Six string warriors: How do I wire the goddamn tone controls? strat HHH 1V, 2T

[FierceFish]

Thanks for looking.

I'm converting a late 90's Lonestar Strat with a 5-way superswitch, swapping out the middle and neck single coils for same-sized humbuckers that can be split. I want to split all three pickups (they have the appropriate wires) so that I can use single coil tones in positions 2 and 4. The middle pickup needs to be reversed (per Seymour Duncan instructions) so it's in phase with the bridge and neck. This strat has 1 volume and 2 tone controls.

I tried this SD wiring approach but was unhappy with the result.: https://www.seymourduncan.com/images..._S5W_1V_2T.jpg There was no tone control for the bridge pickup at all, and the two tone controls seemed to interact in ways that didn't make sense to me on the neck and the middle. These are not things I understood at first.

The good news is, now I understand how a superswitch works. But, the art of wiring this thing so I have elegant tone control escapes me. The cap on tone control #2 is 153k (.015 I believe?) and while I am in there I am swapping out the 250k pots for 500's, and replacing the volume with an SD YJM high-speed pot. Cuz, why not?

As best as I understand it, the black/hot leads off the humbuckers basically get routed to lug 1 of the volume pot, via the superswitch, based on what you select. What I don't understand is how the grounding circuit works, sending signal into the tone pots...?

Could someone please, send me to the best place to understand this as a layman, or, even better, explain to me how I should approach this and learn it? I think what I want is tone #2 (furthest from the volume pot) to control bridge/mid and tone #1 (next to the volume pot) controls the neck.

I have spent hours surfing Youtube, forums, and manufacturer sites but cannot quite find my precise use case. Everyone is talking about Les Paul style with two volumes, or strats with single coils not humbuckers. I'm not a professional electronics person, but can solder decently and follow instructions. I'm confident I can do this, if I can just find an explanation of how to do it.

Thankyou thankyou thankyou!!!

[hamerfan]

A tone circuit goes via a cap and pot in series to ground. So look at the switch position with the bridge is on, what other lug on the 5 way are active. You just need to move the wire to the desired tone pot to this position. In your case swap the connection from the neck tone pot to the bridge. I never use tone pots on the neck pup, if you are okay with that, fine.
The interacting of the tone pots can only avoided when only one pot is active at one specific position. In the SD schematic on the 4th position are both tone pots active. Just cut the wire on the 5 way. If you did my upper mod, the interacting moved to the second position. Then you have to move the ‚middle red‘ in the schematic on lug to the left and cut the connection to position 2.

Thats it.

[beaubrummels]

First off, what pickups are you using for middle/neck? (Stacks and rails require different approaches). The Lonestar had a PG+ in the bridge, correct? Or something else? That affects the phase/iwiring. Switching from 250k to 500k may affect what you should do tone-wise to the neck/middle. Tones are typically tapped off the hot of each pickup, but it's not clear what you are trying to do. Bridging a tone from bridge to middle/whatever is as simple is moving a wire/jumper but if you have 500k on the bridge and 250k on the middle/neck it's not going to sound like you think.

[Hank-]

You can wire it like this, should work for HHH wiring.
Edit: I mixed up the neck/ middle & bridge tone scheme with neck & middle/bridge scheme, you should be able to figure out the correct way though.

[FierceFish]

Hank - thanks for the suggestion - I have wired up a new version using your schematic. When the pickguard isn't mounted on the guitar, I get alot of hum. I am going to mount it tonight and see if the body provides shielding that mitigates that.

[FierceFish]

Hank - yeah, my attempt at this schematic is producing alot of hum. Is there anything here you would change?

[Hank-]

Constant buzz would indicate that the hot & ground are swapped or broken ground wire. I would check if the hot & ground are not interchanged between the volume pot & the output. Also check if you get continuity at all grounding points and the bare wires are not touching the pickup wires at the switch terminals or the hot wire at the volume pot.

[ThreeChordWonder]

I am assuming you just wanted a regular 5-way switch wiring and that you are using S-D humbuckers.

If it had been me, I would have wired the switch just like a regular Strat using either the old fashioned 5-way blade or the superswitch, but with the following modifications:

Green wires - "south" coil starts -ground to pot casings
Red - south coil finishes and white - north coil finishes- wires -solder together (more on thus below)
Black wires - north coil starts - "hots" to switch
Bare wires - shield wires - ground to pot casings.

The red (south finish) and white (north finish) wires link the two coils in each humbucker. Don't get confused or distracted by them both being called "finishes" - remember the two coils are wound in opposite directions and have their magnet polarities reversed, which is what makes them hum canceling.

In a non coil split setup, the red and white wires get soldered together and the ends shrink wrapped or taped off.

For coil splitting, however, the red and white get soldered to the middle terminal on the switch part of a push-pull or push-push. There are usually two sets if three terminals and you only need one set per humbucker. You can regard them as two separate circuits activated in unison by the shaft.

One of the other terminals on the push-pull should be grounded to the pot casing. For push = coil split, ground the one nearest the pot. For pull = coil split ground the one furthest from the pot casing. Do NOT ground both ir you end up with a coil split whichever

What this does, when the switch is used to activate the coil split, is to ground both ends of the humbucker' south coil, so it becomes ineffective. The north coil finish is also grounded but the north coil start goes to the switch, so when that pickup is selected it remains active. When the switch is in the other position, the red and white aren't connected to anything but each other, so they simply provide te seriel links between the humbucker coils.

You can wire two humbuckers to one push-pull, one to each middle terminal, but if you do, the push pull will coil split both connected humbuckers at the same time.

I haven't tried wiring three humbuckers to one push-pull, and I would be wary of cross-takl between two humbuckers sharing a switch.

Have a multimeter handy and check all you solder joints for continuity. Use the ohms settings. Lots of ohms = bad, zero or close to zero = good. Also check for unwanted shorts on the switch. No ohms = short, lots and lots of ohms = good.

[FierceFish]

Thanks everyone for your helpful feedback and suggestions. I have Hank's schematic up and running with great tones and no hum (except a little in the single-coil tones in pos. 2 and 4). The hum I reported earlier was user error. I did make one adjustment - which was to remove the pot-to-pot grounding connections because everything is already grounded via the shielding on the pickguard (I tested continuity to confirm this).

I read on the Lindy pickups site that multiple closed grounding loops will introduce hum, which is why I tried to reduce the amount to grounding loops. I also made sure to connect to both the trem claw, and the cavity shielding, to do everything I could to minimize hum.

I have a Warren DeMartini on order from SD for the neck position (Pearly Gates right now), with a Hot Rails in the middle position and a Lil' Screamion Demon in the neck. I love the Demon, but what an awesome surprise the Hot Rails is! that mid position has typically been something I never used - but the Hot rails gives me a big, beefy darker rock tone. I just wish I had a white Hot Rails instead of black (couldn't find a white on online anywhere).

- FierceFish

[Hank-]

The 2&4 positions should have been quieter than the rest though