How to Wire Gibson Pickups

One of the leading guitar manufacturers and designers is Gibson. They have been around for many years and have created and sell many famous models of guitars, such as the Les Paul. The Gibson humbucker guitar pickup is one of the most widely used and popular pickup in the music industry. Learning how to replace your old pickups with high-quality Gibson pickups is a step toward developing a more professional-sounding guitar tone. The pickups are easy to install and wire, requiring only two tools.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Gibson guitar pickups Soldering iron Screwdriver

1. Take the strings off your current guitar. The pickups are located in the middle of the body of the guitar, right underneath the strings, so before you can switch out your pickups you will need to remove the strings.

2. Unscrew the control plate of the guitar. The control plate is on the body of the guitar and it has the volume, tone and toggle switch of the guitar on it.

3. De-solder the wires connected to the volume pot and tone pot. Now unscrew the pickups from the body of the guitar and remove them from the body, wires and all.

4. Grab your Gibson pickups and place them in the empty pickup slots on the guitar body. Make sure you slide the wires through to the bottom close to the control plate.

5. Take all of the black wires connected to your Gibson pickups and solder them to the volume pot. Now take all of the white wires and solder those to the toggle switch port.

6. Fasten the pickups back in place using your screwdriver. Make sure the screws fit and do not go in crooked.

7. Fasten the control panel with the screwdriver.

8. Re-string the instrument and test it out to make sure the wiring is correct. If the guitar pickups do not work, go back and check the connection to see if all the wires are in the proper place.

Resources

• Guitar Pickup Video
• Gibson Guitar Pickups
• Electric Guitar Pickups