HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

M

mannyfresh

New member
Hello,

Really need some wiring help, my Strat's been out of commission for too long and I'm gagging to play. Here's the original wiring diagram:

https://www.fmicassets.com/Damroot/...tratocaster HSH 0149200XXX Service Manual.pdf

Awhile ago I switched to the Hot Rodded Humbucker Set (JB Bridge, Jazz Neck), that's all been fine. I just got a Vintage Rails for the middle and I fried my switch putting it in. So I got a Fender Super Switch to replace it, thinking I might as well, cause i might want to try some hot rodding soon- but not right now! and it should be easy enough to set it up the same way. I guess i was wrong about that, or maybe it's easy and i just can't find the diagram, because who would want to do what i'm doing. it seems like this is very close (the down configuration is a little different, which I would be fine with):

https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?319737-HSH-S-1-and-super-switch-parallel-switching

but instead of the S1, I just have a push/pull Tone Pot, plus a regular Tone and a Volume. indeed HSH, 2 tone (1 push/pull), 1 volume, Super Switch doesn't seem to be a popular combo...

so basically i'd love it if someone could show me how to just wire up the Super Switch in essentially the same way as i had it before. or something slightly different would be fine. i play mostly bridge and neck single coil and humbucker, so the coil splitting is important. and i wanted to start exploring the middle more, hence the VR...

Thanks so much.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

Hey Mannyfresh welcome to the forum.

It's way easier to do that particular wiring with a standard 5 way blade. Not impossible this is in theory as I've never done that particular wiring on a guitar. The biggest tip going back and forth between super 5 way switch wirings is to make sure you clean as much of the older solder off the switch as possible as even with a higher end soldering iron and solder you can run into cold solders and all.

I use black and white wires for my single coil diagrams. Black is ground. Colored is hot lead. In case there is hum in positions 2 and 4 with the push pull up. You'll want to ground the colored wire and black goes to the switch to create hum cancellation.

This is how I would approach it.
pole 1 (top left) - bridge and neck pickup hot lead - sent to the left lug of the jack
pole 2 (top right) - just the single coil being sent to the hot lead
pole 3 - (bottom left or right) do whatever is comfortable - just the middle / neck tone controls
if you've got a Schaller megaswitch you'll have to change some wires around. But for a standard super 5 way such as the generic to Dimarzio EP1112 this will do the trick. Oddly enough my first post was a super 5 way question when I joined here about 2 months ago.

attached is my diagram, a very useful one to get best of both worlds and if anyone has a better approach I've left a blank diagram someone could draw something out in even microsoft paint.
View attachment 101814

this is a seymour duncan one where the middle position is both humbuckers in the standard 2nd position on a les paul. It's two pots sure but you could easily throw in an out of phase, blend pot or 7 way mod quite easily adding onto this. I didn't draw this diagram out.
View attachment 101812

and the blank in case I'm wrong about anything
View attachment 101813
 
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Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

In position 2 of that top diagram, the bridge pup is going to both tone pots.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

Not a problem. Let me know how it goes. You can mix and match the tone controls however you see fit so if you're not a fan of a bridge tone control it's an easy fix. I updated the diagram so you may have to refresh the page. It's a really subtle mistake I had but either way we're here to help.

With super 5 way switches that aren't Schaller mega switches this is the pinout, if you're familiar with 5 way blades it's similar but nothing is shared unless you want it to. One big tip I'd give people who look at super 5 way switch diagrams is make as many jumpers as possible. Or don't be afraid to have more than one wire going to a contact. For example on the middle pickup how it spreads across 2,3 and 4 you can just strip an extra long piece of wire off, twist and tin it and solder it across all 3 contacts. To make stuff look fancy a quality pair of wire cutters makes jobs look professional.

12345 represent switch positions. 1 is bridge, 5 is neck on a strat
0 activates 1/4th of the switch so whatever you do to the top left 0 will only affect that row.
What makes super 5 way switches special is there is more than one way to tackle a wiring some a lot more difficult than others. But hey as long as it works right?
View attachment 101815
 
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Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

shadowfire90 said:
Not a problem. Let me know how it goes. You can mix and match the tone controls however you see fit so if you're not a fan of a bridge tone control it's an easy fix. I updated the diagram so you may have to refresh the page. It's a really subtle mistake I had but either way we're here to help.

