Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

[Narzugon]

I was looking in my parts boxes and found that I have a new Fralin Blender Pot and a 500k Push Pull DPDT pot. My strat has a bad Volume pot that needs changing so I thought I'd experiment while I had it open.

I spent most of my day off (currently 5:30 AM) browsing the interwebs for ideas and researching those ideas. Of course I've come up with a crazy mix of ideas that may not even be possible and some will surely say not practical. But hey, it's Rock-n-Roll right?

I'm currently running a H/S/S setup with a 5 way switch 1 Volume and 2 Tones.

The options I would like are:

1: Ability to Coil Split the humbucker.
2: Wire the blender normally and it work with the humbucker while split and when not.
3: 1 Master Volume and 1 Master Tone.

The next two I'm not even sure are possible.

4: Ability to pair pickups "In Series". I'd like to be able to choose the Humbucker (while tapped or not) and Middle in Series or the Middle and Neck in Series.

This video refers to the Dan Armstrong Mod. I don't care to have Out Phase or Parallel options if I don't have to. I do like being able to select Bridge/Middle and Middle/Neck in series via the 5 way selector.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKJ1whWdCu0

5: I'd like to experiment with blending the off side to the on side of a tapped humbucker. Would that even work?

The main thing is I don't want any mini toggles or new switches on the pick guard. Adding another Push Pull Pot would be fine.

I have just basic knowledge of guitar circuits but can follow a schematic and solder. So tell me if I'm way off here. My first thought was to use the PP pot to split the Humbucker then wire the blender pot per Fralin's schematic. From there I have absolutely no idea how to incorporate the series wiring. I'm guessing that I'd have to add another PP Pot or sacrifice the Master Tone?

So my next thought was to split the coil at the 5 way instead of the PP pot. I would do w/o the middle pickup by itself. So the 5 positions would be:

P1 Humbucker
P2 Split HB
P3 Middle/HB
P4 Middle/Neck
P5 Neck.

Would this free up the PP Pot to activate the Series wiring via the Selector switch as seen in the above video?

I hope this makes some sense. I definitely need sleep!

Thanks for any help or guidance.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Well you already have Volume, Tone, and Blender so I don't see where you'd add a spin-o-split. But yeah you could use the volume push pull to split the humbucker, and the tone push pull to switch to series mode. Here's the diagram for plain old positions 1 and 2 bridge and middle in series, 3 off, positions 4 and 5 middle and neck in series.

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Hi.
I will share with you my experiences with funky strat wiring
I have an HSH strat with coil splits using push pulls: volume for neck and tone 1 for bridge.
The coil splits use a 4.7k resistor to ground. I tried 3 configurations:
previously had a master tone, and tone 2 was dial a split and push pull to jumper neck and bridge to have both on regardless of which was selected on standard 5 way.
I found I never used the dial a split much as the sweet spot was actually between 0 and 2.
So I then removed dial a split and had a blend pot but again didn't blend much preferred either totally off or fully blended

Which led me to the solution I like best (keep in mind I had all 500k pots as I got humbuckers)
I found the middle single coil too bright to tone 1 is 500k tone for humbuckers tone 2 250k for middle single coil and push pull to jumper the bridge and neck - coil spits after much experimentation with different value resistors, 4.7k still gives best single coil tone and better volume balance when split.

But not enough push pulls for putting the middle pickups in series and in HSH you would want to, but on HSS putting neck and middle in series would be pretty cool. I have middle in series / parallel switching with whichever else is selected on one of my SSS strats which also has 3/4 out of phase via 0.1 cap and 1/2 out phase via 0.01 cap and a blend pot which works well blending out of phase, but that's a whole other story ....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Putting 2 single coils in series loses trebles so in my SSS strat with series parallel switching I use a TBX control so I can get one meg when the pickups are unseties so it's still got spank!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mincer]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Two single coils in series sounds like a giant mud bath, really. You lose treble, but you sort of lose the attack, as well. It 'feels' less responsive, if that makes sense. It is worth experimenting with, but I haven't found a use for it.

 

[vinnie1971]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Two single coils in series sounds like a giant mud bath, really. You lose treble, but you sort of lose the attack, as well. It 'feels' less responsive, if that makes sense. It is worth experimenting with, but I haven't found a use for it.

