Series wiring for pos. 2 and 4 with three single coils and 5 way switch

[beaubrummels]

This should work with a regular 5-way switch.

It works by controlling how the middle ground is connected. In P1 and P5 it's not connected at all, so the middle is dead. In P2 and P4 the middle ground connects to either the bridge or neck hots, respectively. In P3 is connected directly to ground.

Connecting the tone pots requires thinking about still. Easy enough with s Ingle tone pot Telecaster style, just connect it parallel to the volume pot. Two tone pots needs thinking about to prevent shorts, however.

FWIW I might argue that's not a 'regular' 5-way blade. The 'regular' ones only have 4 lugs each side. That one has 5 independent switch positions in addition to the common lug.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

^ Yup, my bad. Was doing that at work. I'll see if I can do it with a proper5-way. If not, that basic scheme will work with 2 banks of a superswitch, but the terminals may need renumbered and rearranging.

 

[piblock]

That Armstrong wiring is really clever, I haven't seen it before now. I have one guitar with Strat-ish wiring, Im going to ass this mod to my to-do list.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

This will work with a 5-way Fender Superswitch.

Two banks control the pickups, mainly by switching the middle ground:

A third bank can be used to connect two tone pots. Just connect each tone pot to the positions you want it to work in, but don't try and make two tone pots work in one position or you'll create a short,

 

[Blille]

Thanks folks.

I think I’m going to go the classic route and add a push pull switch to a normal 5 way.

Also, I’ve now bought the guitar so incoming NGD thread when I get back home.

 

[Chistopher]

What's the consensus on the strat 2 and 4 series sound? I don't think I've ever had them wired that way for more than just a quick experiment or two. I can just never get them to fit in the wiring scheme in a clean way.

 

[Blille]

What's the consensus on the strat 2 and 4 series sound? I don't think I've ever had them wired that way for more than just a quick experiment or two. I can just never get them to fit in the wiring scheme in a clean way.

I have the middle and bridge in series in a Tele Nashville and it’s great, I use it all the time.

 

[ThreeChordWonder]

What's the consensus on the strat 2 and 4 series sound? I don't think I've ever had them wired that way for more than just a quick experiment or two. I can just never get them to fit in the wiring scheme in a clean way.

A bit louder than in parallel, not much else to my untrained ears.

I would add that all my Teles are wired with 4-way switches giving both the series and parallel options.

If you want hum canceling, it's as well to use one RWRP pickup. On Teles it's usually the necks that come RWRP, and you have to remember to separate the pickup and lipstick cover grounds. The pickup ground goes to the 4-way switch, and the lipstick cover ground goes to ground, separately, onto a pot casing.

On an SSS Strat, I would put the RWRP pickup in the middle in this instance. If you buy a pre-made RWRP the wires will most likely have been flipped already, so white or yellow remains the hot, black the ground. If you flip your own, then leave the wires soldered to the pickup coil alone, as theyre dead easy to break and darned difficult to re-solder, and just solder the far ends in back to front.

 

[Chistopher]

Interesting. I'm thinking of designing a Strat with a 3-way super switch that features only the sounds I use. Neck/middle in parallel, middle, and then possible bridge and middle in series, if I can find any use for that sound.

 

[freefrog]

What's the consensus on the strat 2 and 4 series sound? I don't think I've ever had them wired that way for more than just a quick experiment or two. I can just never get them to fit in the wiring scheme in a clean way.

I don't know if there's a consensus but I'd think to Brian May... A Strat has not the same scale nor the same pickups than the Red Special but series Bridge/mid or neck/mid SC's have a recognizable tone print and work well with a treble booster or any tight gain source.
I even play many other tunes than Queen songs with this configuration. A few hours ago, I was on stage with my Burns Bison whose pickups can be set in series for gainy tones and I've used this guitar during 18 really different songs without needing to change, although I've other guitars at disposal.

 

[beaubrummels]

IMHO series + out of phase is the most useful.

 

[freefrog]

Yep, series + OOP is interesting. With TriSonic's, it can even give a very convincing Rickenbacker tone.

That said, if the series + OOP wiring involves Bridge+Mid or Mid+Neck, it works better IME/IMHO if the pickups are not too underwound and/or are different. The weakest and most similar they are, the thinnest the sound risks to be. That's why I've mounted a Beefier TriSonic in mid position of my Bison and modified the neck one (pulling off its metallic baseplate changed its inductance and Q factor for the best).

In my main Strat with strictly identical pickups, I've mitigated the OOP B+M and M+N options by adding resistors. This guitar is wired according to the Armstrong idea but with a push-pull instead of the pot, FWIW.

For people who use Quaterpounds or Schecter F500 like pickups, B+M or M+N OOP will work better because such pickups are beefy enough to avoid the thin sound mentioned above. IME/IMHO.

 

[Blille]

How do you use the OOP? The volume drop was so significant when I’ve tried it that it was unusable for me.


I like the idea of using pickups with different output to avoid some volume drop.

 

[beaubrummels]

How do you use the OOP? The volume drop was so significant when I’ve tried it that it was unusable for me.


I like the idea of using pickups with different output to avoid some volume drop.

I've had the volume drop with humbuckers way more so than singles. A few ways to mitigate I can think of: slightly different output pickups, or separate volumes, or even a small adjustable resistor or even a fixed value resistor on one of the pickups.

 

[freefrog]

How do you use the OOP? The volume drop was so significant when I’ve tried it that it was unusable for me.


I like the idea of using pickups with different output to avoid some volume drop.

Yes, OOP is far more useable with pickups whose output level and location are not too close from each others. Hence the interest to use the volume controls when both pickups are enabled and OOP in a LP, for instance.

With two pickups of exactly the same output at the same place but wired OOP, the output would be of exactly zero dB. It's not doable physically but the Line6 Variax Workbench allows to do that, if memory serves me (I've not used it for years but I vaguely remember to have noticed what I evoke and to have thought that it was totally making sense).

If a guitar has only one single volume pot, resistors can be used to mismatch the output levels of OOP pickups and make them louder/fuller sounding. As I said, that's what I have put in my main Strat.

 

[Clint 55]

He's using it for a bass you fooz, oop isn't going to work.

Didn’t know, sorry! Not a problem on organ though?

F it. Just gonna go lefty to be like Cobain.

 

[freefrog]

He's using it for a bass you fooz, oop isn't going to work.

Why not? I've wired a bass OOP for my son and it works.

 

[Clint 55]

For full info this is for a Bass VI kind of instrument. It’s cheap but the pickups to my surprise sound good. And I like the middle position best for bassy lines. I don’t like the parallel sounds but I thought that doing some wiring to get them in series would really help to give a more bass like tone when necessary.

He wants a bassier tone, not a thinner tone.

 

[freefrog]

He wants a bassier tone, not a thinner tone.

Yes and the Armstrong wiring offers a bassier tone as well thx to a series connection doable with a normal selector, as requested by the OP. That's why I've shared the related schematic.

That said and to be clear, my rambling about OOP was more a way to think out loud than to reply to specific needs. I'm noisy sometimes. <:O)

 

[Blille]

Clint is right, for this one it’s not going to work, but I got other guitars that I was thinking of

I recently messed up a magnet switch in a HH so I had OOP sounds so I figured I could give it another try but it didn’t work for me. These tips make sense and are good.

For the Bass VI I’m set on adding the push pull for series.