How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

BeKindRewind

New member
I have an HSH guitar with the 5 way auto split. So 2 and 4 are splitting a coil with the middle pup to give cool Strat sounds and the middle position is just the middle SC . A cool sound but I really miss the neck+bridge combo all my HH guitars. Its really hard to live without.

How would you suggest I go about adding that back into my guitar? I was almost thinking of making a push pull (or probably push push if I could find a good quality one.)which just engages the neck pickup no matter what. That would give me easy access to neck+bridge without changing how my 5 way operates. And also give me other options like neck + middle or neck + bridge split/middle. Would that even work ?

Any other suggestions how you'd rig this up?

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Re: How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

Yes. Push pull or mini switch for the neck is pretty common, classic 7 position wiring for strats. You could do the same.
 
Re: How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

Yes. Push pull or mini switch for the neck is pretty common, classic 7 position wiring for strats. You could do the same.
Awesome, thanks. Would I just run a parallel hot wire from the neck Pu into the "on" position of the push pull? So that either path thru the pot or the switch can open it ?

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Re: How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

Do you use the middle pickup at all? You can get a super switch that gives you the neck and bridge in place of the middle pickup only position.

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Re: How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

I'm a H-H fan for the most part, so on a HSH guitar, I put in a 3-way switch which gave: B, B+N, and N. Just like a normal two humbucker setup.

Then I put the middle single coil on a push-pull pot where if you pull up, it is activated. So then it's: B+M, B+N+M, N+M. That worked decent. Gave me Strat-sounds when I wanted them. Functioned like a normal two humbucker guitar when I didn't.
 
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Re: How to retain my beloved neck+bridge position

There are two approaches to this, three if we include a blender knob if your guitar has three pots. But lets assume it doesn't.

With a super 5 way switch you could get rid of the middle single coil by itself. It's a tricky wiring to do and super 5 way switches aren't cheap.

With the 7 way mod
you could turn the neck or bridge position on at any time or all 3 pickups. I've never been a fan of the 7 way mod with three pickups without the autosplit mod it does add something special to it as there would potentially be extra hum cancellation as it's an even amount of coils and all. This can be done on a mini toggle (DPDT On/on) not momentary. Or push pull that you match the resistance and taper. If it's a B250k tone it stays B250k. To be 100% sure it's a perfect match pickguards tend to be 15mm. Thicker bodied guitars such as most Ibanez guitars are 18mm.

the combinations introduced with the 7 way mod are

position 1
push pull down - just bridge
push pull up on the push pull - bridge / neck

position 2
push pull down - bridge (coilsplit) / middle
push pull up - bridge (coilsplit) / middle / neck - possibly hum cancelling as well

here's two examples, same wiring, different switch. The USA and import ones. Feel free to save these wirings for reference. My other stuff is on imgur, ignore the 1950s style tone capacitor hook up based on the method seymour duncan had on their older diagrams I based it upon if you want. Some people love it, others hate it. Just focus on the push pull. These are real world examples I did in photoshop a few months ago for personal use.
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