Dear members of the Seymour Duncan User Group Forum,
as some of you may already know, I've made a switchable BMP last year. It works like a charm, I have to admit. I used it with an already hot pickup (Black Winter/Fullshred hybrid) because the client wanted to go from Vai-esque fluid leads to Metallica/Slayer style tightness. This works great to that end but I'm willing to bet there are a billion other reasons to want this: shunting out the outside noise from light rigging, wanting to broaden the tonal palette etcetera.
My personal gripe is the fact that the switchable BMP was already there but got shelved! I REALLY don't understand it because this would be the most logical step to take. But, OK... if someone doesn't wanna do it from within, maybe WE could come up with something. Via this thread I wish to accomplish one of two things:
1: find a way to do it ourselves
2: show Seymour Duncan who much this product is in demand and via our sheer numbers kindly ask them to bring back the BMP-2: the switchable version.
For #2, I'll open a poll and I seriously hope a mod will 'sticky' this, to give this request the biggest traction and chance of success.
As for #1, I'll start by giving out my 'recipe' and my findings and work my way up to what I think might be a viable user interface. If you aren't technically inclined or this subject just bores you, please do vote in the poll!
I used an 8 pole switch to switch the entire thing, but only with ONE pickup. I now use a 12 pole two position switch (long live the old USSR for their quirky electronics!).
I want to work under the assumption that we want switch TWO humbuckers. not one.
So, in order to do that you'd need 8 poles to switch the 2x4 pickup leads. So far so good. But, I don't want my battery to be drained whenever I'm in the passive mode, so I need another pole to switch off the 9V when I'm in active mode. (9 poles, so far). The BMP gives out 2 hot leads (one for each pickup), and in the passive mode you have 2 hot leads too, so you need to switch between those as well, if you want to keep on using ONE jack (so that's 11 poles, for those who keep tally).
Regardless of the modus (active or passive) I'm running it all through 500k pots. The BMP works fine with 500k pots, so there's no need to install extra resistors to lower the value of the pots (from 500k to 25k) when in active mode.
I did all of this with an old switch. That works fine but it looks cluttered and not really clean. I have to sacrifice a pot for this and I'd rather not do that.
A forum member suggested a push pull pot (or mini toggle?) to work with mini-relays that use a bit of juice of the 9v battery. This is a fair suggestion, I have to admit. And at this point I am stuck.
What I have in mind is a little PCB with those switches installed, with the leads already attached. These wires are supposed to go to the respective switches (i.e.: to the BMP or to the passive side of things, for example the Triple Shot rings!) etc. That way, the 'customer' only needs to solder the pickups to the PCB and the other wires to assigned locations. I am aware it's a LOT of wires that have to be connected and looped but it's not hard to do per se. As long as 'you' follow instructions and keep the circuit clean, it should work fine.
THis would of course be an add-on to the BMP, which has to be bought separately. In fact, the pot-part of the BMP has to come off or at least be modded to be a 500k taper (isn't hard to do, by the way).
So, folks, please chime in. How can we make this a reality? I've done it with a switch, a mechanical switch: now we have to up the ante and do it with a neat, little PCB package.
Here's the proof of my experiments. Don't mind my playing (that's ****, I know), don't mind the production (could be better, i know
) but try to see what the possibilities of the BMP are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8_RvQJuOJw
Please, chime in
as some of you may already know, I've made a switchable BMP last year. It works like a charm, I have to admit. I used it with an already hot pickup (Black Winter/Fullshred hybrid) because the client wanted to go from Vai-esque fluid leads to Metallica/Slayer style tightness. This works great to that end but I'm willing to bet there are a billion other reasons to want this: shunting out the outside noise from light rigging, wanting to broaden the tonal palette etcetera.
My personal gripe is the fact that the switchable BMP was already there but got shelved! I REALLY don't understand it because this would be the most logical step to take. But, OK... if someone doesn't wanna do it from within, maybe WE could come up with something. Via this thread I wish to accomplish one of two things:
1: find a way to do it ourselves
2: show Seymour Duncan who much this product is in demand and via our sheer numbers kindly ask them to bring back the BMP-2: the switchable version.
For #2, I'll open a poll and I seriously hope a mod will 'sticky' this, to give this request the biggest traction and chance of success.
As for #1, I'll start by giving out my 'recipe' and my findings and work my way up to what I think might be a viable user interface. If you aren't technically inclined or this subject just bores you, please do vote in the poll!
I used an 8 pole switch to switch the entire thing, but only with ONE pickup. I now use a 12 pole two position switch (long live the old USSR for their quirky electronics!).
I want to work under the assumption that we want switch TWO humbuckers. not one.
So, in order to do that you'd need 8 poles to switch the 2x4 pickup leads. So far so good. But, I don't want my battery to be drained whenever I'm in the passive mode, so I need another pole to switch off the 9V when I'm in active mode. (9 poles, so far). The BMP gives out 2 hot leads (one for each pickup), and in the passive mode you have 2 hot leads too, so you need to switch between those as well, if you want to keep on using ONE jack (so that's 11 poles, for those who keep tally).
Regardless of the modus (active or passive) I'm running it all through 500k pots. The BMP works fine with 500k pots, so there's no need to install extra resistors to lower the value of the pots (from 500k to 25k) when in active mode.
I did all of this with an old switch. That works fine but it looks cluttered and not really clean. I have to sacrifice a pot for this and I'd rather not do that.
A forum member suggested a push pull pot (or mini toggle?) to work with mini-relays that use a bit of juice of the 9v battery. This is a fair suggestion, I have to admit. And at this point I am stuck.
What I have in mind is a little PCB with those switches installed, with the leads already attached. These wires are supposed to go to the respective switches (i.e.: to the BMP or to the passive side of things, for example the Triple Shot rings!) etc. That way, the 'customer' only needs to solder the pickups to the PCB and the other wires to assigned locations. I am aware it's a LOT of wires that have to be connected and looped but it's not hard to do per se. As long as 'you' follow instructions and keep the circuit clean, it should work fine.
THis would of course be an add-on to the BMP, which has to be bought separately. In fact, the pot-part of the BMP has to come off or at least be modded to be a 500k taper (isn't hard to do, by the way).
So, folks, please chime in. How can we make this a reality? I've done it with a switch, a mechanical switch: now we have to up the ante and do it with a neat, little PCB package.
Here's the proof of my experiments. Don't mind my playing (that's ****, I know), don't mind the production (could be better, i know
) but try to see what the possibilities of the BMP are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8_RvQJuOJw
Please, chime in
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