Making 4-wire humbucker pickups out of 2-wire pickups

Today we take apart two Gibson Burstbuker pickups and retrofit them from 2 conductor to 4 conductor. Here's an easy project you can take on at home.

[roberte]

This was excellent. Concise and informative. Shows you pretty much everything you need to know to accomplish the conversion, without dragging on needlessly for an extra 30 minutes - I just did two Seymour Duncans with the help of this video and threw one of them in a guitar and it's great. Thanks!

[DreaNEO]

Jimmi at Jersey Shore Guitar Garage is the best...I have put 2 of his circuits in my axes and ready to drop a 3rd in... Much appreciative of his generous humble nature and quality workmanship.

[matuloco]

Using pliers as a heat sink is a great trick! I've burnt a few cables before, I'll definitely try it next time. Thanks for the upload, very informative!

[seanscott]

Hey thanks for this video man, I used it to retro fit a set of 490r and 498t Gibson pickups in my epiphone les paul traditional pro iii and was able to wire it with the quick connect plugs epiphone is using.

[garyeckel]

Be sure not to get any metal chips from grinding shorting out the pickup wires, test with a ohm meter
before and after putting cover back on. pay attention to the magnet direction, be sure to mark it to the
body of the pickup.

[canufathomit]

Great information, but the video demonstration of what is being done flies way too fast for the novice (like me) to completely and clearly see what is happening...

[rafaelgutierrez]

Surprisingly I'm looking for the opposite, this might come in handy and dandy with reverse engineering

[RavensCloudEmpath]

Great video but way to fast...I cannot really follow....I cannot see or understand why I have to disconnect the ground and what will become the ground after....

[antonioalbares]

great video, thank you!. now, do I want to try this on a 200 dollar brand new pickup? thinking..

[roccocroce]

Isn’t that a 3 wire setup? Two wires you added are redundant.

[JohnHamnett]

So really the benefit I see here is to get a wire to the coil link. I think I've seen it where you can disassemble as you've shown here, but then solder a single wire to the coil link. Then reassemble.


Are there other advantages to replacing all the wiring? Otherwise, I might just throw a link wire in there and leave the rest as is.

[seanm]

I agree with the people saying this moves too fast. I understand that a lot of YouTube videos drag but this one looks like it's in a low frame rate and the camera keeps jumping around to different cuts making it kind of hard to follow even at a reduced speed.

[efhraimparinas]

Hello so here's a question, I bought a Jackson JS32 DKA-M with a 5 way mod on stock pickups just like on the video. But what signs should I look out for or what kind of physical damage should I look inside the pickup itself so I know if I should replace the pickup. It still works the volume is still great the sound of the pickups are consistent too.

[gphkg]

oooohhweeee....that's what I'm looking for. exactly. thanks for this. (".)

[jordan]

Now what if I want to go the other way around? 4/5 wire to 2 wire?

[fedayeentaqx]

thats just fing great, i have the only pickups in the world with 2 black wires and 2 red ones, my guitar is fucked now and i have no idea what the hell to do, every video is talking about the green and white wires, i dont have those.

[snicklefritzthetab]

I'll just buy a 4 wire luck would have me destroy my 2 wire pickup.

[markwright]

So if you want you can turn a 4 wire into a two wire as well??

[VicenteLagos]

Nice video! Can you coil split with this setup?

[waynegram]

Jersey Shore guitar garage, is the Slug side NORTH or SOUTH? you're grounding the slug side coil or the screw coil to ground?