anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

More-Gear-Than-Skill

More-Gear-Than-Skill

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If yes, what kind of zaney madness have you got going?

Is it useful? Push-Pull, toggles, splits, phasing, extra caps, jimi-page wiring?

I'm considering doing some Strat push-pull stuff, and if all goes to plan it should give me a whole host of semi-useless variations plus the stock. I'm going for this http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stratlovers.php

Any other solder-heads out there? Hey, even bypassing your tone pot is a mod!
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

I was just about to make this thread; i swear!!

I was going to ask in particular if anyone uses an out of phase sound , and if they could provide soundclips. Its a cool sound i reckon

I've got room for 2 push pulls in my UM-3 (dual hum guitar), and i'm tossing up my options.....dual coil splits, dual series/parallel switches, or a phase and global series/parallel switches.....
Also plan to put in a treble bleed volume mod.

arrggghhh....i KNOW i'm going to try them all out. will report back with findings!!

RE: is it useful???

Had a crazy wiring scheme in my last dual hum gtr....and i can say without any uncertainty that it is TOTALLY not useful!!!! But man it was fun!

Only crazy wiring i have atm is a neck on switch in my strat.....its a cool sound but i never really use it...i might change that to a neck/middle series switch
 
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Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

Yeah, great tone pot by Craig Anderton (electronic wizzard of the 80ies Guitar Player Magazine). 2 caps from the outer legs of 500k push push pot. The switch cuts the connection to the ground. If you take a .22uF cap and a .05uF you have to tone characteristics in one pot. With the switch you get full blow highs or tone control engaged.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

larry_emder said:
I was just about to make this thread; i swear!!
Click to expand...

....must be the southern hemisphere subconcious affectation. Wake up one mornin, and yell from the rooftops: "useless phase-altering wiring i will waste my weekend with!"

How 'bout them Wolfmothers? :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

The craziest wiring mod I ever did was on a Strat I had 25 years ago that I tore up with a screwdriver (used as a chisel) to allow 3 humbuckers to fit on it.

I had a Dimarzio SD in the bridge, an Invader in the middle with a lot of turns taken off the bridge side coil -- and I forget what I had in the neck. Also, the Invader wasn't dead center like a normal middle, it was crammed up against the SD because I had something special in mind...

...which was that I had it wired with a unique "coil split" option. The, uh..."split" mode was just the DiMarzio SD by itself. Full "humbucking" mode was the SD in series with the first coil of the Invader next to the SD, so it became a triple coil weighing in at about 19k. (I had also replaced the Invader poles with some spare SD poles I had laying around -- they are interchangeable as I found out -- so it looked like a black SD.)

The final touch was that I used the OTHER coil of the Invader as a middle pickup, which actually sounded really good -- nice and clucky with either of the other two pu's.

On top of this, I had a 28" scale neck made for this Strat, so the longer scale probably thinned out the tone a bit (I tuned to standard with 9's) which probably accounts a lot for what made my triple-coil sound pretty good and clear. I guess I had the world's first Fender Subsonic and didn't know it!
 
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Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

On my Rhoads I have an original Dirty FIngers that I converted to 4 conductor wiring paired with a PATB-2 at the bridge.

They´re wired out of phase to each other so that in between I get a really nice, hollow tone that´s uniquely cool, and both pickups can be split as well. I´m going to grab some 3 way switches soon for series /split /parallel.

And the whole thing runs through a Jackson JE1200 (variable) Mid-boost circuit :headbang:
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

ive had all kinds of crazy wiring schemes

one of the first guitars i built was a two humbucker and two strat single coil super strat thing (i was really into steve morse at the time). from the neck it was SHSH with the single closest to the bridge at a reverse slant

i had a three way gibson style switch to control humbuckers/both/singles
a tele style 3 way for the single coils - neck/both/bridge
a 4 pole strat style 5 way for the buckers - neck/both in phase/both out of phase/bridge the other position was a dead spot for a kill switch so i could do those cool tom morello stutters
a volume and tone for the buckers and a volume and tone for the singles all push/pull
the single volume put the two singles in series
the single tone split the neck bucker
the bucker volume put the two pups in series
the bucker tone split the bridge bucker

there were lots of cool tones and plenty that i probably only used once when i was testing it out for the first time.

now about the craziest thing i have is a gibson style setup with a phase switch and coil split which i find very useful. with independant volumes you can get some cool out of phase flavors that arent overly thin, honky maybe
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

my ibanez am-50 semihollow has a 4 way rotary w/chicken head knob for pickup selector ... it gets bridge alone - bridge and neck in phase - bridge and neck out of phase - neck alone

each pup has its own internal series / internal parallel toggle switch

lotsa cool tones to be had with those 12 different combinations

my HsH guitar has 16 different tones

each humbucker can be split to either coil ... each humbucker can be combined with the S ... the S can be alone ... or the humbuckers can be combined without the S as inner - or outer

lotsa cool tones there too - but much better in the studio than for live use

t4d
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

i've posted this before. this wiring is quite odd.

series, parallel, mid boost, out of phase, combination of everything from all pickups. and each one is useful.

im a steve morse fan as well, Jeremy :)

fb1.jpg

fb2.jpg
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

More-Gear-Than-Skill said:
If yes, what kind of zaney madness have you got going?