With super 5 way switches that aren't Schaller mega switches this is the pinout, if you're familiar with 5 way blades it's similar but nothing is shared unless you want it to. One big tip I'd give people who look at super 5 way switch diagrams is make as many jumpers as possible. Or don't be afraid to have more than one wire going to a contact. For example on the middle pickup how it spreads across 2,3 and 4 you can just strip an extra long piece of wire off, twist and tin it and solder it across all 3 contacts. To make stuff look fancy a quality pair of wire cutters makes jobs look professional.

12345 represent switch positions. 1 is bridge, 5 is neck on a strat
0 activates 1/4th of the switch so whatever you do to the top left 0 will only affect that row.
What makes super 5 way switches special is there is more than one way to tackle a wiring some a lot more difficult than others. But hey as long as it works right?
View attachment 101815
Click to expand...

Almost there, just one question- the single coil is actually a 4-wire (black green white red plus ground), it can be split but i'm not bothering with that now, so how do i just wire it like it's a regular single coil?

thanksssss
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

mannyfresh said:
Almost there, just one question- the single coil is actually a 4-wire (black green white red plus ground), it can be split but i'm not bothering with that now, so how do i just wire it like it's a regular single coil?

thanksssss
Click to expand...

My guess would have been black to the switch, green and white to the tone pot, tape off the red and bare. Do I solder them before I tape them and what if I have no tape lol
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

is the middle pickup a seymour duncan as well

if it is the same in the diagram
yellow - to the switch
black - to the back of any pot

if it's a seymour duncan pickup
black - to the switch positions 3/4/5 on pole #2 (top left)
red/white - solder them together and put some tape over them, let them float and do nothing
green / bare - ground to the back of any volume or tone pot

if it's a different color code let me know, today was a busy day so I'm sure I'll get back to your other reply quicker

no idea why the last image didn't send but with a typical super 5 way (not the megaswitch) this is how you wire them up as it helps to put names to stuff right.
View attachment 101827
 
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Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

I am the complete opposite way.
Coil splitting is absolutely unnecessary to me.
In fact, in my world it is detrimental to good tone.
Give me a full humbucker and a hot single coil middle every time.
Plenty of quack.
Coil tapping is a waste of time and effort if you ask me.
My two cents.
I see no upside.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

Thanks again Shadow- yeah it’s the Fender super switch, and the Seymour Duncan colours. I think i got it all wired up but then had to go to bed and I won’t be able to get back to it til tonight.

MGW, you’re probably right but I just needed to get up and running in the familiar way for now as it’s my only guitar. I’m really new to modding and bit off way more than i could chew with the super switch lol. Once I can play again I can really start thinking about the possibilities of that switch (fat strat sounds fun) and maybe using my push/push toggle for something else.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

MGW said:
I am the complete opposite way.
Coil splitting is absolutely unnecessary to me.
In fact, in my world it is detrimental to good tone.
Give me a full humbucker and a hot single coil middle every time.
Plenty of quack.
Coil tapping is a waste of time and effort if you ask me.
My two cents.
I see no upside.
Click to expand...

What?!
You like a single coil. You like plenty of quack. But you you think a split humbucker is absolutely unnecessary and a waste of time!!

How do you get "plenty of quack" out of a humbucker?

It's possible to get SOME quack out of a split humbucker and a single coil middle pup but I wouldn't even call that "plenty of quack". I've never heard a good quack from any "full humbucker" (except possibly a StagMag. And even then not unless it's split).
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

MGW said:
Coil splitting is absolutely unnecessary to me.
In fact, in my world it is detrimental to good tone.
I see no upside.
Click to expand...

This tells me that all you play is massive amounts of distortion to the point of not even being able to distinguish ANY tone.

"In your world", you haven't been acquainted with "good tone" yet.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

It’s works perfectly as desired, thanks so much Shadow!!!!!!!!!

