HSH with Dimarzio Area middle for hum-cancelled splits?

[sumitagarwal]

I don't think I've seen this question asked/addressed elsewhere so I wanted to try here.

I have an HSH guitar where I'd like to use a stacked pickup in the "S" slot both to have hum-cancelling when I just have that pickup selected, but also so I can "borrow" the bottom coil to cancel the hum from the split humbuckers (especially to get a nice neck single coil sound without hum).

I've seen diagrams for 5-ways that auto-split the middle to the top coil for hum-cancelling 2 and 4 notch positions, but nothing in terms of splitting the middle to the bottom coil to provide cancellation for split humbuckers.

Any thoughts or experience with this?

FWIW my focus is on a wide range of classic tones, but conceptually that shouldn't matter. Going for the usual Strat neck, LP bridge, Strat notch tones, etc sounds

 

[Teleplayer]

Area pickups are south magnetic polarity, which is good if you want to combine the top coil with a coil-split humbucker for hum-cancelling in 2 and 4 notch positions (I have done this). However if you want to use the bottom coil in series with a coil-split humbucker, it would NOT be hum-cancelling as the winding direction will be wrong. It would probably still work if you reverse the connection polarity of the Area bottom coil, although it needs more complex wiring. I think it would be easier and simplify the wiring if you choose a stack single coil with North-up magnetic polarity, like STK-S4 Neck version.

 

[sumitagarwal]

Area pickups are south magnetic polarity, which is good if you want to combine the top coil with a coil-split humbucker for hum-cancelling in 2 and 4 notch positions (I have done this). However if you want to use the bottom coil in series with a coil-split humbucker, it would NOT be hum-cancelling as the winding direction will be wrong. It would probably still work if you reverse the connection polarity of the Area bottom coil, although it needs more complex wiring. I think it would be easier and simplify the wiring if you choose a stack single coil with North-up magnetic polarity, like STK-S4 Neck version.

Thanks for the insight!

I should sketch this out, but I really want to go for maximum versatility. The guitar is a Killer Marquis (I believe it's built on the ESP's E-II bench) with a lot of switches and knobs I can enlist in service of this: a 3 way switch, 2 mini switches (one looks like a quad throw? It bypasses all knobs but keeps the pickup selector live), and four knobs which I can replace with push-pulls.

I'd like hum-cancelling access to the following:

• Neck outer coil with middle bottom coil
• Neck humbucker
• Neck inner coil with middle top coil
• Middle stack
• Neck humbucker with bridge humbucker
• Middle top coil with bridge outer coil
• Middle bottom coil with bridge inner coil
• Bridge humbucker

Which is... a lot

 

[Teleplayer]

Some of the above combinations with middle pickup would be series, but also some parallel combinations.

They are all good ideas.. How about a 5-way "discrete" fender switch, and 1 Toggle switch?

I can't offer you a wiring diagram at the moment, but it would be a nice challenge for someone!

 

[sumitagarwal]

Some of the above combinations with middle pickup would be series, but also some parallel combinations.

They are all good ideas.. How about a 5-way "discrete" fender switch, and 1 Toggle switch?

I can't offer you a wiring diagram at the moment, but it would be a nice challenge for someone!

Thanks for the comment! Unfortunately it's a 3-way toggle, not a blade switch. I'm considering a Free-way switch, but I'm not sure there's enough space in the switch route to fit one, and also I figure the existing four knobs, 3-way, and 2x 2-way switches really *should* be sufficient..

 

[sumitagarwal]

Got distracted by a 1964 Melody Maker, which got me interested in a 1959 Gibson LG-0 acoustic, which sent me down an acoustic rabbit hole, which sent me down a ukulele rabbit hole.

But back to this one

I'm trying to figure out the wiring in this right now before making changes. Maybe because I mostly play vintage and vintage-style guitars, but it just doesn't sound great to me. Stock it has SD Alnico II Pro Neck, SSL-5 middle, and Custom Custom bridge. The neck pickup is an absolute mud fest, and the volume knob for it behaves close to an on/off switch near the bottom of the range. The SSL-5 is on a mini toggle with no volume or tone control and is not pleasant.

Here's the stock wiring (pickup selector in another cavity is just a regular Gibson-style 3-way).

