Please talk to me about series vs parellel vol pots

[zionstrat]

Folks-
Some of you are being great samaritians and helping this ciricuit challanged guitarist with a p90 design, and I'm posting this sparately in case someone else can help before I wear folks like artie and TFD out- But designing my own wiring instead of modifying what is already there is such a different beast (at least for me) and I appreciate any help-

Here's my quandry- I have series and parlellel pup combos and can easily get around all my problems by only using a master vol and tone at the point before the signal starts spliting-

But, playing around with diagrams I'm wondering if a parlele vol circuit per pup can be used regardless of if the pup is either in series or in parlele?

Here's how I'm thinking about it- To me a "series" vol control is like a water spigot- It resists the current to turn down the vol, and if you put one on a chain of pups in series, they are all going to be turned down-

On the other hand, a 'parlel' vol control is completely differnt and normally resists a loop that is parlel to a single pup- As you open the pot up, there is less resistiance and the parlel loop opens up and the AC nature of the pup causes the pup to cancel itself out- But any other pup in series with this pup is not affected because the 2nd pup is not in parlele with itself-

So far is my theory correct?

If so, couldn't you simply use a parlel vol control per pup regardless of if the pup will be in series or parlel? In series it doesn't effect teh 2nd pup as explained above- And in parlel, once again it seems it would cancel itself out, but have no effect on other pups?

But if I am correct, why would 'series' vol controls exist at all? Just because they are easier to wire? I'm betting I'm mising something.

There's a very good chance I have confused myself and very sorry that I use such poor terminology- But if I can use a 'parlel' vol control as easily as this seems, it's far more likely that I would do more than just a master vol-

Thanks in advance for putting up with such a hard to read post!

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: Please talk to me about series vs parellel vol pots

I'm not totally sure what it is you're trying to do. What is it that you want the circuit to do that it can't do now?

Otherwise, maybe you're a Strat/SuperStrat guy not used to the basic Gibson design but each pickup has its own set of volume and tone controls running in parallel.

 

[Artie]

Re: Please talk to me about series vs parellel vol pots

You aren't wearing me out.

However . . . I have slipped into "relax" mode for the evening. If no one else clears this up for you, I'll hit it later.

Artie

 

[zionstrat]

Re: Please talk to me about series vs parellel vol pots

Thanks Artie-
Zhangliquin- Take a look at these threads if you want to get a better idea, but bassically I will have a 5 way switch controling 2 p90s and a 2nd 5 way switch that brings in a sc dual rail in paralel and also defeats the p90 circuit in one position-


So the easy way to handle vol and tone would be to use regular 'series' controls just before the jack-

But if I want vol control on pups individually, the p90 circuit includes series and parlel positions - Wondering if I could put vols paralel to those pups and it would work in series and paralel-

Thx for input!