One more question, I’m assuming the answer will be obvious to you. When I first crammed the pick guard back on and tightened up the tone pots, it just sounded totally broken lol. On the middle pickup/position, the tone knob would cut the sound completely when fully open, the switch didn’t seem to be switching anything, it just seemed like wires were crossed everywhere. My hunch it is has something to do with the height/tightness of the pots. How much does that matter? The only way I ‘fixed’ it was unscrewing the washers and basically fiddling around with them pushing them down into the cavity and back up until they ‘stayed’ working and then lightly tightening the washers again. What’s going on here? My second hunch is that it’s a result of my ****ty soldering job.

Any thoughts much appreciated, thanks so much again for your help in any case!!!
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

Could be some cold solder joints that lose their electrical connections when pushed down in the body.

Could be some lugs or wires grounding out from being forced into the body cavity.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

One big tip for those who shield their guitars, whether it be the flat black paint you see or copper/aluminum tape is that the components have the susceptibility of touching the walls of the guitars. Assuming your soldering is fine. No cold solder joints. One tip is quite simple. Go over the entire control cavity in clear packaging tape. Even today as I used to put pickguards together pretty much daily if I did a perfect job wiring up a pickguard where every wire is professionally done where you do the light tug at the wire and all is fine. Inside the guitar the tape really helps avoid a lot of issues like pickups not working or a lot of unforeseen issues. Why it is, is the tape creates a barrier between the shielding and your electronics.

To quickly put in and take out pickguards male / female servo cables are the best thing for you. No one uses them at the moment I know anyways. I had a test guitar I was sick of de-soldering the input jack and this method which is somewhat inspired by EMG is brilliant. The cables are under 1$ (US) each. Ideally you'd want a 30cm (about 12 inch) cable with 3 pins. The kind I was getting on ebay were red wire in the center. You can also do solder free pickup swaps on it. This is a crude schematic I drew a summer or two ago. Needs a cooler name but I love these cables.

View attachment 101881
View attachment 101882
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

shadowfire90 said:
One big tip for those who shield their guitars, whether it be the flat black paint you see or copper/aluminum tape is that the components have the susceptibility of touching the walls of the guitars. Assuming your soldering is fine. No cold solder joints. One tip is quite simple. Go over the entire control cavity in clear packaging tape. Even today as I used to put pickguards together pretty much daily if I did a perfect job wiring up a pickguard where every wire is professionally done where you do the light tug at the wire and all is fine. Inside the guitar the tape really helps avoid a lot of issues like pickups not working or a lot of unforeseen issues. Why it is, is the tape creates a barrier between the shielding and your electronics.

To quickly put in and take out pickguards male / female servo cables are the best thing for you. No one uses them at the moment I know anyways. I had a test guitar I was sick of de-soldering the input jack and this method which is somewhat inspired by EMG is brilliant. The cables are under 1$ (US) each. Ideally you'd want a 30cm (about 12 inch) cable with 3 pins. The kind I was getting on ebay were red wire in the center. You can also do solder free pickup swaps on it. This is a crude schematic I drew a summer or two ago. Needs a cooler name but I love these cables.

View attachment 101881
View attachment 101882
Click to expand...

If you are regularly putting in new pups or making other changes, this would be convenient to use. But if not, a wire is the best solution.

The problem with this is that it adds another connection...a mechanical connection, which is worse than a solder connection. If it is not used regularly, it can build up an oxidation layer which interferes with the electrical connection. But regular use (like often changing pots or pups) is a two-edged sword...with every use it scrapes the oxidation off of the contact and it keeps it clean for a good electrical connection. However, with each use it also wears the connection out and reduces the electrical connection.

A straight wire connection is the best, most enduring connection that you can get. That's why you don't see many guitars with these quick plugs installed by the mfr. They add expense and are just an added potential trouble spot.

"No one uses them at the moment I know anyways."

Actually GFS uses a quick connection system similar to this but even better. At least they use shielded cables.
 
Re: HSH Strat, Super Switch, Coil Tap Hellllllp

I wire up loaded pickguards with connectors like this. Easy to do, and easy to swap. All Strats should come like this.
 
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