How to Wire a Guitar Killswitch

A guitar killswitch is a button that, when pressed, temporarily stops electricity flowing into your guitar’s pickups. This can create a variety of effects, from a sudden silence to special sound-scapes. It is most commonly found on electric guitars & can be used to add a lot of new sounds to your playing. Some famous guitar players that use a kill switch include Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine & Audioslave) & Buckethead.

There are many different ways to wire a kill switch into your guitar. Most methods require you to route a brand new hole in your guitar or pickguard for the switch, but one method involves using a standard stereo jack & some extra wiring. Using a stereo jack will allow you to wire your kill switch so that it is only turned on when your cable is plugged in, & it is only off when it is unplugged.

Using the stereo jack method, simply solder 1 of the jack’s terminals to your guitar’s ground lug & the other to its hot lug. Connect a corresponding terminal on the switch to your output jack’s ground lug & you are done! The only problem with this method is that it can sometimes cause a short-circuit when the switch is activated. To avoid this, you can try adding a small capacitor in parallel with the switch. A value in the picofarad to nanofarad range will typically work well.

Another way to implement a kill switch into your guitar is to use a single-pole double-throw switch (SPDT). This type of switch has 2 separate positions & will cut the power to your pickups when it is in either position. It is more likely to generate a popping noise when it is activated, however.

If you want to get a little more creative with your kill switch, you can also use it in conjunction with your pickup selector switch. By placing it in the middle position, you can use it to toggle between the bridge & neck pickups. By muting the neck pickup with the switch & flipping the selector to engage the bridge pickup, you can create some cool sound-scapes.

Lastly, you can also add a kill switch to your guitar by replacing a potentiometer with a DPDT or 3PDT switch. This is the easiest & most convenient way to install a kill switch as it only requires you to replace one of your existing knobs.

All that you need to do is place the switch in a location within your circuit where your guitar’s hot wires are split (typically before the independent volume pots & before the selector switch). Solder one of the switches’ terminals to your pickup’s positive/live wire & the other to your output jack’s ground & you’re done! You can even use a switching kill switch in this way, connecting it to a regular potentiometer so that when you press the switch, it will turn on the potentiometer & off when it is released.