How to Wire a Westone Spectrum Electric Guitar
The original Westone Spectrum Electric guitar was called the Spectrum 1. It has a relatively simple wiring configuration, one humbucker pickup mounted on the face of the guitar, under the strings. It has one volume control and one tone control. The humbucker is angled in what is called the "gunslinger position." This allows it to pick up deep bass tones off the bass strings and higher treble tones off the treble strings.
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Things You'll Need
- Humbucker pickup
- Two 500K potentiometers
- Wire
- Mono output jack
- Capacitor
- Screwdriver
- Socket set
- Electrical tape
- Wire cutters
- Soldering iron
- Solder
Instructions
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1
Thread the wire lead of the humbucker through the hole in the pickup cavity that leads to the control cavity on the back of the guitar, then mount the humbucker to the face of the guitar with the four pickup mounting screws and a screwdriver.
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2
Place both 500K potentiometers (pots) into the control cavity on the back of the Spectrum so that the shaft of the pot sticks up through the face of the guitar. Position the three metal prongs in each of the pots so they face each other and tighten the pots to the guitar with your socket set.
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3
Place the shaft of the mono input jack into the hole in the control cavity and secure it with your socket set.
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4
Position the guitar on its face so the neck faces to the left. This places the control cavity closer to you and helps orient the controls from left to right, with the left control being the volume pot, the middle control being the tone pot and the right control being the mono input jack.
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5
Strip the ends of the red, white, green and black wires with wire strippers.
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6
Solder the wire leads of the red and white wire together and tape the wires together with electrical tape.
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7
Solder the bare wire and the green wire coming from the pickup to the back of the volume pot. This grounds the pickup to the circuit.
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8
Solder three ground wires to the back of the volume pot. Connect one of those wires to the Spectrum's bridge. Connect the second wire to the back of the tone pot casing and the third wire to the sleeve tip on the mono output jack. This completes the ground circuit for the Spectrum.
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9
Solder the black wire from the pickup to the bottom lug on the volume pot. Solder a jumper wire from that lug to the leftmost or bottom lug on the tone pot.
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10
Solder a wire from the center lug on the volume pot to the tip lug on the mono output jack.
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11
Solder the lead wire of a .047 capacitor onto the center lug of the tone pot then solder the other lead wire of the capacitor to the back of the tone pot casing.
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