In my last post I mentioned I created a custom wiring harness for a Squier Contemporary Active Jazzmaster.
Despite seeing some promising demos online, I found the default pickup set quite harsh and poorly defined. My intent in buying the active hardtail was to have a dedicated chug-oriented guitar, with drop-D (or lower) tunings, for some heavier songs that I was writing.
I had seen some demos and reviews of the Tosin Abasi signature pickup set, and I looked up the specs and thought I’d love to give them a try. I liked the look of the various voicings and wiring options that were available (like single coil, and the NCO/SCO pairing). So I thought this guitar might be a good host, even just as a “development mule” for me to try a few ideas out.
The Fluence wiring guides focused on Tosin’s preferred wiring, centring around 5-way “super-switch” to unlock specific options.
But my reading of this diagram was that you didn’t actually get the full set of combinations that were available—the wiring privileged the features that Tosin felt were most valuable.
I personally wanted to try all the things™ before committing to a limited wiring loom. So I started planning out how I might be able to combine a 3-way pickup selector, with toggles to switch between voices, which would also match the minimal Jazzmaster control layout of the Contemporary Active (i.e. no rhythm circuit).
Unfortunately, it was unclear from the information available online and in Fishman’s documentation how the NCO/SCO worked from a “first principles” perspective. i.e. if you didn’t want one of the predefined wirings, you were on your own.
I found this thread on Reddit, where someone was asking the same question I was. But, again, there was no clear answer, but some important pointers.
I approached Fishman support to clarify and confirm my thinking/hypothesis, but unfortunately the support rep kinda just said “do it per our diagrams, or get a professional to do it.”
Eventually, I worked it out… (more on that in a sec)
There was one glitch in my initial design, though. When you are in the NCO/SCO mode, you have to put the neck pickup into anything but Voice 3, otherwise you get no sound at all. So I worked out a “revision 2” of my circuit that ensured that if you put things in the NCO/SCO mode, that the neck pickup voice was set correctly.
I posted my findings in a reply to the Reddit thread, but I’ve always wanted a more permanent home, outside of Reddit.
So, here is that post for posterity, in my own space.
I had a 3-way Gibson-style pickup selector, and I wanted to essentially have every combination available to test/try (this is primarily a guitar for use at home/recording).
So I used the Fishman-provided 1x Volume, 1x Tone, 3-way wiring diagram as my basis, and extended the circuit with two 3-way mini-toggles, one for each pickup to select the voice. (These are the ones I purchased—I’m linking to them as they seem to have an unusual pin-out).
I skipped the volume push/pull, but kept the push/pull for the tone, to select the SCO/NCO option when in Voice 3. But I found that last step was a bit elusive.
This post got me most of the way there (thank you! 🙏🏼), but it still wasn’t working when I had both pickups in Voice 3 mode.
I approached Fishman support, but they basically pointed me to the existing diagrams to figure it out or “get a professional to do it”.
What I found is that:
- Bridge pickup needs to be selected via the pickup selector.
- Bridge pickup needs to be set to Voice 3: Single Coil, the single coil lead to ground via the bridge pickup min-toggle.
- NCO & SCO leads needs to be connected to each other—I did this via the push-pull.
- Neck pickup needs to be set to anything but Voice 3 (Single Coil)—this was the “missing link” in my initial tests.
This wiring diagram is what worked for me (i.e. currently how my guitar is wired):
I intend to make a small mod to essentially switch the neck PU into Voice 1 mode when the push/pull is activated (so you can’t end up in a ‘no sound coming out’ situation). I’ve not tested it yet, but this variation I think will do it:
Hope that helps.
P.S. I gotta say I do love the sound of the NCO/SCO combo… So I’m glad I persevered!
And that last point is important!! I’m soooooo relieved that the effort was worth it, beyond the intellectual challenge.
If it’s not clear what the difference is between the diagrams, focus on the blue wire going to the neck pickup. In the second design, it is routed via the push-pull, so that when the pot is in the “up” position, it defaults the neck pickup to Voice 1, so that you don’t end up in a “no sound” mode (which happens if it’s in Voice 3).