Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

[Bobbo]

I have a dual humbucker guitar set up for gigging with a strange/unique wiring setup. I have a 59 in the neck and a Custom Five in the bridge and it has i volume and tone and a 3 way LP style toggle on the upper bout

For gigs I need to emulate three distinct sounds: vintage-ish rhythm on the neck, high-gain crunch on the bridge, and of all things the 72 Tele/Keef sound in the middle by splitting the bridge pickup in combination with the full 59. This guitar and the rig that gigs with it is very narrowly focused on those three sounds alone.

I currently accomplish this using a push-pull pot but because I am an idiot/easily distracted/lazy I'd be in heaven if I could wire some special 3 way toggle to split the bridge pup automatically in the middle position. Is this possible with one of the on-on-on style toggles that normally give neck/middle+bridge/bridge on some of the three pickup Gibsons I've seen? Is there another 'super' switch option out there?

-Bobbo

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

I think what you want might be impossible

But i have been wrong before.

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

Yes, its simple. Gimme a sec.

Just to be clear, you want only the bridge split, in the middle position, right?

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

Here it is using either an on-on-on DPDT switch, or an LP-style switch like used in 3-pickup LP's. (Like this.)

 

[Bobbo]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

Thanks for the quick reply!

However I guess I did not write it well in the original post. I'd like the middle position to be the neck humbucker full (but in this case my 59 is not 4-wire anyhow) and the bridge bucker split thus mimicking a 72 Custom Tele middle position.

Would your schematic allow for that by jumping the neck pickup lead on somewhere, Artie?

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

Artie's diagram illustrating the DPDT on/on/on switch is correct. The bridge PU will be coil split in two of the three positions but this does not matter because, when the neck PU alone is selected, the bridge PU gives no output.

EDIT - The more that I look at the five-leaf three-way toggle selector switch illustration, the more I think that something about it is not right. I would expect the output to be taken from one, the other or both of terminals 3 and 4 (as viewed, left to right). :scratchch

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

. . . by splitting the bridge pickup in combination with the full 59.

Ok . . . this is the part I missed. Both diagrams are correct for the middle being bridge-split only. Let me rethink this, but I believe that having both pups on will be a nogo for this switch style.

But I haven't given up yet.

Frank, I know that looks weird, but its because, (in my original thinking), bridge and neck were never on at the same time. One side of the switch selects between B/B/N, while the other side selects split or not.

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

I don't see any way to this with the simple on-on-on or LP-style switches. The problem is, when you go from the bridge position to the middle, you need two switch actions to take place: Neck on and bridge split. Neither of those switches do that.

However, it could easily be done with a 4PDT on-on-on switch. Those are bit more expensive, but they'll do what you want. Like this. Btw, I believe that can be found for less, but thats a good place to start.

 

[Bobbo]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

TYVM Artie

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

TYVM ?

 

[aleclee]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

I'd guess it's thank you very much

 

[Artie]

Re: Is this possible with a 3-way toggle?

Ah, cool . . . you're welcome. :friday: