How switch-freak are you?

[Liko]

This question interests me. I've been twiddling with wiring diagrams for my P-Rail based "Swiss Army Strat" HSH build, and I realized I may be a switchaholic. Here's the current list of doodads I definitely want in this build:

* P-Rail coil configuration (P-90-HB-Rail and S/P; two slide or toggle switches per P-rail)
* Neck On (Volume pot DPDT)
* Tone circuit value switching (switches between 250k/.022uF and 500k/.047uF; uses each tone pot's DPDT)

And here are some other mods that have interested me:
* Instead of neck-on, have the neck selector change the 5-way behavior to 3-way by replacing the middle pickup with the bridge pickup on the switch (making positions 3-5 identical to a Tele/LP selector)
* Master tone wiring (freeing a pot and its DPDT along with half the 5-way)
* "No-load" switch to remove the tone control from the circuit
* Coil split on the middle pickup (if it's hum-cancelling; would allow noiseless 2/4 positions when the P-rails are split)
* Various superswitch schemes, such as auto-tapping the middle in the 2/4 positions or setting up a "favorites list" of coil/pickup combinations.

I may have a problem (not the least of which is fitting all this into a Strat control cavity). But, it's my hobby and my guitar, and it's what I want to do.

I was curious, though, how far some of you guys have gone adding tricks to your favorite axes. Or, alternately, how many of you have simplified your axe's circuitry as compared to the stock or "traditional" control set (Nikki Sixx/EVH "one knob" setups)

 

[vinta9e]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

1H, single volume. A switch, uh, what for?

 

[XSSIVE]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I'm very much a less is more guy when it comes to pickups, controls and switching. But the things I do find use in are a resistor to switch a 500K pot 250K for single coils in a HSS or similar setup. "Blower" switches as some call them that bypass the volume knob and switch and send the bridge pickup out the jack. With them you can have a rolled back clean neck tone and hit a push/push pot or other switch and you're on the bridge hum, then right back to the rolled back neck tone with another push of the switch. Much faster than having to roll the knob up or down, find the right rolled back tone and also flip a switch. This way you can drastically switch tones in an instant. Also useful on a strat is a tone knob on the bridge pickup and 7 way switching, mostly to get bridge + neck, but all 3 pickups on is kinda cool too. Splitting both hums in the middle position on a H/H guitar using a 4pdt switch is another good one since that's a useful tone.

 

[Liko]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I'm very much a less is more guy when it comes to pickups, controls and switching. But the things I do find use in are a resistor to switch a 500K pot 250K for single coils in a HSS or similar setup. "Blower" switches as some call them that bypass the volume knob and switch and send the bridge pickup out the jack. With them you can have a rolled back clean neck tone and hit a push/push pot or other switch and you're on the bridge hum, then right back to the rolled back neck tone with another push of the switch. Much faster than having to roll the knob up or down, find the right rolled back tone and also flip a switch. This way you can drastically switch tones in an instant. Also useful on a strat is a tone knob on the bridge pickup and 7 way switching, mostly to get bridge + neck, but all 3 pickups on is kinda cool too. Splitting both hums in the middle position on a H/H guitar using a 4pdt switch is another good one since that's a useful tone.

Cool. Normally I stick with the stock controls too, but the P-Rails have my imagination going wild at the possibilities. If you want a guitar that can take a stab at any other axe's basic tone, you're gonna need a few extra doodads in the control cavity.

It would be really cool if someone actually made a 7-position Strat superswitch; neck, neck-mid, neck-bridge, middle, neck-middle-bridge, mid-bridge, bridge. Easy, fairly logical, and you wouldn't need an extra switch to add the neck or bridge pickup.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I used to have a mini toggle in one of my Strats to add the bridge + neck or all 3 settings. I never used it, and am pretty happy with the 5 way. On my LP, the only non-stock option I'd like is the flipped mag, Peter Green middle tone.

