Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Butch Snyder said:
Yep Artie, that looks great! Kudos....

Thanks Butch, and everyone else, but remember - I couldn't have made that diagram if you hadn't supplied the first diagram and Kent pointed out the errors. It was a team effort. ;)

Artie
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

ArtieToo said:
Thanks Butch, and everyone else, but remember - I couldn't have made that diagram if you hadn't supplied the first diagram and Kent pointed out the errors. It was a team effort. ;)

Artie

Hey any way I can help... :)

Seriously, I can draw and design but electronic wiring isn't really my strong suit.... :rolleyes:
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Very cool variation, Artie.

I found an insane deal on a duckbucker yesterday that I just couldn't pass up. That, with the Vintage Rails I've already got, means I'm 2/3rds of the way towards having the pickups for my 3-pickup Tele. Can't seem to ever find any Vintage Lead Tele stacks on eBay; might have to buy new.

I wonder if I could combine your alternate JD scheme with a three-positon mini toggle that would act as an off-on-only switch for the middle pickup....nah. Too complicated. Plus, having a pseudo-mid/bridge sound and an actual mid/bridge sound on the same guitar doesn't make that much sense.
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

St_Genesius said:
I wonder if I could combine your alternate JD scheme with a three-positon mini toggle that would act as an off-on-only switch for the middle pickup....nah. Too complicated. Plus, having a pseudo-mid/bridge sound and an actual mid/bridge sound on the same guitar doesn't make that much sense.

Hmmm . . . I don't think that would be complicated at all. Just add the switch to bring the middle hot to the "blue" lug on the volume. That would give you the ability to have neck/middle, neck/middle/bridge, and bridge/middle, not to mention the other two.

Could be very cool. ;)
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Butch Snyder said:
Here it is...(Donahue Diagram)

This position 4 thing below is what interests me -- can anybody boil the diagram down to the two pickups, the cap and the resistor in this "controlled degree of reversed phase"? It would be the coolest thing to be able to dial up a fairly decent "cluck" tone on an LP without having to put in a middle pickup.

Anyone who can do it, please e-mail me in case I forget about this thread...

Position FOUR:
By combining both pickups with a capacitor and resistor in a controlled degree of reversed phase, the guitar offers a bell-like, rich tone that echoes the classic Strat® sound. Until now, this sound could only be obtained by the use of the bridge and middle pickups on a typical Strat.
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

That would be an off-on, two position switch, no? If I'm understanding you (and I'm probably not, so apologies) I wouldn't be able to have ONLY the middle pickup with that setup, would I?

ArtieToo said:
Hmmm . . . I don't think that would be complicated at all. Just add the switch to bring the middle hot to the "blue" lug on the volume. That would give you the ability to have neck/middle, neck/middle/bridge, and bridge/middle, not to mention the other two.

Could be very cool. ;)
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

St_Genesius said:
That would be an off-on, two position switch, no? If I'm understanding you (and I'm probably not, so apologies) I wouldn't be able to have ONLY the middle pickup with that setup, would I?

Kinda like this: ;)

JDsuperswitch_alt_plus_middle.png
 
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Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Zhangliqun said:
This position 4 thing below is what interests me -- can anybody boil the diagram down to the two pickups, the cap and the resistor in this "controlled degree of reversed phase"? It would be the coolest thing to be able to dial up a fairly decent "cluck" tone on an LP without having to put in a middle pickup.

This isn't really all that complicated once you figure it out. Here's what's happening:

Imagine two pups wired out-of-phase. They cancel each other out. But the cancellation happens mostly at the lower frequencies. As both pups go up in frequency, to two "tones" don't sync - ergo, don't cancel. You get no bass, little mids, and just high-end. Thats why I don't care for OOP tones.

Now we add that cap. That filters out the low frequencies - so they don't cancel. Mids still cancel somewhat, and highs never did. We have artificially created a "scooped" tone.

Now add in the resistor. That limits the amount of overall signal that cancels. So even less mids are cancelled.

The total overall affect is that we limit the amount of cancellation, and limit even that cancellation to a portion of the midrange.

As soon as I get my JD from Lew, I'll tell you how it sounds. ;)

Artie
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Thanks! One thing I like about your diagrams is that even though I'm an idiot, they seem to make sense. Now what I see here matches what I expected from your description: using the secondary toggle as a simple break in the circuit for the middle pup. Is there a way to do it that would allow for me to use the middle pup alone?

ArtieToo said:
Kinda like this: ;)
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

St_Genesius said:
Thanks! One thing I like about your diagrams is that even though I'm an idiot, they seem to make sense.
Thats because I draw them so that even I can understand them. :laugh2:

St_Genesius said:
Is there a way to do it that would allow for me to use the middle pup alone?

