HH Weird LP Wiring Possible with just one super switch?

[stateofepicicity]

Hi there,

I've been trying for days to get this wiring to work on paper, but I keep banging my head against a wall.  I can make the bridge solo positions work, but no matter what I try with the other three positions, I run out of superswitch lugs.

If possible, what I'd like to do is to create this wiring for my superstrat:

Two Humbuckers (Seymour Duncan color codes)

Les Paul style wiring using two dual concentrics:

• Neck Position Volume and Tone on one dual concentric (50s wiring)
• Bridge Position Volume and Tone on one dual concentric (Modern wiring)

One 5-Way Super Switch with these positions:

1. Neck Series (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
2. Neck Parallel (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
3. Neck Outer Coil in Parallel with Bridge Inner Coil (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
4. Bridge Parallel (Controlled by Bridge Position Knobs)
5. Bridge Series (Controlled by Bridge Position Knobs)

I know I can do this with mini-switches, but this guitar is new, and I didn't want to add any other switches nor switch to a rotary, but from my work on this, I'm starting to think I'm asking too much of one switch!  I know the Free-Way is out there, but I don't want ten positions.  I also looked at the various Schaller megaswitches, but from what I could tell, even the M wouldn't allow for this.

Thanks in advance for any guidance, and I hope everyone has a great weekend!

All the Best.

[newey]

Electrically, the Schaller Megaswitch "M" is equivalent to a Superswitch, so if it can't be done with a Superswitch, then it can't be done with a Megaswitch M.

I think this probably can be done, however. But I'm wondering about the V and T controls at position 3, where you said you wanted the Neck pickup's volume and tone to control that setting. I'm unclear if the Neck V and T will be active at position 3 for just the neck pickup, or if you want the Neck V and T to control both HBs at position 3.

If you can live with both sets of V and T pots active in position 3, then each pickup's V and T pots get wired "across" that pickup, before the 5-way switch. They then get wired just like in an LP, and we don't need to use a pole for the Superswitch to switch pots in/out of the circuit. That's my question mark here, I think I can visualize how to do this except for the controls at position 3.

[stateofepicicity]

Thanks Man!



The third position going to the neck position volume and tone knobs is a big thing for me. I'd ideally like to treat this as having two preset volume and tone knob positions, one for the bridge alone, and one for everything else. I feel like modern LP wiring is perfect for a bridge humbucker, but 50s is perfect for a neck as well as the third position quack tone.  I went through so many configurations, but I feel like my wiring must be inefficient as hell. Here's some of what I came up with, without the neck:

[newey]

Yeah, so if you're using any of the Superswitch poles to switch the V and T pots (and your partial diagram shows using 2 of the 4 for that), then you won't have enough poles for the pickup switching. At least, as I see it, unless someone more clever than I has a better idea.

Also, we should mention that you would want to have one N and one S coil combined at position 3 so as to have it be hum-cancelling with both HBs split. Depending on the pickups you have, this might mean needing to rotate one of the HBs 180° so that the neck outer and brige inner are of opposite polarity.

[stateofepicicity]

That's what I was figuring.

I actually have that bridge inner / neck outer combination right now, and it's hum cancelling without needing to rotate one of the pickups.

Thanks again!

[newey]

stateofepicicity-

Sometimes you have to put pen to paper. This still isn't exactly what you want (and my confidence level that it will work is pretty low, it needs another set of eyes or two). But I'm close, so perhaps what you want is possible.

Here's my sloppy diagram, it does what you want (I think) except I have the Bridge V and T active at position 3 instead of the neck V and T. Also, I have the bridge HB splitting to the N coil (assuming SD polarities, you said SD color codes but didn't say if they were actually Duncans or not) and the neck HB splitting to the S coil, which may or may not correspond wiith your inner/outer coils.

I think I can get to exactly what you want if we split to the S coil of the Bridge HB and the N coil of the neck, the wiring just swaps the coils around at position 3, IOW. Then we should be able to get the N V and T with the '50's wiring at postion 3.

Also note that one coil is "hanging from hot" at position 3. Not a deal-breaker, but I'm not happy with it. It may be correctable if the diagram has to be redone as per the above note.

Also note that several grounds have been omitted for clarity, I didn't tie all the pot shells together, omitted the string/bridge ground, etc.

[newey]

Arrgh! Spotted a mistake in the diagram already. Have to do a version 2.0 later, I think I see the corrections I need to make.

[stateofepicicity]

Holy crap, I so appreciate you drawing that!  I will analyze this version anyway as maybe a better place to start.  Dude, I'm all ears for any ideas haha!

