HH in Strat - 5-way vs 3-way w/ switch

[Juanhanglo]

I use ibanez' 5way hh setup.

Neck bucker series
Neck bucker parallel
Both buckers
Inner coils parallel
Bridge bucker

Dimarzio has a great diagram for it using a 4 pole superswitch.


I had an hsh strat with all lace sensors in it. Without the hum issues, I was able to use any combo of pickups I could figure out how to wire.

I ended up using the regular 5 strat switch, a mini switch for coil splitting, and a bridge on switch.

I used neck bucker and split
bridge and neck, full and split
Middle
Bridge bucker and split.

Or, too many options.

I actually use ibanez 2 and 4 positions. Neck parallel is fendery and noiseless.
The inner coils (on a 24 fretter. A 22 fretter will sound halfway between a Tele middle and a strat in-between sound) are the same distance apart as 2 and 4 on a strat, just at a different location. Split the difference in sound between n/m and b/m, and there you go.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Just to throw something else in the mix, how about a Telecaster 4-way giving bridge, bridge + neck series, neck and bridge + neck parallel.

You can use push-pulls to do coil splits, I think.

 

[GuitarDoc]

You also need to ensure that there are no volume pot to volume pot grounds/b]. Wire all the pot casing grounds "star" formation to the back of the tone pot, don't "daisy chain them to each other.

There has already been significant discussion about this so I'll try to be brief:

If you are suggesting to wire in a "star" to eliminate a possible ground loop, forget it. Ground loops just don't occur in guitar electronics. There is nothing wrong with wiring in a star pattern but it needlessly uses a lot more wire (which is not necessarily a good thing), and makes everything just a bit messier with all that extra wire in the control cavity.

Just wire your ground wires in the most conservative and convenient way. You'll be fine.

(Just so you know where I'm coming from...I've been wiring guitars for over 50 years and have been making custom guitars for 15).


ps: Mincer's "Do It All Wiring" works great and gives you all the tones you really need (or will ever want to use) in a nice, neat, easy-to-use package. One blade switch (5-way super switch), no extra p/p or mini switches. Since I learned about this wiring from Dave I have been putting it in all of my custom guitar builds that are HH, because it works and sounds so good. EVERY buyer has loved the sounds they get from their guitars. If it didn't sound good and wasn't so well liked by my customers, I wouldn't be using it, I'd stick with the much simpler 3-way toggle wiring. I cannot say enough good things about it!

 

[ErikH]

The last HH pickguard I put together used the Stew-Mac E-Model Megaswitch.

Bridge series
Bridge split to slug coil
Bridge + Neck (both full, typical middle sound)
Neck split to screw coil
Neck

Since the neck pickup was a WLH, I added a resistor to the split so some of the shunted coil was still in circuit with the active coil giving it slightly more output. A 2.2K resistor in line with the red/white wires to ground on the WLH gave it a 6.2K DC resistance split. Much more usable single-coil tone.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

There has already been significant discussion about this so I'll try to be brief:

If you are suggesting to wire in a "star" to eliminate a possible ground loop, forget it. Ground loops just don't occur in guitar electronics. There is nothing wrong with wiring in a star pattern but it needlessly uses a lot more wire (which is not necessarily a good thing), and makes everything just a bit messier with all that extra wire in the control cavity.

Just wire your ground wires in the most conservative and convenient way. You'll be fine.

(Just so you know where I'm coming from...I've been wiring guitars for over 50 years and have been making custom guitars for 15).


ps: Mincer's "Do It All Wiring" works great and gives you all the tones you really need (or will ever want to use) in a nice, neat, easy-to-use package. One blade switch (5-way super switch), no extra p/p or mini switches. Since I learned about this wiring from Dave I have been putting it in all of my custom guitar builds that are HH, because it works and sounds so good. EVERY buyer has loved the sounds they get from their guitars. If it didn't sound good and wasn't so well liked by my customers, I wouldn't be using it, I'd stick with the much simpler 3-way toggle wiring. I cannot say enough good things about it!

I tried the independent volume mod, and at first I left the volume pot to volume pot ground in place. In effect I had a loop connecting all four volume and tone pots to each other in a loop, then to the output jack.

The independent volume mod did NOT work at that point.

It wasn't until I removed the volume pot to volume pot ground that it DID.

I'm not an electrical engineer, so I'm not sure WHY this worked, only that it DID.

It's okay to connect each volume pot casing to the corresponding tone pot casing " daisy chain" style, then connect each tone pot casing, then connect one to the output jack ground. That'll save a few precious inches of wire. But the volume pot to volume pot ground created the loop and stopped the independent volumes from working.

I suppose I could sit down, draw out the two wiring diagrams and figure it out, but TBH I just can't be bothered.

 

[GuitarDoc]

I tried the independent volume mod, and at first I left the volume pot to volume pot ground in place. In effect I had a loop connecting all four volume and tone pots to each other in a loop, then to the output jack.

The independent volume mod did NOT work at that point.

It wasn't until I removed the volume pot to volume pot ground that it DID.

I'm not an electrical engineer, so I'm not sure WHY this worked, only that it DID.

I suppose I could sit down, draw out the two wiring diagrams and figure it out, but TBH I just can't be bothered.

There must have been something else going on: an incidental short, some strands of a wire touching something they shouldn't which may have been accidentally corrected when you changed the grounding. A ground will not cause that. When you wire the ground in different ways you do NOT create a loop of any kind...electrically, they are all the same (just additional lengths of wire used for some ways) and the ground does not interfere at all with the hot signal. I wire all my guitars with independent volumes and I ground the pots one to another and have never had that issue. I also line every cavity in the body with copper tape which essentially grounds every pot to every other pot and switch and jack (yes, I don't need any grounding wire at all, it's just an extra security measure...I'm OCD about getting my wiring perfect and dependable). Might I add...that any type of grounding has NEVER caused any issue with the function of the controls. It can't. It's impossible. That's why I said there must have been something else going on.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

Like I said, it worked.

This was with a previously unmolested Gibson SG BTW.