Fender Jaguar Wiring Modification

lbenedict16

Hey, I'm new to modding guitars and I'm getting a squier jaguar soon that I want to change up. The most common comment I see about the jaguar is that its rhythm circuit is only useful for certain things like the woman tone. I feel like the rhythm circuit would be so much more useful and versatile if you could switch between pickups while it was activated.

This could allow for an outrageous amount of tones from one guitar, and my idea is putting in a Gibson-style three way toggle as part of the rhythm circuit, and keeping the lead circuit wired-up with the three selector-switches and the hi-pass.

If you're worried about signal/tone being lost due to more being put in the way of the original signal, I suppose you could wire up the lead circuit with a toggle switch instead of the selectors and keep the hi-pass switch.

Due to not having done any of this stuff before, I'm here to see if this is actually possible; if there would be substantial signal/tone loss; and how one would go about wiring all of that up.

Thanks!

Mad-Mike

Without making a wiring diagram.....the simplest way to do this would be to get a Cobain-style switchplate for the lead circuit, transplant the Strangle switch to that, then rather than routing the neck pickup through the rhtyhm/lead circuit selector switch alal normal Jazzmaster/Jaguar, you would wire it directly to the 3-way like you would on a normal 2 pickup guitar, then run that entire switch plate into the rhythm circuit. Granted, it would not allow one to have individual preset pickups for each circuit, but it would allow one to have either pickup through the rhythm circuit.

Funny enough, I was planning on using this on a home-made Jaguar I built in high School.

lbenedict16

Thanks for the reply! I like that you can switch between the pickups in both circuits, I just wish there was a way to preset the settings so you can have a true rhythm sound and a true lead sound. I play all types of guitar, funk, rock, blues, jazz, indie/alternative, psychedelic, and most of my stuff that I write has folk influences, so having a versatile guitar is essential. I have a Gibson LPJ right now that's ####ting the bed (if you can help it don't buy one, they'll be worn down and impossible to work with within two years, thus explaining my recent purchase) the jag's always been my favorite fender and it being so versatile just makes it all the more worth having. I've been drawing out some diagrams, haphazardly for sure, but I feel that it could be possible to get them to be presetable(if that's a word) the one I like best has the rhythm circuit with a three way toggle, and the lead has a three way as well, volume, tone, and a tonestyler switch, which is basically a varitone switch, giving you a bunch of sounds. I don't know, there's so many things you could do with this guitar that I feel Fender has overlooked and it could be an everyman's guitar lol (currently designing an offset guitar for a class, marketing plan, one sheets, and hopefully will build it this summer)