 

[daan]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I used to be a "less is more" type-0-guy. Several of my guitars were just bridge pup wired straight to output. Well, because the wiring broke and I wasn't real good with fixing it myself, and couldn't afford to pay somebody to do it for me. After building a bunch of parts casters, I got better at it. All my strat-types have a push-pull volume to add in the neck, for neck+bridge and a push-pull middle tone to put all 3 pups in series. My Tele has a 5-way super switch and a pair of 4-wire HBs so I can do neck+bridge coil splitting stuff. After wiring up a ton of guitars, I kinda thought "Why not?" as far as modifying the switches. Of course I'd like a couple off-on type switches that do the same as what I've already got, but with fewer actual controls: flip it one way, and get neck+bridge. Flip it the other way and get all 3. Not that I've figured out how that would be wired...The other thing that got me into "advanced switching" is getting my Skylark. That thing has series/split/phase/onboard preamp/Varitone, and I've really been digging the options it has.


I have a couple other guitars going together that I'm adding Varitone circuits to now.

 

[dystrust]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Cool. Normally I stick with the stock controls too, but the P-Rails have my imagination going wild at the possibilities. If you want a guitar that can take a stab at any other axe's basic tone, you're gonna need a few extra doodads in the control cavity.

It would be really cool if someone actually made a 7-position Strat superswitch; neck, neck-mid, neck-bridge, middle, neck-middle-bridge, mid-bridge, bridge. Easy, fairly logical, and you wouldn't need an extra switch to add the neck or bridge pickup.

I rewired my Strat master vol / master tone / fralin blender for even more variations on 7-sound Strat wiring. Neck & bridge is a great combo, and it gets even better when you can adjust the balance between the two.

I don't currently own a set of P-Rails, but I've had them in the past and would like to again. This next time I'm definitely going with Triple Shots and I'm seriously considering adding a couple push-pulls for phase and series / parallel switching.

 

[dominus]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

These days my guitars have two active pickups wired straight to a stereo jack. (Bridge on Tip, neck on Ring.)

The switch is wired to the battery to disconnect it.

 

[BriGuy1968]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I rewired my Strat master vol / master tone / fralin blender for even more variations on 7-sound Strat wiring. Neck & bridge is a great combo, and it gets even better when you can adjust the balance between the two.

I don't currently own a set of P-Rails, but I've had them in the past and would like to again. This next time I'm definitely going with Triple Shots and I'm seriously considering adding a couple push-pulls for phase and series / parallel switching.

I just put P-Rails with Triple Shots in my semi-hollow Ibanez AS83... and added push/pulls for phase & series/parallel. First of all... HOLY CRAP are they HOT!! It's by far my loudest, most powerful guitar now. Great tone and I love all the combos it offers. Some of 'em I'll never use, of course, but I figure it sure doesn't hurt to have them available!

To Liko: As for being a switch-freak... I have to admit that I most assuredly AM! My main gigging guitar is still my 1985 Westone Spectrum LX which I've had since 1987. It went through a fire back in 1995 which scarred it badly and fried most of the electronics. A buddy of mine refinished it with clear over the char (very cool and unique) about 10 years ago, and I finally got around to doing something about the electronics last year... replaced the pickups with a JB/Jazz combo and a Hot Stack in the center (forgot to mention that it's an HSH). Then went crazy with switching options...



I love it! I recently made some changes to my first rendition, and now I have a Master Volume, Master Tone with 3-way varitone, Blend pot for bringing in the center pickup (or even to isolate it), series/split/parallel 3-way minis for each pickup, phase reverse, and master series/parallel for the neck & bridge. The toggle works as usual between the neck and bridge, and I have the neck pickup set to split opposite of the bridge for noiseless operation when bridge and neck are split. I can get virtually every possible combination of pickups and/or coils with this setup.

