a lead that gets connected to ground when you pull up – you can remove that to keep the bridge pickup a Humbucker.
On another note, you can coil tap two pickups with 1 side of the switch, or with both sides of the switch. In other words, if you see both pickups heading to the same terminal, you’ll need to separate those.
Tyler
I have a question that I can’t seem to find anywhere else and you seem well educated on the workings of push pull pots. I recently purchases a PRS S2 24 which has coil tapping with the tone knob. When I pull up on the knob I am experiencing a crackling sound. Spin the tone knob doesn’t seem to make it worse and it only happens right when I switch from humbucker to single coil mode. Is this something that needs to be cleaned or possibly the result of a bigger problem? If so, what’s the best way to clean a push pull pot?
Michael,
Good question. It’s tough to say for sure, but that sounds like a dirty connection. This can be easily remedied with some contact cleaner (available at your local electronic supply store). If it’s an Alpha-style pot, like the ones drawn on this page, there are small openings where the Switch meets the Pot. You can spray a small amount and pull / push a few times. That might solve your problem. I’m not sure what else could be causing that.
Tyler
That worked! Thank you sir.
Awesome explanation.
Got me wondering though: I’m thinking of a setup with two p90’s. One Volume One Tone, when I use P/P for both controls, can I use the P/P-part for either engaging a pickup or not?
I’m like thinking of getting rid of the 3-way, and just use the P/P to turn a pickup on or off, can I do that, or am I thinking too simple? It’s a little like the mini-switches on old Teisco guitars, they just cancel out a pickup, hence giving you the ability to switch from neck to neck bridge to bridge.
Hope you can confirm my thought 😉
Hey Rob,
This is what I was able to work up – Diagram Here
You can work with this, but each pot will be a separate Push/Pull on/off switch for each pickup. Tone Pot would be Bridge, and Volume would be Neck. By pulling up on the switch, you’ll kill the pickup.
Hope that helps!
Tyler
Spot on!!
So many thanks for the help and super fast response!
Rob
?
Is a push pull pot setup the same as a push push pot?
And if so, can the wiring be reversed so that the pickups are split in the down position?
It depends on the manufacturer. If you have a DPDT pot, with the 6 terminals on the back, it should be wired the same. However, study how your pot works and use our A-F wiring labels to achieve the same results.
Tyler
Hi, great diagrams!
Can you explain how to make a true bypass with CTS push/pulls, i want to have the exact wiring as in modern les pauls, split/split/phase/bypass. I have an SG and have bought the jimmy page setup and want to alter it. thanks!
Alfred,
Thanks for your question. Without having a diagram handy, it’s tough to see exactly what they are doing at Gibson. However, the diagrams for the Coil Taps are listed Above, along with the Phase Reverse. You would use the Bright Switch in your Tone Pot 2 position, but have all three grounds from the pots running to post E on the DPDT switch. in theory, Lug 3 of all three pots would all be attached there. When you pull up, all three grounds would be removed.
I hope this helps!
Tyler
Thank you Tyler!
I will give this a try and let you know how it goes.
many thanks!
Alfred
Hi!. Fantastic article! Thanks!
I have a guitar with 1 Humbucker (bridge) and 2 singles (neck / middle). 1 vol e 1 tone pot. I have a toggle switch for 3 pickups. The position on the toggle switch is: up: neck pickup – middle: neck / middle pickups – down: bridge pickup. I want to add a push/pull DPDT to turn on/off only the middle pickup no matter where the switch is. But I can’t get it work on all toggle positions. When I put the toggle switch down (bridge pickup on) and I pull the push/pull pot, it turns on the middle pickup, but also turn on the neck pickup! I can’t leave only the middle pickup on with the bridge pickup. With the toggle switch in the other positions everything is fine. But with the toggle switch on the bridge position and the push/pull up all pickups are actives. I’m going crazy with this! Can you help me please?
Thank you very much in advance! Francisco
Hey Francisco,
A simple way to accomplish this is to actually run the Middle Pickup hot wire to the DPDT Switch before sending it to the toggle switch. If you look at the diagram above under “Coil Splitting”, think of the red wire as the Middle Pickup hot.
The same lug that you soldered the Hot Lead to can have a wire going to the Toggle Switch, as the DPDT’s output.
The ground location is on lug “A”, meaning that the middle pickup will cut off when pulled up. If you want to reverse this, place the ground location on lug “C”.
I hope that helps!
Hey Tyler! Thank you. Sorry, but I have a few questions. Just remember that I want to pull the push/pull pot to turn only the Middle pickup on. So I run the hot from Middle pickup to the the lug B (diagram above). From the same B I run another wire to the toggle switch lug, right? But why I have to ground lug A of the push/pull pot? And what I solder to lug A to output the signal of the Middle pickup? I can send you a pic from the toggle switch diagram if you want.
Thanks for the help!
Well you wouldn’t want to ground lug “A” if you want to turn the pickup on when pulled up, that would “kill” the pickup when pulled up.
You’d want to ground lug “C”, so the pickup is off until you pull up. The reason here is that you’re sending the entire pickup signal to ground, which won’t enter your “hot” signal.
Ok, but when I pull the push/pull pot the Middle and the Neck pickup turns on. That’s the problem. I think it’s the way the hot from the middle and neck pickups are connect on the toggle switch. What I connect to lug A? Running the middle pickup hot to the DPDT pot first and then to the toggle it’s not the same to run first to the toggle and then to the DPDT? Let me send you the toggle switch schematics to can visualize better the problem.