Is it useful? Push-Pull, toggles, splits, phasing, extra caps, jimi-page wiring?

I'm considering doing some Strat push-pull stuff, and if all goes to plan it should give me a whole host of semi-useless variations plus the stock. I'm going for this http://www.guitarnuts.com/wiring/stratlovers.php

Any other solder-heads out there? Hey, even bypassing your tone pot is a mod!
Click to expand...

The most exotic thing I have is two push/pulls, on a HH guitar, for individually splitting coils at will. That means I can do a sort of H-S tele sound (sort of, not very accurate though), the S-S tele sound, etc, interesting sounds.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

holy moley! Jeremy and Benye are the clear undisputed champions in this thread...thats outrrrrrageous!
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

I have two strats with three on/off/on switches so each of the humbucker pickups could be series in one direction and parallel in the oposite and can be combined.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

Benye said:
fb2.jpg
Click to expand...

That picture immediately made me think of that crazy kid next door in "Toy Story". :D (I like it.)

I have my Strat wired with 3 tapped singles. The #2 and #4 notch positions are "tapped-series" instead of parallel. I love it. Still doing some "tinkering" with that one.

I mod all my dual-humbucker guitars now so that the middle position is the screw coil of the neck with the stud coil of the bridge, in series, for a "virtual 3rd humbucker" tone. I find it much more useful than both 'buckers in parallel.

And, I still use my "sparkle-tone" mod on my Tele. It just borrows a smidgen of the highs from the bridge when in the neck position.

I have others in the works. ;)

Artie
 
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Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

My favorite mod is something a bit simpler but it is really effective. I have a Schecter Tele model that I put SD Vintage Stacks. I really wanted the ability to get noiseless but I wanted to be able to get the official single coil thing too. So I got another plate and drilled a hole halfway between the volume and tone knob. I place a DPDT micro switch ... wired the red/white connection from each pickup to ground through this switch. Down is noiseless and up cuts out the bottom coils ... single coil sound that is slightly louder(suprised me) & more standard but with the slight noise. So 6 different sounds ... 4 of them noiseless. Added 500k pots and orange drop cap. Tweaked the wiring a bit with an extra 1meg resisitor so that when middle and bridge setting are on 333k pots ... neck only 500k ... balances them out nicely.

:eek13: Not exotic ... but effective.

SchecterCloseup.jpg
 
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Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

ArtieToo said:
That picture immediately made me think of that crazy kid next door in "Toy Story". :D (I like it.)

And, I still use my "sparkle-tone" mod on my Tele. It just borrows a smidgen of the highs from the bridge when in the neck position.

Artie
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still havent got a chance to see that movie, Artie..:D i'll check it.

hey Artie, tell me more about your sparkle tone. im interested.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

Benye said:
still havent got a chance to see that movie, Artie..:D i'll check it.
Click to expand...

You gotta see it. I wouldn't call it "great", just good. There are parts that will make you laugh out loud, and as soon as you see "the kid next door" and his creations, you'll understand the comparison to your guitar.

Benye said:
hey Artie, tell me more about your sparkle tone. im interested.
Click to expand...

I'm going to do a quick-'n-dirty webpage so that I don't hijack this thread. I should have it up by this afternoon. I'll post back a link.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

I gotta say - I was really looking forward to this thread, but am a bit dissappointed. Maybe my definition of exotic is too extreme. To me, any combination of taps or phase on a number of buckers/singles just isn't exotic. It's like the worlds biggest pizza: It's still just dough, tomato sauce, cheese, and pepproni. Artie's virtual bucker and sparkle tone are more along the lines of what I think of...

Like: Two buckers on top, with two different slug coils buried in the guitar - one coil underwound, one perfectly matched, and one over wound so you could get like 4 kinds of paf tones from what appeared to be one bucker! You could switch between 4 differet sug coils! That's exotic.
 
Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

I had forgotten that I had made a post about this some time ago. Here's the link:

Sparkle-Tone mod

Note: The electrical values of the resistor and cap in that post are not up to date. I've messed with those recently. Ideally, use a multi-turn trimpot for the resistor. That way, you can tweak it to your preference. The cap value can be altered also.
 
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Re: anyone got exotic wiring mods on their axe?

Nice Artie...

i'll give it a try, with a bypass switch maybe. What cap and resistor you recommend for bucker ?

it's really time and energy consuming for taking in and out my pickguard :D

now where's my drill and that big DPDT,.....


oops, no more space left over :D
 
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