I don't mind it providing the single coils are inherently bright and you have a TBX or a no load tone pot, but I agree it gets a bit muddy especially with gain.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jacew]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

There might not be trouble with muddiness if you use 500k pots and find out suitable capacitor value for the setup. If you get icepicky parallel and single positions, they're easy to dial/switch out with tone control. And like I mentioned in earlier thread, singles in series still feel more responsive than stock covered humbuckers in LP.

Of course it depends on the actual pickups. SSL-7/SSL-5 and SSL-7/SSL-1 work really well in series in my naturally dark sounding strat, but halving the SSL-7 (tapped version) makes both of those positions very muddy.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

I would do 1, 2, and 3, and leave it at that.

 

[Narzugon]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

I would do 1, 2, and 3, and leave it at that.

I've been mulling over what everyone here has posted and I agree. For now, I'm gonna stick with the first three in my list.

I've been playing for 30 years. Even though I've never owned an instrument with coil taps, split coils, phase, series/parallel mods, I've played other's instruments with those mods and like was said here, I never really found a use for them. Just recently I've been wanting more tonal options at the guitar itself and thought these would be worth revisiting while being educational.

Can you guys recommend a good book on guitar electronics/wiring? I'd like to spend the time to learn more before I begin experimenting.

And btw, I think this is the second time I've posted to this forum. Both times I got help and constructive feedback. A rarity on the interwebs these days. Thanks!

 

[vinnie1971]

Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

I've been mulling over what everyone here has posted and I agree. For now, I'm gonna stick with the first three in my list.

I've been playing for 30 years. Even though I've never owned an instrument with coil taps, split coils, phase, series/parallel mods, I've played other's instruments with those mods and like was said here, I never really found a use for them. Just recently I've been wanting more tonal options at the guitar itself and thought these would be worth revisiting while being educational.

Can you guys recommend a good book on guitar electronics/wiring? I'd like to spend the time to learn more before I begin experimenting.

And btw, I think this is the second time I've posted to this forum. Both times I got help and constructive feedback. A rarity on the interwebs these days. Thanks!

Everything can be learned from the internet and practicing on a cheap guitar. I learned everything from reading up on pickups, switch types, potentiometer types, recommendations and the conventional wisdom then researched diagrams etc.

I never read a book on the subject but guys here are knowledgeable and after a few years of this I have become fairly knowledgeable too.

I have guitars with coil taps, series parallel switching on individual coils, series parallel switching for 2 or more humbuckers, out of phase, coil splits, dial a coil split, varitone with selectable inductor, modified TBX as a varitone, blend pots, bridge and neck on jumper switch (on strats) .

After you have done a handful of mods/builds and understood what you have done by direct hands on experience , you don't need diagrams anymore. Many of my mids I couldn't find a diagram so had to work it out and draw a diagram. The path to ground is what bites you on the bum ;-)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Narzugon]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

Everything can be learned from the internet and practicing on a cheap guitar. I learned everything from reading up on pickups, switch types, potentiometer types, recommendations and the conventional wisdom then researched diagrams etc.

I never read a book on the subject but guys here are knowledgeable and after a few years of this I have become fairly knowledgeable too.

I have guitars with coil taps, series parallel switching on individual coils, series parallel switching for 2 or more humbuckers, out of phase, coil splits, dial a coil split, varitone with selectable inductor, modified TBX as a varitone, blend pots, bridge and neck on jumper switch (on strats) .

After you have done a handful of mods/builds and understood what you have done by direct hands on experience , you don't need diagrams anymore. Many of my mids I couldn't find a diagram so had to work it out and draw a diagram. The path to ground is what bites you on the bum ;-)

I can definitely see guitar circuitry being simple enough to be able to pick it up via the net. I just hate having to ask n00b questions that I can't find answers to.

I found the Seymour Duncan blog and read through the Guitar Wiring Diploma Course (Perfect for a 3hr wait in a doctor's office). That cleared up a lot for me. It seems my biggest block was understanding switches. They've always confused me. These blogs demystified them for me and I think I have a pretty good grasp on them now.

Again, thanks for the advice!

Here's the link in case it helps someone searching in the future.

Blog: http://www.seymourduncan.com/blog/the-tone-garage/an-introduction-to-the-seymour-duncan-blog

 

[Mincer]

Re: Help and or guidence for wiring ideas.

I can definitely see guitar circuitry being simple enough to be able to pick it up via the net. I just hate having to ask n00b questions that I can't find answers to.

Well, this is sort of what we are here for. Sometimes there just isn't an easily available answer, or sometimes someone has already tried the idea you have. That's why we hang out here.