Everything axe question

[brihill18]

I just installed one of the Everything Axe loaded pickguards in a squire strat. The bridge and neck positions on the 5 way switch are the humbuckers, but the 2,3, and 4 positions are bringing in the "duckbuster" middle pickup which is a single coil. There is quite a bit of volume drop off when using these positions due to the single coil vs the humbuckers. Sound is OK but drops off. Hard to do it on the fly and adjust the volume as well.
I was thinking of adding a drive pedal in there that I could tap on to boost the volume in those positions but wondered if anyone has had experience with this and what their strategy was.
Thanks, Brian

 

[Mincer]

Re: Everything axe question

Welcome to the forum!

The Duckbucker is actually a humbucker wired in parallel, and it is a really low-output pickup, especially compared to the Little 59 and the JB Jr. A compressor can help, or a Pickup Booster, or just live with the imbalance as a 'feature'. If you boost the volume by putting in a higher output pickup, you get further away from the bright quack thing.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Everything axe question

You can also wire the duckbucker in series to make it about the same volume as the other 2.

 

[shadowfire90]

Re: Everything axe question

I'm not a fan of that wiring at all, the name of it is terrible too as there are 50-100 easily tones you can get out of 3 pickups. if Seymour Duncan put three triple shots for their pickguards (hint hint winter namm 2020/2021) they still wouldn't get "Everything" which I'm seriously taking things too literally.

Like Clint55 said wire the duckbucker the normal way and you'll get less of a drop in volume. The approach is a normal Fender strat style wiring like you can get on their wiring diagram portion of the page. Just red and white wires from the single coils get soldered together and taped off.


if you've got a 5 way blade with two poles such as an oaks and grigsby I'd try the Dan Armstrong wiring instead as it requires nothing extra. This gives you a master tone and the last pot gives you series tones out of your single coils for a louder tone as well as this cool to some out of phase tone. Don does a great job explaining it. Here's his video step by step on the approach to do it. For those who can really play I'd love to see more demos of this wiring.

 

[brihill18]

Re: Everything axe question

Appreciate the feedback. After posting I was contemplating options and one was to just put a different pickup in there, a third humbucker. Otherwise, approach it differently. Jump between the neck and bridge pickups as one option, and then use the three middle positions as another, but keep them seperate. That way I can set my volume for whatever I'm doing at the time and not try and use all positions in the same session. Different way of thinking for me but sometimes that's good, gets you out of your rut.

I'll look into this Dan Armstrong mod but that looks like three single coils. As a plus, this setup has the solderless wire connections so you can play around pretty easily without all that soldering and whatnot.
Thanks, Brian

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Everything axe question

Like Mincer said, the Duckbucker IS a humbucker. It is just wired in parallel instead of series like the other 2 pups in the set. If you wire it in series, it should have about the same volume as the other 2. The reason they design it for parallel is to increase quack.

 

[brihill18]

Re: Everything axe question

Like Mincer said, the Duckbucker IS a humbucker. It is just wired in parallel instead of series like the other 2 pups in the set. If you wire it in series, it should have about the same volume as the other 2. The reason they design it for parallel is to increase quack.

Okay, I guess I didn't understand. Meanwhile, I played a session using the middle switch positions only. I was playing thru a Marshall Origin 20 head and speaker cabinet.
It has the quack sound, which is modulated by your attack, but I really got into the decay tones, expecially in the 4th postion. For a cheap squire strat in the seafoam green, it turns into a great guitar.

Thanks for the feedback, appreciate it.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Everything axe question

I think the the thing with the Everything Axe, like anything labeled 'everything', it can't actually do everything. But if you accept the fact that there will be a volume difference, it does pretty much everything.