[newey]

On further review, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, as they say. I can't see how to get this done with the bridge HB in parallel at position 2. I could give you the Bridge split coil at 2, and at 3 with the N split coil, but I run out of switching for the parallel. Thought I had it but I was wrong.

Maybe someone else will have the "light bulb moment" that I'm not getting . . .

[stateofepicicity]

I hate for you to spend so much of your time on this, but it was very kind of you to do so!  I was thinking someone might see this and say, "Dude, you're dreaming" right away.  In the meantime I thought to see if there's anything close out there.  I did find a GuitarElectronics.com diagram similar to what I'm after except it's got a standard middle LP 3rd position and a master volume.  On paper it looks okay, and it's a completely, totally different approach that what I took, so it may be worth a try.  I'm going to compare your one with theirs and see what ideas I can glean:


guitarelectronics.com/2-humbuckers-5-way-lever-switch-1-volume-1-tone-04/

[JohnH]

I think this can be done....

Each pickup has one coil grounded as usual

One switch pole grounds whichever other coil needs to be grounded in a parallel mix.

Two poles take the hot side of each grounded coil to where they need to go, for series or parallel.

Hot side of each pickup goes to its pots

One pole switches the output from each set of VT pots

Will make a diagram...

[JohnH]

Here's a diagram which needs a check!

[Yogi B]

Apr 6, 2024 19:21:20 GMT -5 JohnH said:

Here's a diagram which needs a check!

S3 centre terminal should go to Neck(n)+ / Neck volume lug 3 (and, for everyone's information, both north coils are outers for the desired splits).

(Also Neck V & T should be '50s style, but that has no bearing on the switching.)

[JohnH]

Thanks Yogi, now with 50's tone control on Neck, and wiring fixed

[newey]

JohnH-
Well Done! I couldn't figure it.

[stateofepicicity]

Thank you so very much JohnH for conceptualizing this, and to Yogi B for providing the finishing touches!  I was not familiar with schematics, so I set upon figuring out how to translate this to a wiring diagram.  My first clue was S4; I knew that one of the switches would have to be jumped that way to go from the pots to the jack, and starting from the logic of that switch, now understanding the the arrow at the bottom of each switch on the schematicis is the common lug, I was then able to figure out the rest.  I've known that schematics are extremely helpful for conceptualization, and this experience has reinvigorated my desire to learn to create them myself, because I could start to see the path of the signal without the distractions of wiring codes and the nuance of any particular switch orientation; it truly is a more pure way to look it, making a diagram so much easier to draw.

That said, here's the diagram:


This forum is truly exceptional.  Thanks to all who share their knowledge here.

[stateofepicicity]

I'm looking at this more closely to understand where I was going wrong in my thinking when I was trying to create my diagram from scratch, and it led me wonder, are there hanging coils in this diagram?  I'm trying to get a handle on that concept, but, in the third position, would the neck's red make the neck north coil hanging, or does the fact that the black hot is connected to hot cause the entire coil not to become a hanging coil?  Would the bridge's white wire cause it to be a hanging coil in the third position, or am I understanding this wrong?  One reason I had so much trouble when I was trying to create a version of this is, in that third position I was trying to get the other end of each of the active coils to go to ground, and I kept running out of lugs!  This feels like a dumb question, but I can't find any definitive explanations of the hanging coil concept.

[newey]

stateofepicicity-

Your diagram checks out by me.

[stateofepicicity]

Funny, I was doing an alteration just now.  I played with the jumpers and came up with this:






Does this make it better at all?  I guess you're saying that in my first version, the neck's red and bridge's white do not make those coils hang?  Sorry, I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around hanging coils.

[newey]

Shorting the neck red wire to ground at position 3 probably won't make any difference. The (relatively minor) issue of hanging coils is only of any concern if the coil is attached to the "hot" output and disconnected at the ground side. This is what we mean by "hanging from hot". In your original diagram, the neck green/red coil is hanging from ground, not hot (i.e., the green wire is permanently grounded, while the red wire is simply disconnected at # 3). Hanging from ground is not a concern at all.

[stateofepicicity]

Okay, I gotcha now. Thanks so much newey. This will help me a ton when making future diagrams.

[JohnH]

The schematic type of diagram is the only way I can think through how a circuit works electrically, unless its very simple and standard. It let's you tease out the parts independently of how they will be physically placed, to help visualise the signal flow. Plus for me, I started thinking this way as a teenage electronics nerd in the '70's, and what we learn at a young age is much easier learnt. Also, I have to start with a piece of paper and a pencil in most cases.

