two humbuckers, four volumes?

[stonabus]

sorry if this is a stupid question, as i dont know much about humuckers. i was usually a single coil only guy. well, i decided to buy back my old toronado. i originally sold it because i didnt like the pups, now that i have a good tube amp, the pups sound amazing.

anyway, is it possible to have a volume for each coil? i bought back my toronado, and it has les paul type wiring, two vol, two tones. is it possible to make the four pots, volumes? one for each coil?

thanks in advance....

 

[stonabus]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

:help:

 

[tone4days]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

i betcha could ... if you wanted to get all hot-rod with it, i bet you could figure out a way to give each coil it's own volume AND tone by using 4 concentric pots

the trick would be figuring out how you'd wire them to a switch ... and what combinations would be available ... if you sent each coil to it's own 'quadrant' of a superswitch, you could combine them in parallel ... if you wanted to be able to combine a pup's 2 coils together in series (regular way to wire a humbucker), that'd take some head scratchin' ...

t4d

 

[Zhangliqun]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

4 separate volumes for each coil can certainly be done, but you would give up the full-on humbucker (coils in series) mode because all 4 coils would all be in parallel, and (depending on the humbucker) 4k single coils sound pretty weak by themselves, never mind in parallel with each other.

A better idea is to just convert the two tone pots into Spin-A-Splits, which would be easier and quicker anyway. The Spin-A-Split pots would give you everything from full on humbucker to pure single coil and everything in between as they would be the volume control for one coil in each pickup.

The regular volume pots would stay as they are and be the master volume for each pickup, functioning as the volume control for the OTHER coil in each pickup when the first coil was cut out by the Spin-A-Split pots.

 

[Artie]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

This should do it. Use 500k pots all around:

I'm not saying it will work as expected, but it should work. Do this for both pups.

Artie

 

[stonabus]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

This should do it. Use 500k pots all around:

I'm not saying it will work as expected, but it should work. Do this for both pups.

Artie

so, are you not recommending this artie? also, is that the green and bare wires together and the red and white? thanks for the drawing!

 

[Artie]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

Its not that I don't recommend it, its just that I drew that up literally from what you asked. It's untested. Wire it up and tell us how it works.

Oh yeah, correct on the green & bare, red & white part.

 

[Artie]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

Btw - from a schematic point of view, it looks like this:

Also, 250k pots may work ok.

 

[stonabus]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

Its not that I don'tWire it up and tell us how it works.

will do, thanks again.... hey btw, i only have .01 and .02 caps which strength should i use, and should i put one on each pot?

 

[zionstrat]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

argh-
Artie, somedays schematics seem easy and others I just cant get at all! Would you mind doing the idiots version of what is happening in the circuit?

Here's how the idiot is seeing it now-
signal comes in from switch and vol1 attenuates before signal reaches coil 1
Signal continues on white wire and is grounded out to the degree that pot 1 is set kind of like spin a split?
But the full signal flows directly into pot 2 where the 2 lugs are bridged-

After whatever happens in previous steps, a split of what ever signal is left goes from coil 1 to coil2 via red wire-
Output is green and the vol of coil 2 is based on the resisatnce of pot2-

So I think I understand the vol control of coil 2- But totaly confused on how the output of coil 1 is getting out and it's most likely my not understanding the spin a split/bridge to pot2 section- And why isnt the total signal being attenuated by the first pot?

Any chance you could break this down as you have done for me on other projects?

Thx as always!
m

 

[Artie]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

Sure. Just give me a few moments to add a couple more simple pics. Back shortly.

 

[Artie]

Re: two humbuckers, four volumes?

Ok, imagine a single humbucker with a 500k volume control. Electrically, it would look like this:

Now "split" the pot resistor. Same thing electrically:

Now connect the red/white wires to that junction. This is almost the same thing electrically. The only thing that makes it not identical, is the slight variation in the values of the two pots, and the values of the two coils. If you put a switch in that junction, I doubt that you could hear a difference as you switched it on and off. (Maybe.)

Now connect the ground connection through a wiper. Nothing changes:

Now, with "top" volume all the way down, you have one coil, with a 250k pot.

With "ground" volume all the way down, you have the other coil with a 250k pot:

With both "down", its off. Output shorted to ground, just like "normal".

Does that make sense?

Artie

Edit: Note also here, that I want the "ground" wiper to move the opposite direction. Thats why, in my first drawing, the two pots are reversed. I want both pots to lower the volume when turned counter-clockwise. One wiper moves "up" to the red/white junction, one moves "down".