Complete Guitar Wiring: Everything you need to understand, modify, and troubleshoot your guitar's wiring

I'd recently become familiar with Mr. Hayes' work from his Sketchy Setups book series, his website, and his newsletter. I appreciate his work because, although he's an experienced luthier, he writes in an accessible conversational style and addresses people of all experience levels and budgets. I wasn't disappointed. This book is easily one of the best organized, well-written, and illustrated technical books I've ever bought. It's laid out and color-coded in a way in which you can easily jump around topics or start from the beginning, whether you need a refresher or it's completely new information to you. Each chapter builds on the concepts covered in the previous one, so you could treat it like a course if you wanted to. The book also isn't just about electric guitars but also has sections and wiring diagrams specific to electric bass, acoustic, and electro-acoustic guitars. He also gives left-handed players some love with special considerations for the lefty. It's nice to have all of this information from a single proven source, in one place, clear and consistent, and genuinely teaching in a way that the reader can apply to practically any guitar instead of mimicking others' designs and modifications with no real understanding of the how and why. This book empowers you with the knowledge to do most anything you can imagine. The book should be useful to all, whether you're wiring guitars on a fresh build, replacing electronics, emulating the electronics of another guitar, or you want to modify certain components for specific performance needs. One could easily imagine a book twice this length that still wouldn't be able to cover every single variation there is or has ever been used for wiring, switches, pickups, etc. But he does such a great job of covering what's most important that you should be able to adapt to just about any scenario. He's got stuff in there from 1950s guitars to MIDI-equipped to 21st-century models. He covers a lot of different pickups, switches, jacks, sockets, and electronic components. While you won't deep dive into reading actual schematics, the book does show how to interpret wiring layout diagrams. Before giving his own diagrams, he shows you the orientation of components as you will see them, leaving no confusion as to which lugs should be used for a particular connection. In fact, if you're fairly new to wiring, I'd recommend thumbing through the appendix before working on any diagrams from Chapters 6 and 7. There are even more illustrations and details about different switches, pots, and components there. This book is a must-have for anyone who wants to really understand what's going on under the hood and/or how to add or improve the electronics for your specific needs.

Overall this book is fantastic and easily the best put together and cohesive resource for electric guitar and bass wiring I've come across. I am a huge nerd when it comes to this stuff and to anyone who is interested I highly recommend getting this instead of spending years of your life digging through old forum posts rife with misinformation. If you have absolutely zero experience with electronics Gerry Hayes does a great job of introducing how guitar circuits work by slowly adding components and explaining what each part does until a full circuit is created. Explanations and diagrams are very clear and beginner friendly, and the book is organized in a way that if you started at the beginning and read it cover to cover you would have pretty much all the knowledge you would ever need. I have a background in electronics and I feel that concepts were never oversimplified, while also never becoming overtly technical to the point of becoming confusing to those unfamiliar with circuits. If you are on the fence about buying this book I assure you it is worth every penny to have all of this knowledge cohesively laid out in one place.

This is the best book I've ever found on guitar electronics. Easy to understand for beginners, some tips&tricks that even experienced guitar techs and luthiers will find useful and absolutely SUPERB quality wiring diagrams. The nice collection of wiring diagrams alone is worth the asking price and will be a great asset and a huge time saver at the workshop. My only complaint is that some of the diagrams use white lettering on orange background for some of the cap values. This is quite difficult to read. Maybe this is something to think about for the next edition. But I'm nitpicking, this is a fantastic book for anyone interested in guitar electronics. Highly recommended!

I have several books on guitar building, repair and wiring. All of them top recommended books (Stewart MacDonald, Erlewine, Brosnac and others)... This one is by far the best. This book is well organized from the basics for beginners to advanced considerations for pros. The progressive chapters make sense and they build on the previous chapter. It is written in plain English and doesn't take short cuts (even talks about what a ground loop is). I also like use of color in the diagrams to help readers truly visually connect with proper wire mapping. As I said, this book does not kick newbies to the curb, it appreciates them and also doesn't insult the pro. For anyone wanting to start building their own guitar - even if it is a DIY kit that comes pre-wired > GET THIS BOOK! It saved me from a DIY pre-wired disaster. Allowed me to properly configure my DIY Jaguar!

