Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

[waltschwarzkopf]

Hi guys,

I’m getting close to the end of my build (hopefully) and have been debating on the number of pickups, pots, and switches.
I’m sure I want 2 humbuckers, and maybe a single in the middle. I want to be able to switch from series/parallel on each humbucker independently. I want only three knobs, so the eternal question of 2V 1T vs 1V 2T rose. Let’s not get into the specifics of the pickups as I will probably leave it for another post, but let’s say for now that I have the sound I want with my humbuckers. Here are my ideas:

Controls

I like having a master volume, as this controls the volume of the whole guitar and can be used to completely mute it when needed. I do not use the tone control a lot, but I like having it for “woman tone” and other sounds, though I use it mostly on the neck. I also like having independent volumes to clean up the sound and have different volumes on the positions of the switch. So my idea so far is:

1 master volume + 1 neck volume + 1 neck tone

This way I get my volume for the whole guitar and if I need to EQ a pickups differently, then I can do it for the neck, which is what I’ve done in the past.


Switches

I find a toggle much easier to switch than a blade, and I also think that 5 positions are a bit too much for quick switching, but I like having all sounds on the same switch. At the moment I have a 5-way with HSH and two DPDT for series/parallel, this works but I rarely use positions 2 & 4. Pos 3 is used only when I want a clean sound with low volume, as the single coil is very low. I contemplated the idea of using a super switch, to go from series (1&5) to parallel (2&4), but I don’t know if it can be done and a 3-way may be easier/faster to use. So my idea was:

3-way toggle + 2 DPDT for series/parallel

This way I can quickly switch from neck to bridge and use series/parallel independently without affecting the use or position of the toggle. In case I decide to keep the single in the middle, does anybody know if there is a toggle switch with three different inputs? I rarely used both humbuckers together, so having S in the middle position instead of HH would be great for me.


What do you think? Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially answering my doubts. If anybody has used a similar setup to what I plan, comments regarding experience and flexibility are exactly what I need.


Cheers,
Walter

P.S. If you live in Zürich and want to get together and jam, send me a PM.

 

[Chistopher]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

I think you might like PTB wiring with your humbuckers. That's short for "Passive Treble Bass". That way you could have a master volume, master tone, and master bass cut. A bass cut is really nice for humbuckers, especially in the neck. I'd do 500k volume, 500k no-load tone, and 1meg for the bass cut.

Also, I'd say stick with an HH layout, but if you choose to have a middle pickup, there is a 6-way "Freeway" switch that'll give you all the Strat positions and neck and bridge in parallel.

 

[waltschwarzkopf]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

I think you might like PTB wiring with your humbuckers. That's short for "Passive Treble Bass". That way you could have a master volume, master tone, and master bass cut. A bass cut is really nice for humbuckers, especially in the neck. I'd do 500k volume, 500k no-load tone, and 1meg for the bass cut.

Also, I'd say stick with an HH layout, but if you choose to have a middle pickup, there is a 6-way "Freeway" switch that'll give you all the Strat positions and neck and bridge in parallel.

Thanks a lot for the comments!

I've already tried PTB in the past and it was fun to try, I may rewire it but for the neck only, I prefer the bridge to be raw. In fact, I've also considered wiring volume only for the neck and have the bridge go directly from the switch to the amp.

I think I'll also stick to HH, the S will come back only if needed, right now is not getting much use. As for the switch, I doubt I'll for the 6-way, 5 is already too much. Is there a 3-way toggle for three pickups?

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

You could do a three way and a push/pull pot to activate the middle pickup, but it would be combined with whatwver pickup is selected by the three way switch.

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

Following the ptb discussion, if it's thicker guitar, a dedicated, switchable bass roll off is awesome... Easily set a master setting that thins for rhythm and ornamentation and with a single push, ramps up for leads.

Stronger jump than a blower...

And the opposite approach (that yields similar results) to a mid boost on a tele or strat.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[waltschwarzkopf]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

Hi guys,

Thanks for the comments!

You could do a three way and a push/pull pot to activate the middle pickup, but it would be combined with whatwver pickup is selected by the three way switch.

I also considered a 3-way plus a separate switch to activate the middle, either in combination with the switch or alone and bypassing the switch.

Following the ptb discussion, if it's thicker guitar, a dedicated, switchable bass roll off is awesome... Easily set a master setting that thins for rhythm and ornamentation and with a single push, ramps up for leads.

Stronger jump than a blower...

And the opposite approach (that yields similar results) to a mid boost on a tele or strat.

Now I'm curious again about the PTB, I think I only tried it with single coils. I'll try it a a master and as neck only. Do you mean using a bass switch instead of pot?


Any thoughts on using the controls only for the neck and leaving the bridge raw?

The guitar is a strat and it's a bit painfull to remove the strings and pickguard for everymod, I wish it was rear routed... Any solution for that? I though about routing the back for a second, but then I decided against it. I also thought about cutting the pickguard so I coudl access the controls while leaving the strings and pickups on.


I'm more or less set on a 3-way toggle and 3 pots. I could go push/pull on all of them to get series/parallel for each humbucker and a on/off for the single. I could use two additional DPDT switches for trebble and bass cut as some of you recommend.

My biggest question is what to do with the pots... I'm almost sure about a master volume, so the options for the other two are volume + tone for the neck, or PTB for the neck, master PTB or else...

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Advise and tips for the wiring and controls of my build/mod

Do you mean using a bass switch instead of pot?

With bass roll offs I've done it as a switch and as a pushpull pot about equally- Reverend simply uses a pot-

The reason I rarely do a pot only, is that my customers are usually trying to move between rythm and lead and it takes time to dial in the pot-

1. So, much of the time we make the pot push pull- dial in and push when lead time
2. About as often, we'll put a 2 way switch on the top with a trim pot under the hood, preset to the right roll off point
3. And occasionally, we'll just hard wire the roll off in the switch- Considering it takes a while to find the sweet spot, I prefer #2, but have clients that want it this way.