Wire Color Codes

Although I've arbitrarily assigned various colors to the wires inthe schematics presented on this site, pick-up manufacturers have their own systems.  They are consistent within their brand name, but within the market, anything goes!


Below are some of the most widely distributed manufacturers with their prefered color schemes.  For lack of a better system, the wires will be designated by letters corresponding to the coil and end from which they originate
A = Neck-most coil, left side
B = Neck-most coil, right side
C = Bridge-most coil, left side
D = Bridge-most coil, right side

The colors
Manufacturer
A

B

C

D

Seymour Duncan Black White Green Red
DiMarzio Red Black Green White
Gibson Black Green Red White
Schaller Green White Yellow Brown
Jackson Green White Black Red
Lawrence Black Green Red White
Anderson Red Green Black White

And then on most of these pick-ups there's also another wire that stands apart that represents the sheild.  This always goes to the ground.


Exceptions?

Note that several manufacturers are not mentioned here:

Fender doesn't seem to have any after-market humbuckers that I could find.

EMG pick-ups are anomolous in that they do not have traditional coils, let alone 4 conductors.  In fact, only their model 89 pick-up can be "tapped," and that's by a specific scheme of more wires than is conventionally required.

If you see any brands I missed, please .


Single Coils
Thankfully, single coil pick-ups are fairly straight forward.  In general, the black wire is the ground side of the coil.  The other color can be almost anything else.  On Fender guitars, two of the non-ground leads are white, but the one from the middle pick-up is yellow.  This is to designate that pick-up as different.  Specifically, it is reverse-polarity and is reverse-wound.  This makes it hum-cancelling when combined with either of the other two pick-ups.

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