Humbucking
Guitar Pickup
Wire Colors

All humbucking pickups are manufactured with the pickup wires beginning at the coil center (the 'Start" position) and then wound with the appropriate number of turns until reaching the 'Finish' position.
Humbucking pickups on guitars straight from the factory, will have their 'Finish' wires connected to each other. (see Diagram 3). It is not necessary for the 2 coils to have opposite winding directions when the 'finish' ends of each coil are connected in this way. (Incidentally, the two wires that are soldered together to make a series wired humbucker connection is called a series link).

The above table shows all pertinent information about humbucking guitar pickups manufactured by twenty different companies. There are many such charts on the Internet but they don't always show all of the above information nor do they show the information arranged in the same way.


Some companies and websites list the wire color order differently.
For example, in my chart (above), DiMarzio's wire colors are shown as Red Black White Green but this chart says the color order is Red Black Green White.



Why are the 3rd and 4th colors in different order?
My chart at the top of the page (Diagram 1) lists the wire color order as Start Finish Finish Start (S F F S) which is basically the standard wiring for a humbucker in series.
The other chart (Diagram 2) lists the wire colors in order by Start Finish Start Finish (S F S F).
The "S F S F" wire color order is still very popular and some additional examples are:
Dimarzio Forum
SK Guitar
To add to the confusion, websites that list the coils in "S F S F" order will also assign letters to the coils in the same order.
Again using DiMarzio as the example, the "S F S F" lettering for the coils would be
A Red
B Black
C Green
D White
These sights also say to connect 'B' to 'D' to make the series link.
Still, doesn't it make more sense to letter the wire colors so that the "middle" wires for the series link are called B & C?
Anyway, there are some sites that show wire colors in the same order that they are in my chart.
Here is a listing of those sites listing wire colors in 'S F F S' order:
Guitar Electronics
Seymour Duncan

So to summarize, this chart lists pickup wire colors in "Start Finish Finish Start" order. The 2 wires for the series link will always be the middle two wires.

Go To Jimmy Page Wiring

Go To Guitar Page One


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