Sure. See how there are two wires that go to the blue terminal of the volume control. One is the output of the superswitch, and one is the output of the "middle" switch. Eliminate the "middle" switch and connect those two wires using a standard "Alco" style 3-way toggle. One wire, the other wire, or both. ;)

Edit: Like this:

JDsuperswitch_alt_plus_middle_3-way.png
 
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Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Kent S. said:
Also, I believe you can get away with just using a 2 pole, 5 independent throw switch like the Hot Rod Tele uses.

Actually, disregard that statement, I was being an idiot and thinking about something else.
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

ArtieToo said:
Actually, the wiring diagram is correct . . .

Edit: Deleted most of this post because I was completely wrong - including the above statement. I've really got to stop contradicting Kent. :smack:

Sorry Kent. :blackeye:

Artie
actually, I can never get back to anything I posted these days with a follow-up quickly ... hold tight I got some diagrams showing the errors with that setup if need be ...
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Scott Miller said:
The terminals aren't actually drawn wrong---the switch is weird. I know this because I worked on two of Jerry's Teles when he was at the factory one day. They ARE super switches with 4-poles, but they are not the Fender/allparts type with visible wafers and a semi-circular shape. They are rectangular with the terminals arranged vertically in two rows at each end. I have seen switches like this on some models of Ibanez guitars, but other than that, they are uncommon. If you know how to wire a superswitch, then you should be able to look at the drawing and translate the connections over to it. If you do not know how to wire a super switch, forget it and quit while you're ahead.

yeah, I've seen that type of switch, same idea only arranged differently, but my problem was as it was shown it wouldn't work unless there were some *internal* connections going on. I figured it was just a smaller version of the switch to accomodate the tele control cavity.
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Kent; you're seeing the same things I did. It just doesn't make sense. I'd love to get one of those switches in my hand.

Also, did you notice the gray-ish/white-ish wire that seems to connect the hot lug of the output jack to the back of the volume pot? I thought that was odd too. Also, there's no ground connecting the volume and tone pots. Although, its possible that they intend to make that connection by using the metal of the control plate.

Artie
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Scott, and the other admins ... feel free to trash these in about a week if I can't seem to make it back to do it.
Kevin, on the switch normally a replacement part can be ordered thru an authorized Fender repair party no problem. If you're not set up as an AFR, then I'm sure one in your area could get one sideways for you.
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

ArtieToo said:
Kent; you're seeing the same things I did. It just doesn't make sense. I'd love to get one of those switches in my hand.

I think some wires just got put in the wrong place visually ...

Also, did you notice the gray-ish/white-ish wire that seems to connect the hot lug of the output jack to the back of the volume pot? I thought that was odd too.

I just interpreted that as a shielded output line, just not depicted quite right ...

Also, there's no ground connecting the volume and tone pots. Although, its possible that they intend to make that connection by using the metal of the control plate.

Artie

Yeah, it think that was the deal there ... still not totally sure the deal with the resistors other than a bit of isolation between the two pups, doesn't look like it would adjust the corner frequency of the filter any, and I can't see it doing anything to alter the phase shift thru the filter ... oh well, I'd love to get an exact answer from companies on things like this from time to time, you know the old -- Now, why did you guys do that? --that type of thing.
I still want to know what value/taper the pots are in the JD Tele, and what the stock value tone control cap is also?
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Artie, one more question (sorry) since I'm buying some of the parts I'll need and something I read in a (admittedly, poorl;y written) book on guitar electronics last night has got me confused. For the mini-toggle in the last diagram you did, I was thinking that I would need a DPDT On/On/On switch. Am I wrong?
 
Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

ArtieToo said:
This isn't really all that complicated once you figure it out. Here's what's happening:

Imagine two pups wired out-of-phase. They cancel each other out. But the cancellation happens mostly at the lower frequencies. As both pups go up in frequency, to two "tones" don't sync - ergo, don't cancel. You get no bass, little mids, and just high-end. Thats why I don't care for OOP tones.

Now we add that cap. That filters out the low frequencies - so they don't cancel. Mids still cancel somewhat, and highs never did. We have artificially created a "scooped" tone.

Now add in the resistor. That limits the amount of overall signal that cancels. So even less mids are cancelled.

The total overall affect is that we limit the amount of cancellation, and limit even that cancellation to a portion of the midrange.

As soon as I get my JD from Lew, I'll tell you how it sounds. ;)

Artie

I understand the basic idea, which is why I'm interested -- what I want to know is where do you solder the cap and the resistor (not on a super switch -- to use my application, a Les Paul). And you probably need to change the cap and res values for humbuckers I presume...?
 
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Re: Is the Jerry Donahue wiring scheme truly a mystery to the public?

Ok, here's the simple JD wiring. You simply reverse the phase of one pickup, and add the cap and resistors, like so:

JD_simple.png


Now keep in mind, JD wiring uses 6.2k resistors. You could make those anything. Even swap them for a 10k, or 25k pot. Then wire it like this and blend the pups:

JD_simple2.png


Its important that you understand the basic concept, then go from there. Its the basis for my simple "sparkle-tone" mod that will be forthcoming. ;)

Artie
 
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