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Originally Posted by fourstringbliss  Thanks! That's what I figured. I'm with you on the separate switch grounds. I got a hold of Femto (the guy who made the diagrams) and he said that wiring the backplate wires to the switches is vital because the green pickup wire and the backplate wire are connected each pickup a the same point (almost like they're the same wire). I don't know the reasoning behind why the neck backplate wire is connected to the bridge switch, but he said it works and is silent in all positions (except for the 60 cycle hum you'd expect when you've got a soloed single coil).
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On my US G&Ls, the "backplate wire" was indeed the same wire as the green pickup wire- the green wire was attached to the coil start of the pickup, then soldered directly to the copper plate on the back of the pickup, with another green wire soldered to the copper plate and hardwired to ground in the control cavity- this effectively grounded the copper plate (to shield the pickups) and grounded the green pickup wire at the same time. The problem with this when you do the single coil mod is that the green connection is no longer hardwired to ground- so in some coil settings, the copper plate (which in turn grounds the polepieces and shields the pickups to some degree) is no longer grounded. Ideally, the copper plate from each pickup should always be grounded regardless of pickup settings (otherwise you may find some settings to be more noisy, or find that you get a "buzz" or "pop" anytime you hit the polepieces with your fingers in some settings- an audible result of your fingers grounding them vs. an external connection).
I got around this by unsoldering the green wire that went from the pickup to the copper plate and soldering on a longer wire to the pickup- giving me two green wires per pickup (one for the green coil start and one hard-wired copper plate groundwire). Ideally, the copper plate from each pickup should always be grounded regardless of pickup settings (otherwise you may find some settings to be more noisy, or find that you get a "buzz" or "pop" anytime you hit the polepieces with your fingers in some settings). I have never owned a Tribute, but was under the impression that they had the 5 wires coming from the pickups already- one of which I assumed to be a ground wire from the copper plate. Its possible that this 5th wire is a ground wire from the shielded pickup cavity instead (my US G&Ls have never had shielded pickup cavities, but I think Tributes may).
I should add that DavePlaysBass's newer document about doing the single coil mod eliminates the need to fuss with the copper plate wiring by changing the way the 3 way pickup switch is wired (though it may or may not work for your applications).
Karl