From what I'm seeing here its a pretty normal 4-pot Gibson style setup, with the additional of a DPDT mini toggle that sends the SSL-5 middle pickup to the neck circuit (?), and a DPQT mini toggle that takes the output from the pickup selector and sends it straight to jack.

Am I understanding this correctly? The pickups should be good pickups, but it doesn't sound good to me. Once I understand it I'll probably go ahead with trying to plan on an Area in the middle to enable all sorts of stuff, as described earlier

 

[sumitagarwal]

Ok, I think I've figured out what a big part of the problem here is. I'm used to Gibson and Gibson-style guitars in which the pickup volume knobs are "dual master" volumes when in the middle position, but ESP uses "independent volumes" wiring instead: https://espguitars.co.jp/customer/assy/lp-assy.html

This loads down the pickups, even when just one is selected. So I guess step one on this guitar is to rewire to dual master and take it from there.

 

[Teleplayer]

Edit: After looking at your wiring again, it seems to be using Gibson “50’s wiring” scheme.

 

[Hank-]

(snip)
I'm trying to figure out the wiring in this right now before making changes. Maybe because I mostly play vintage and vintage-style guitars, but it just doesn't sound great to me. Stock it has SD Alnico II Pro Neck, SSL-5 middle, and Custom Custom bridge. The neck pickup is an absolute mud fest, and the volume knob for it behaves close to an on/off switch near the bottom of the range. The SSL-5 is on a mini toggle with no volume or tone control and is not pleasant.

Here's the stock wiring (pickup selector in another cavity is just a regular Gibson-style 3-way).

From what I'm seeing here its a pretty normal 4-pot Gibson style setup, with the additional of a DPDT mini toggle that sends the SSL-5 middle pickup to the neck circuit (?), and a DPQT mini toggle that takes the output from the pickup selector and sends it straight to jack.

Am I understanding this correctly? The pickups should be good pickups, but it doesn't sound good to me. Once I understand it I'll probably go ahead with trying to plan on an Area in the middle to enable all sorts of stuff, as described earlier

One volume control seems to be wired 50s style while the other volume control appears to be modern wiring.

I'd disconnect the middle pup and wire it as a two pup basic les paul to check if the humbuckers are sounding good.

The Areas happen to have a dummy coil in there? Then splitting it to get the second coil might be a waste of time. I know these can be ordered rwrp to split for true quack in 2&4 positions. But im not sure if these have a dummy coild in them or not

 

[sumitagarwal]

One volume control seems to be wired 50s style while the other volume control appears to be modern wiring.

I'd disconnect the middle pup and wire it as a two pup basic les paul to check if the humbuckers are sounding good.

The Areas happen to have a dummy coil in there? Then splitting it to get the second coil might be a waste of time. I know these can be ordered rwrp to split for true quack in 2&4 positions. But im not sure if these have a dummy coild in them or not

Oh weird, I think you're right! I'm seeing the neck controls as 50's wiring, right? Really strange to have mixed stock wiring on a guitar. Fairly sure it's never been modded.

I've adjusted the pickups and got it sounding decent with the exception that turning down either volume sounds like garbage, which I'm chalking up to the independent volume controls instead of dual-master. So I gotta change that.

The middle pickup is still the SSL-5. Instead of an Area I'm also thinking of the STK-S2N. I wonder how that would pair with the A2P Neck and Custom Custom?

Anyone aware of pots that fit in 1/4" mini toggle mounting holes? I'm thinking maybe instead of the mini toggle switches in there right now I might just give the middle pickup it's own vol and tone control

 

[Hank-]

I recently got hooked on 50s wiring sounds on my beater prs se. It gives more variations at different knob settings since the volume & tone became interactive, still getting used to finding different sounds. You might like the neck wired that way if its got separate volume & tone.

1/4" threaded pots are available on mouser like sites, the shaft length and knurled or screw type options should be abundant.

The more pots you add, the overall load that the pups will see when in shared positions will be greater. There were a few tricks with resistors and caps and dual gang pots and super switches for getting things to work better together in split positions, may wanna look into those via google, i've no idea about the details but Ive come across stuff a few times that seemed interesting.