Here's a wiring diagram with the options I currently have. The only think incorrect is the wiring for the blend pot... I had to reverse a couple of wires from what I had drawn up in order to make it work correctly and haven't gotten around to updating the diagram yet (if you're interested, I'll gladly make a new one for you):



On the flip-side, I have an Epiphone Les Paul Special (yep, the cheap one, but it plays and sounds great after a bridge upgrade) with P-90s that is straight Volume, Tone & Toggle. I love that one too... it's elegant in its simplicity!

 

[Mincer]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Wow! There are some creative setups here! I always went for no more than 2 moves (one is preferred) to get to any sound I want. I might initially wire up a bunch of switches, but that is to sort out the wiring I like, and then I hard wire those in. My preferred setup is 1 vol, 1 tone, 1 5 way super switch.

 

[Artie]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

My name is Arthur, and I'm a switchaholic.



The top two knobs are vol/tone. The bottom three are two 4-way rotary's and a 3-way rotary. Can't remember what they do.

Oh yeah . . . and a toggle. :crazy:

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Mild.

One thing I always like to do to my Hxx guitars is use a push/pull pot for the tone control to coil split the bucker (in HxH guitars I'll either split the neck alone or use a second volume push/pull for each one).

My Strat is an exception since I've turned her into an HSS where the bridge is the Crazy 8 (splits into an AWESOMELY amazing single tone) and the neck and middle are StraBro90s.
For that one I actually use a switch to split all three and the push/pull to activate the neck+bridge for the Tele-thing. Truth is I'm contemplating redoing that as I want the bridge to split separately from the neck+middle but I don't want to overcomplicate things (Imagine wanting to go from bridge bucker to neck P90+bridge single).

 

[Mincer]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

My 1982 'The Strat' has a 2 way rotary knob (that came stock) which does weird things like have the outside 2 pickups in parallel with the middle in series, and different pairs in series. Certainly doesn't sound Stratty at all, and honestly, they aren't useful for what I play. Although if that weirdo rotary knob ever breaks, I doubt I'll ever find another.

 

[Rand-O-Monium]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Toggle & Kill are the only switches for me...

nothing to make it "skinny/thinner".

 

[AlexR]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Initially I had a lot of guitars with switching. I'd build in all the combos for coil selection or series - split - parallel etc.......



....then I realised I never used them. If I want s/c I'll just grab a guitar with that pickup as stock. If I wanted OOP I needed a guitar with the pickups specifically wound for a good OOP tone (most just sound screechy).


So now I'm in the camp of simplicity.


But you have to find out before you know.

 

[TRex]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I have a couple other guitars going together that I'm adding Varitone circuits to now.

Awesome looking guitar you have there. I have been keeping an eye out for a red Skylark to show up at any of our local shops/Guitar Center. Very cool guitars it seems, and has the kinda controls and contours I like.

 

[jmatacola]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I just routed out a cavity north of the switch alongside of the pickup holes. I use it for the battery on my buffer and a space for a couple of toggle switches. One micro switch does the 7-way configuration to the 5-way and another that kills one of the neck humbuckers.

 

[jmatacola]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

Shoot you could route out the other side and run a pickup sideways along your low e, ala Eddie Van Halen

 

[hydro]

Re: How switch-freak are you?

I used to have a mini toggle in one of my Strats to add the bridge + neck or all 3 settings. I never used it, and am pretty happy with the 5 way. On my LP, the only non-stock option I'd like is the flipped mag, Peter Green middle tone.

I recently had a 335 rewired with a push pull out-of-phase. And I love it.

I have found that I never use my tone knobs, they are always wide open. I use my volumes pretty often, and I switch between neck and bridge a lot and occasionally use the middle position (especially on the 335 out-of-phase).

In a perfect world I'd have a two humbucker setup with two volumes, no tone circuit, out of phase push-pull and three way pickup toggle - and nothing else.

 

[BriGuy1968]

How switch-freak are you?

I kinda dig out of phase too and have it on all 4 of my HH guitars. Never used tones much either, but recently started using .005 caps which takes off just a little high but also gives just a smidge of a "wah" kind of tone too (hard to describe). I'm liking it and actually USING it too!


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