Wiring Questions.

Steelrz13

Steelrz13

New member
I am trying to come up with a wiring diagram for a guitar that I am building and I am stuck on just a couple things. I am going for a HSH setup with 2 volumes, one for the neck and middle pickups and one for the bridge. I also want to add a switch that will activate the next pickup in any position on the switch giving me 2 the ability to have the added combinations of the neck and bridge active or all three pickups active. I think I have accomplished this but I just have a few question.

First it would be helpful if someone who's more knowledgable could check this diagram over for me to make sure everything looks right.

One concern I have is that i'm not sure if I will be able to control the neck pickups volume when using the neck on switch. This is important to me because I would like the ability to "mix" the bridge and the neck pickups together, similarly to a les paul style guitar.

Also I think I would like to add a master tone control to this but I am not sure how to go about doing that.

Any help or ideas on these matters are gratefully appreciated.
 

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Re: Wiring Questions.

Wow - that's a real head scratcher! Looks mostly right, but you appear to have the neck pickup shield soldered to green at the split/series/parallel switch - that would be fine on its own because they'd both go to ground together, but with the phase switch there the bare goes to ground and the green to the split switch, then to the phase switch. Also, the bottom left lug of the bridge series/split/parallel switch goes to ground.

As far as the neck-on switch goes, you only need the right half of the switch - once the neck pickup is jumpered to the output on the left half of the switch (the bottom terminal), it's going through its volume knob then back into the right half of the switch. The left half of the neck-on switch, which jumpers the left and right halves of the pickup selector switch, is unnecessary.

If you want two master volumes, leave the pots as they are; if you want two completely independent volumes (i.e. turning one all the way down doesn't shut off the other pickup), swap the volume pot terminals so that the hot from the pickup goes into the middle lug and then out of the left lug (when looking at them upside down) into the right side of the switch.

A master tone control can go in line between the switch and the output jack, where the black dot is.

Edit: Also, if the middle pickup is also a Duncan swap the wires - white to the switch, black to ground.

Phew! I'm fairly confident that's all accurate, but I'm also prepared to be corrected - hopefully ArtieToo is around somewhere...
 
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Re: Wiring Questions.

There's another Duncan document here which grounds them separately. It's likely both are right, I just had the impression the shield should be grounded to avoid extraneous noise - I've never tried connecting the shield to hot so I can't comment on any potential result.

For the volume knob thing - you have yours wired as on the left below (shown minus your treble bleed jumpers); for independent control wire them as on the right.

Untitled.png

Edit: Also I misread the left half of the neck-on switch last time - it actually jumpers neck and middle from the right side of the switch straight to the output (not left half to right half as I said in my previous post) - which would make it a neck-and-middle-on switch. You still only need the right half.
 
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Re: Wiring Questions.

I am just not seeing how the left half of the neck on switch isn't necessary. Without it there is no way the neck pickup signal will reach the output when the selector switch is in the bridge position.

I think this may work, Ill post an edited diagram tomorrow to make what i'm saying easier to follow.

If I sacrifice having a volume control for the neck I should be able to just connect the neck output directly to the volume pot, then out to the middle lug of the neck on switch then, wire a jumper from there to the neck terminal on the 5-way. The top lug of the neck on switch can then be connected to the common terminal of the 5-way which would be connected to the output. the other two pickups. The bridge pickup could stay the same and the neck would be connected directly to the neck terminal on the 5-way. This would basically disregard most of my previous diagram and would only need one side of the 5-way selector switch.
 
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Re: Wiring Questions.

Here is the updated wiring diagram. I'm sure it cannot be this simple but lets see what you guys think.
 

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Re: Wiring Questions.

Steelrz13 said:
Here is the updated wiring diagram. I'm sure it cannot be this simple but lets see what you guys think.
Click to expand...

There's no volume control on the middle pickup. You definitely need to use both sides of the 5-way switch for this diagram, so you were closer before. Maybe even right before, I think I'm just confusing both of us. I'll have a look when I'm not at work.

Volume pots are right for the independent volume controls though.
 
Re: Wiring Questions.

Oops in my other post I meant IF i sacrifice a volume control for the middle pickup then this should work. So i know and am okay with not having one for the middle pickup just as long as I can have the other functions work. However if i did want a middle volume I think having a volume pot for the bridge and middle would be a lot less of a hassle.
 
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