Options for rewiring 3 pickup Artisan?

[fiaj]

Hello all!
I'm hoping someone here can offer me some advice, i know very little about electronics and pickup wiring.

I have a 1977 Gibson Artisan, the 3 pick-up model.
This is my personal favourite guitar of all time, i love it dearly.
recently i've been really wanting to get some 'proper" Les Paul tones, which are limited on this guitar. I've been looking for information about different wiring options that would enable me to use the neck and bridge together but the only option i can find is having a volume for each pick up and a master tone.
This would be a better and more versatile layout than standard but i thought i'd ask about other options first.

The main thing for me is to be able to select Neck+Bridge, Bridge alone and Bridge+Middle, all of which can of course be accomplished with the wiring method mentioned above. However, i would like to be able to control to tones of the pickups independantly, rather than just having one master tone. I find a lot of the more interesting tones on a Les Paul are from blending the pickups with individual tone variations, which could not be done with one tone knob.

Now, i know nothing about this stuff, but maybe someone could clearly lay out what my options are. I have said what is most important to me in pickup selection, but the more options the better. I would love to be able to use all three pickups together (is that possible?), and possible the Neck+Middle, although i can't see much appeal there for me.

I don't want to do anything that would affect the aesthetics of the instrument, the staggering beauty of this guitar should be preserved without modification. I've looked at the "Jimmy Page" 6 way switch, but not sure how the wiring would work (as i said, i am totally clueless) so not sure if that's use here. someone i was talking to was talking about a set-up with push/pull knobs, but again, i don't know what i could do with these.

I really want to be able to get more tones from this guitar, mainly the bigger Neck+Bridge sound, i'm not down with Neck on it's own, and currently that's my only real option for thick and heavy tones, it just doesn't seem full enough without a bit of bridge back-up.

any help/advice/experience would be greatly apreciated, i expect it will take me a while to figure out what to do, but the more options the better, and without physically hurting my instrument

Thanks to everyone in advance, hope you're all enjoying the summer!

[gazza285]

Have you considered a rotary switch? These can be fitted instead of a toggle without any drilling, and should be able to give you the selections of pickups you want.

You can always revert back to the original switching if you want.

Switching is only as complicated as you think it is, look at it logically and it is actually very simple, things are either on or off for a given position.

[BCGadgets]

What if you had totally normal les paul wiring, neck pickup, neck/bridge, and bridge and then you had a push pull for one of the knobs that turned the middle pickup on regardles of the position selected on the switch, so you could have a bridge, middle, neck, bridge/neck, bridge/middle, and a neck/middle!

Your answer lies within pushpulls.

[capt_goodvibes]

6 way toggle switch, similar to JP's Black Beauty
6-way Free-Way Toggle Switch | Allparts.com

6 Way Switch:

Position 1: Neck
Position 2: Bridge + Neck
Position 3: Bridge
Position 4: Middle + Neck
Position 5: Bridge + Middle + Neck
Position 6: Bridge + Middle

[fiaj]

Thanks for the replies!
I like the push/pull idea, and the 6 way switch would be cool, but i have actually decided that i'd like to try out the 3 volume/1 tone option for a while anyway. I quite like the idea of being able to fade each pickup in and out during chords or sustained notes, i'm sure you could come up with a lot of cool tricks like that.
I think that would also lead to more overall versatility, even with just one master tone control.
I appreciate your answers, and it wasn't a waste of time to ask as i will more than likely choose another option after experimenting.
Could someone please point me to a good source of wiring information? I literally know nothing, so even if the wiring i need to do is simple, i would be clueless about where to start.

I thank you again for your time, and apologise further for my massive lack of knowledge in this area. Everyone should know a how their instrument works and how to mod it!

[Lowdown]

I'd definitely look into the push/pull pots.
Send Jonesy a PM and see what he recommends.
He'll help you out with parts and advice