What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

[Gearjoneser]

I'm thinking of pulling the C5/59 set out of my teal black PRS McCarty, and installing my 50th Anniversary Seth Lover set. PRS's have a pretty hard response, so I'd like to try A2's for the first time in a McCarty.

However, Seths are 2 lead, rendering the pullup tone knob useless.

What I'd like to do is something like PRS's old "sweet switch," which just shaves off a bit of output and bass, giving the Seths a chimier sound.

What do you suggest? Is there a cap/resistor combo I could install? And how would it be wired?.....between the pullup's terminals and ground?

 

[jeremy]

Re: What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

yes between the switch and ground, so in and out of circut. not sure the values youd want to use though, arties the man when it comes to this stuff.

 

[Sanford]

Re: What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

Would it be possible (or desirable) to use the push/pull as a kill switch?

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

Would it be possible (or desirable) to use the push/pull as a kill switch?

It wouldn't be useful to me, but I know a lot of players use an extra switch for that.

I sure wish every pickup on the market came with 4 lead, but I know it'll never happen with vintage spec humbuckers.......well, unless it's custom ordered that way.

 

[supernosher]

Re: What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

if the cap was installed between the signal and ground it would cut the highs when in.

I think what you want is an inductor to cut the bass.

And if you ran the cap in series between the signal and the output jack, that would mess with the AC nature of the guitar's signal, but let only highs through.

hope that helps a little to get you thinking until Artie shows up.

 

[ParameterMan]

Re: What to do with extra switch? HH 2 lead.

Yes you can, and it's quite simple as well. You put a relatively small cap in series with the hot that basically acts as a constant hi-pass filter. You then add a pot as a variable bypass around it. Or you can think of it the other way- you pass the signal through a pot and put a cap so the mids and highs can go around it. Blah, blah. Here's G&L's S-500 schematic so you can see for yourself. It's the section with the 1meg pot.

You could also use a Bill Lawrence Q-filter, which is a guitar optimized inductor. Using an inductor is normally used to get a mid-scoop but of course things are a bit more complex and what you end up getting is some pretty sweet comb filtering with the primary notch being tunable to the low mids if desired, the tuning depending on the impedance of your pickups and what cap and resistor you combine it with. From what I've read it's supposed to really sweeten things up and make humbuckers sound almost acoustic. Search for Lawrence Q-filter, there's quite a few first-hand accounts out there.

I would set either of these up in place of the tone pot and mess about until I got something I was happy with then replace the pot with a resistor that's close to the value I ended up with. Man, I'm typing run-on sentences tonight.