I just got a 1967 Gretsch Anniversary. Its a great guitar but the pickups are the really low output single coil 'hilotrons'. I am not ready to replace them with the higher output 'Filtertrons' just yet, but I am considering a few wiring modifications of the wiring to help things a bit. This stuff can all be reversed so I am not worried about hurting the value of the guitar.

First off, I was considering wiring the pickups in series. I have read that output will be higher when both pickups are engaged because there is less inductance in series. I am a little unsure how to wire these in series using the pickup selector. Its not just a matter of flipping hot and cold from the output of the pickup to the switch, right? That just puts the pickups out of phase, right?

to wire in series, you need to wire the hot wire from one pickup to the ground of the next, then take that pickup's hot wire as the signal output.

the output will increase slightly; i think the main difference will be that it's a lot more midrangey.

I offer this jfwiw, rather than because I know it'll suit what you're doing....but....

I had need of something similar with something stratty I owned years ago....I wired the pickups up in series, directly to the jack, and that was an improvement over the shit it was....but then, I wired them up in parallel, straight to the jack.....whoa. If you want something huge and saturated via a major impedance change, give that a whizz. It's kinda like pressing the silly button, but it totally has it's place. I wish I still had that strat.

i love doing this as well, gives you the unrestricted high-end of your pickups. can sound a bit harsh with an overly trebly amp though.

Yeah I figured out how to wire them in series using 6pdt switch. 1st position just neck, 2nd- pickups in series, 3rd just bridge. Works fine except when you throw the tone controls into the recipe. I need to figure that out.. But over all the tone is actually pretty cool in series and about 2-3db louder. It actaully sounds like a p-90 when they are connected in series- which is pretty rad.