Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

T

Tobias

New member
My Pacifica has HSS, one 500k volume pot and only one 250k tone pot. The tone pot is also a push/pull coil tap for the HB. 5 way selector (bridge, bridge with middle, middle, middle with neck and neck.) But, position 2 also automajically splits the HB even without the tone pot pulled up manually.
What I'd like to do is get a Nashville style Bridge and Neck tone in addition to what's going on already. This could be keeping the Bridge tapped or untapped. In fact, I rarely use the notch position of bridge with middle and I rarely use the bridge coil tapped by itself. I keep the bridge humbucker adjusted very low to be approximately the same volume as the neck and middle.
I know I will be adding a 3rd pot in the scratch plate for this and I can solder just about anything.
Anyone know how to wire this up? Oh, and do I need an actual "blend pot" or will a miniature 1k pot work for this?
Thanks, Toby
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

What are you planning to use the blend pot for?
You say you don't use the bridge pup split and you don't use the bridge + middle notch position. So why do you have an auto split for the bridge?
What do you mean by "Nashville style tone"?
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

If the push pull is a DPDT and is only using one side of the switch for the split, I think you could use the other side of the switch to connect the bridge to the output when split. The caution is the bridge would be always on and split until you put it back into humbucking mode. But it would not change the normal autosplit and other switching functions of the pickup selector. But then you could have neck and bridge single coils, and all three pickups on single coil as needed.
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

Thanks beaubrummels, you gave me a great idea, if I can figure out how to make it work. I think I'm going to try to get the push/pull part of the treble pot to connect the bridge and neck instead of just splitting the bridge humbucker. I might try to get it to do both and the same time; split the humbucker and connect the neck and bridge at the same time.
GuitarDoc, my guitar has a bridge Humbucker, middle Single, neck Single and a typical 5 way selector. 1=Brg, 2= Brg+Mid, 3=Mid, 4=Mid+Nck, 5=Neck. I want to get the Bridge and Neck tone as in what I call a Nashville Tele that has 3 pick ups in like Brent Mason often uses. It somehow keeps the typical 2 pick up tele option of bridge and neck but adds the middle pick up so it can also be somewhat of a strat. I want to take my strat configuration and make it into somewhat of a Nashville Tele. Or, at least the Bridge and Neck configuration of a standard tele. But keep the strat configuration as much as possible. Since mine has a Bridge humbucker that can be split/tapped ( and is somehow auto-magically split in position 2 without pulling the coil tap) I am willing to sacrifice position 2 (aka: the notched position on standard strat wiring) which is bridge with middle. I have read that a Blend Pot can be used on standard strats to get this Bridge with Neck tone by replacing the middle tone pot with a blend pot. But, I only have 2 pots. A 500k master volume and 250k master tone which has the push/pull coil tap in it. So, was going to ad a Blend Pot. But, first I'll try the idea I got from beaubrumels response.
Thanks.
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

I use bridge-neck combo quite a lot. For easy mod: Since you already have auto split you could just flip the neck and middle, which would give you bridge, bridge-neck, neck, neck-middle, middle position on the switch.

Of course it also shouldn't be difficult to remove auto-split if you don't want that.

Personally I prefer 4-tele switches. They have individual tabs so it's easier to set the positions just the way you want them.

If I'd work on this wiring I would go for: Bridge full, bridge split with neck, bridge full + neck, neck. With middle pickup switchable parallel on any postion with DPDT

I could drop you a scheme once you figure out exactly what you want.
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

Okay, I got it to work using alligator clips. I'll have to solder it another day. I was able to use the other side of the push/pull pot as suggested by beaubrummels. And yes, I can get all bridge and neck and all 3 but in each case the bridge is split. I still get bridge full when by itself but I did not get Bridge full with neck. It would be nice to have that.
Jacew, do you know how to make that happen? I'm thinking the only way would be to undo the bridge splitter side of the push pull switch since it sends the white wire of the humbucker to ground. (It's a 2 wire humbucker) BTW, This does not have a standard 5 way strat switch. It has 8 tabs in a single row. I think it is Alpha brand but I'm not sure. 2 of the solder tabs are blank but I haven't figured out their continuity yet.
 
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Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

Tobias said:
Okay, I got it to work using alligator clips. I'll have to solder it another day. I was able to use the other side of the push/pull pot as suggested by beaubrummels. And yes, I can get all bridge and neck and all 3 but in each case the bridge is split. I still get bridge full when by itself but I did not get Bridge full with neck. It would be nice to have that.
Jacew, do you know how to make that happen? I'm thinking the only way would be to undo the bridge splitter side of the push pull switch since it sends the white wire of the humbucker to ground. (It's a 2 wire humbucker) BTW, This does not have a standard 5 way strat switch. It has 8 tabs in a single row. I think it is Alpha brand but I'm not sure. 2 of the solder tabs are blank but I haven't figured out their continuity yet.
Click to expand...

DPDT for split and auto-split work individually. If you just want rid off auto-split you need to cut the split wire from 5-way switch. It either grounds one coil, or removes it from circuit. If you could post pic it could help quite a lot.
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

Pas212-3.JPG

The green and yellow wires are the ones I added to get the humbucker on in the neck and neck/mid positions by pulling up on the DPDT. But what happens automatically, and I don't understand how, is whenever the 5 way is not in the bridge only position the humbucker is split regardless of the DPDT position.
The white wire between the 2 blank tabs on the 5 way are; small white coming from neck side of bridge humbucker and large white going to middle tab on DPDT.
Again, I'm hoping to get rid of the magic auto split function and, if possible, keep the manual pull split function. This way I can have the full humbucker along with the neck and also with the neck and middle.
BTW, I' think I'm starting to realize that the reason I want to get rid of the magic auto split is because I simply don't like to sound of this humbucker when split. Perhaps leaving the wiring as is and replacing it with one of the Trembuckers would be the answer for me. I'd still like to try the above first though.
Thanks for your help.
 
Re: Blend Pot in Pacifica diagram?

Pac212-2.JPG
Here's a closer up of the DPDT. The left side has my green and yellow wires I added to get the bridge side of the bridge humbucker in the neck and neck/middle positions. The right side has the white wire that grounds the neck side of the bridge humbucker (via that short little black wire) when pulled up.
 
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