Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

[Guitarguy418]

About a year ago I got an ibanez s5570q and the previous owner mixes active and passive pickups I'm it along with a single coil( I don't know why) so the electronics in the guitar aren't quite up to par.

I picked up a dimarzio evolution for the bridge, Duncan cool rail in the middle, and an evo 2 in the neck. I want to wire it to not only provide a unique tone, but a pallet of various usable tones as well. I was thinking two Duncan triple shots and a push pull on the tone pot to put the pickups out of phase.

Could someone please send feedback on other mods or wirings that might be beneficial in this guitar.

Thanks so much!

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

How is your pickup selector set to function now? It would help in brainstorming other ideas to know the rest of your existing options.


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[Guitarguy418]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

Like so:
1-neck
2-neck(split)and middle
3-middle
4-bridge(split)and middle
5-bridge
This is how it should be set up however there seems to be a problem with either the selector or the pickups may be out of phase because positions 2 and 4 are unusable because of a large volume drop

 

[Guitarguy418]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

Kinda new to this forum thing didn't know if I had to reply but I posted by selector settings

 

[Mincer]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

Welcome to the forum!

You might think about hard-wiring a scheme you might use all the time- for example, it is better to have 5 great sounds you always use rather than 30 sounds you have to sort through that need various switching combinations to get to the sound you are going for. Those 3 pickups can have dozens of combos, so you might wire it up with many options to start, and then settle on a few that you actually use.

 

[Guitarguy418]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

Yeah I don't want nothing too crazy but I do like the out of sound(i have another axe with an oop switch) and the coil splits are very useful. Can the triple shots be used with a push pull pot with it? I know the wires are pretty close.. Also since I am replacing my middle pickup with a cool rail, it would be a hhh guitar now.. What selector options do I have now? Also thanks for the warm welcome and response!

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

Like so:
1-neck
2-neck(split)and middle
3-middle
4-bridge(split)and middle
5-bridge
This is how it should be set up however there seems to be a problem with either the selector or the pickups may be out of phase because positions 2 and 4 are unusable because of a large volume drop

You're probably experiencing volume loss because of the splits. Single coils tend to have less output than humbuckers anyway, and the splits are essentially changing your humbuckers to single coils as well... just the nature of the beast.

Suggestion #1: Make sure the pickups you put in have similar enough output that you don't experience volume loss when the center pup is in the mix.

Suggestion #2: Change the 5-way switch to Strat-style (Bridge, Bridge+Center, Center, Neck+Center, Neck). Then add a push/pull to give you the 6th combo of Bridge+Neck.

The Triple-Shots on the humbuckers are going to give you a ton of options (including the splits from the original 5-way configuration). A word of caution, though... If you find the existing splits unusable due to volume loss, you will be getting the same thing with the TS rings, as well as with the parallel option. Series humbucker is ALWAYS going to be significantly louder than split or parallel. I personally get past the volume loss by using a boost at the beginning of my chain when I'm running pickups in split or parallel mode, but it's possible that the TS rings may not suit your needs... just food for thought.

I find phase reverse to be a handy and fun sound to have in the arsenal. Further mod suggestion may be to add a master series/parallel (between pickups, not coils) switch or a varitone to choose different tone caps.

Mincer has a great point, though. Your current plan already has a ton of tonal variety, but you're likely to find many to be very similar or not to your tastes and wind up using only a few of them. I have a guitar on which I put just about every option I could think of, and I found myself (you guessed it) only ever using a few. Not to mention that the guitar is a little confusing to use because of all the switches, etc. For me, I'm glad I did it both for the experience and the chance to try everything in order to figure out what I liked, but if you already know what you like, look for a way to set it up with just those options.

I'd be happy to help with wiring diagrams, though, no matter what you choose to do... I love a good brain teaser diagram project! [emoji6]


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[eclecticsynergy]

Re: Custom pickup wiring: I need help!

The 2 and 4 positions might be more usable for you if the split coils were wired in series with the middle, instead of in parallel.

Alternatively, you might consider wiring it so that the 2 and 4 positions use the bridge and neck humbuckers in parallel mode, rather than combining them with the middle pickup.

Neither of those allows the use of the two humbuckers out of phase with each other. One way to do that would be to use a three way blade switch for the two DiMarzios, with two push-pull pots- one to flip the humbuckers out of phase, and the other to give you the center Duncan by itself for a singlecoil option.

Or go with the TripleShots and use BriGuy's suggestion #2, changing to standard Strat 5-way wiring. This would give you many, many possibilities. But as has been mentioned, it would make things far more complicated and you might also find that some of the options are not to your taste.