Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

sumitagarwal

New member
Here's a fun little exercise: I'm catching up on years of neglected drawer/box clean up and I found some parts I can throw into a superstrat body that's laying around. Tell me what you would do with the following:

1x Dimarzio Tone Zone
1x Dimarzio Evo Neck
2x 500K push-pull pot
1x 3-way switch

The pickguard is currently drilled for 2 holes, so don't necessarily need to use both pots and the switch, but definitely think it would help to.

So what would it be? Two independent volumes? Volume and spin-a-split? Push-pulls for single coil, or for parallel, or maybe even to use as the on/off for each pickup?

No purchases allowed for this project! Not even so much as a tone capacitor (which I was surprised I didn't find rummaging around)!
 
Re: Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

I'd go with the 3 way to select pickups, and one push/pull to split both pickups. Just a volume knob.
 
Re: Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

Whoa, hold up... I think I'm going to try this one. I know this is supposed to be for P-rails, but I'm not seeing any reason this shouldn't work. This should get both a Tele-style middle mode as well as a Strat-quack middle mode, right? And from what I can tell all middle modes would be hum-cancelling?

Not the world's most intuitive control scheme, but pretty cool

Screen Shot 2018-02-20 at 12.31.48 AM.jpg
 
Re: Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

Well, apparently this morning I'm making control diagrams instead of doing my day-job.

If I'm understanding that diagram correctly, is this how the control scheme works out (adapted from P-rails to standard HB's)?

If so, that's an insane number of tones, including the "core" Fender/Gibson ones, with very few controls and hum-cancelling in most modes.

Does this look correct?

Screen Shot 2018-02-20 at 10.16.36 AM.jpg

I feel like this is basically a two-knob Jimmy Page-lite wiring, but with more usable tones and fewer bad ones.
 
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Re: Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

Well crap, that P-rails wiring I cribbed is hum-canceling in the middle single-coil positions because the P-rails Neck is RW/RP.

I'm guessing stock Dimarzio neck HB's are not RWRP wrt their bridge HB's, right? Any thoughts on what would work best?
 
Re: Cleaning out the drawers: how to two 2 push-pull pots + 3-way switch

Ok, if I want to do this with a non-RWRP neck humbucker, I can rotate the neck humbucker 180 degrees and change the diagram a bit so it's selecting the other coil, right?
 
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