I started out building pedal kits. After a few months of pedal building a bass I purchased second hand online showed up with one of the pickups not working and it a nasty buzz from poor grounding. I checked the electronics to see if it might be a simple disconnected wire but found that it was in serious need of rewiring. It was a two pickup Vol/Tone Vol/Tone with a three position switch so lots of wires and connections. After hours of online researching, mostly using the information I found on forums, I took the plunge and (very slowly) managed to rewire it. It gave me the confidence to help realize I could do my own guitar wiring, my own pickup swaps and electronics mods on my collection. I saw this book mentioned by two different people while watching youtube videos on the subject and purchased it. I WISH I would have had this from the start. It would have saved me untold hours of trying to find/learn many things on my own via web searches and then trying to decipher what information was good and what information was coming from people that had no clue on how to do things the right way and therefor terrible. Not only does it have lots of great detailed wiring diagrams for tons of instruments as well as a vast amount of awesome pictures and visuals, but the author also does a great job of explaining a number of things like: components- different types caps (push/pull, blend, concentric) and their uses as well as the different pot values and what they translate to sound wise, all types of switches (3 way, 5 way, etc.), tone capacitors and the differences in their values and how it relates to the tone you hear Pickups- the different kinds (single coil, humbuckers, etc.), their parts and how they work, the variety of magnets used, the different ways of wiring them (series, parallel, out of phase) and how the current/signal travels through the pickup when wired as such soldering, proper practices and tools for electronics and wiring work, how to swap pickups, mods to stock wiring for different tones, body modifications for different mods and troubleshooting. I continue to reference this book every single time I get under the hood of a guitar. I am grateful beyond measure to the author for this excellent book.

Tons of useful information for beginner or experienced luthiers.

How cool is this? If you dont mind soldering your own parts but aren't a Guitar wiring expert this book is a lifesaver. It not only includes standard wiring schematic but includes popular optional wiring as well. It also explains everything about how components work. What they do. Popular tools. It really covers everything including different resistors, capacitors. Glad I made this purchase.

This is a fantastic book! Super informative, with great illustrations, clear descriptions and lots of humor ... all packaged into a really fun book that is very encouraging and positive. If you ever wanted to know more about how an electric guitar works, then go buy this book right now!! Like...RIGHT NOW!!! Seriously.

Scritto molto bene, meglio di quanto immaginassi. Estremamente utile sia come riferimento generale che come guida da seguire passo passo. Vale assolutamente il prezzo pagato.

El libro superó por mucho mis expectativas, es un manual muy completo que contiene diagramas casi para todas las modalidades de combinación de pastillas, de diferentes modelos de guitarra y todo lo relacionado con la electrónica de la guitarra. Muy recomendable para quienes quieran incursionar en el tema de la modificación de pastillas y electrónica para guitarras. 1000% RECOMENDABLE

Ich habe schon einige Erfahrungen in Gitarren Elektronik hobbymässig. Ich habe auch einige Bücher dazu bzw hole meine Infos aus dem Internet. Hätte ich diese Buch früher gehabt, wäre ich schneller vorangekommen. Warum? Das Buch ist einfach super strukturiert, klar und verständlich illustriert. Nach den ersten paar Seiten sind direkt schon gewisse Grundlagen glasklar. Viele andere Bücher schweifen unnötig ab. Bei diesem Buch geht's Stück für Stück voran und jede Seite bringt neue Erkenntnisse. Ich freue mich schon, es weiter durchzuarbeiten.

A great resource for anyone looking to change pickups, rewire your guitar, make some mods or even just to apply electrical knowledge to something practical in the audio world. Gerry provides a wealth of knowledge, all clearly laid out with tons of illustrations.

Excellent livre, avec beaucoup d'informations théoriques et pratiques sur les câblages, et sur les composants électroniques de la guitare de manière globale. Permet de mieux comprendre ce monde obscure (pour moi). Je recommande vivement !