But then, transcribing it to a wiring diagram and adding the thinking about where each connection goes physically is an important final step before wiring it up, unless it is simple.

For many circuits, you can assemble the design out of familiar part-circuits or modules. In this case, the obvious starting point for the series-parallel switching is that each pickup would have two poles for this job, because usually that's what they do when this is done with toggle switches. Then you have another pole to switch the output, analogous to basic LP switching. So then there's 5 poles needed and we need to think harder.

The key here is that it's never required to have full series-parallel switching on both pickups at once, and it turns out that one pole can be shared. I dont think we have any hanging-from-hot issues in this one.

That's an example of the enjoyable mental leap or light-bulb moment that can make these interesting or frustrating puzzles to solve. For me, it tends to happen (if at all, and much slower these days) over multiple scribbled sketches on paper.

Actually, I'm a structural engineer and I teach design. But in a tricky situation, the same process can apply to finding the solution. I'm really interested in this as an abstract topic. How do other people do this? How about younger folk who grew up and are familiar with more modern design tools than a pencil? Our guitar circuits can be a very nice self-contained toy-box for exploring how design is done in general.

[germ]

Hi all I am new to building guitars and wiring so I can’t offer help yet. But I wanted to say you guys rock on how you get the work done. You all come together!!!! Thank you all

[stateofepicicity]

That's really interesting JohnH. Thanks for sharing your approach. I never wanted to touch electronics; all I've ever wanted was to play, but to do it my way, and that's my stumbling block. Unfortunately, that usually means wiring mods, but they do always pay off for me, if not always as a desirable tone, then as a learning experience. But I've learned over the years what I prefer and what truly fits my style, like my instance on 50s wiring for neck pickups.  I have no electronics background; I'm just a player. As I was growing up I was unhappy with the work of many guitar techs, so I felt I needed to do as much as possible myself. In general I've found for brainstorming ideas that there are usually great digital solutions that help speed working out ideas for me. I grew up drawing out ideas, but I always found that originizational software tended to be more efficient for the way I think. I used to use a program called FreeMind for mindmapping, for instance. If I were more married to pencil and paper, I'd probably be more inclined toward an iPad and Apple Pencil or a Wacom pen tablet, for the ease of orginizing visual ideas into folders and having cloud access to them. For guitar wiring I always go straight to DIY Layout Creator, not only because it saves time drawing, that I can just plug away at a problem quickly and easily saving many versions of an idea, but that it also has the guitar wiring analysis function, which is tremendously helpful for a quick check before I do a deeper dive into what I've done.

Thanks for taking a look for hot coils too!

[stateofepicicity]

By the way, my second version should be avoided since I was moving too quickly and didn't do an adequate check. Among other things, in the neck position it accidentally mixes the series neck with the bridge!

[stateofepicicity]

Apr 7, 2024 16:44:47 GMT -5 germ said:

Hi all I am new to building guitars and wiring so I can’t offer help yet. But I wanted to say you guys rock on how you get the work done. You all come together!!!! Thank you all

Hey there germ, and welcome to forum!  I'm usually only ever here as a lurker, because I barely know enough to make a wiring diagram, and these guys go into depth about every aspect of guitar electronics, far deeper and with greater authority than any other forum I've found, so I treat this place as a learning resource.  Best of luck on your journey!

[reTrEaD]

Apr 7, 2024 16:10:00 GMT -5 JohnH said:

The schematic type of diagram is the only way I can think through how a circuit works electrically, unless its very simple and standard.

When working out something new, using a schematic representation of the superswitch is extremely helpful. Rather than having all the wiring clustered around the four sections of the superswitch, you can place the sections independently, where the purpose of each section is more "visual" and the wires are more direct.

But it looks like something got lost in translation. Yogi mentioned it in passing. The pickups in stateofepicicity 's original drawing have the screw coils being oriented so they are "outer" on both pickups. This is the traditional orientation. I don't know for sure about the pickups he's using, but I would expect the screw coils are South magnetic polarity. I think you'll end up with Neck inner and Bridge outer in position 3?

Apr 6, 2024 19:52:09 GMT -5 Yogi B said:

(and, for everyone's information, both north coils are outers for the desired splits).

Apr 6, 2024 7:02:02 GMT -5 stateofepicicity said:

One 5-Way Super Switch with these positions:

1. Neck Series (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
2. Neck Parallel (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
3. Neck Outer Coil in Parallel with Bridge Inner Coil (Controlled by Neck Position Knobs)
4. Bridge Parallel (Controlled by Bridge Position Knobs)
5. Bridge Series (Controlled by Bridge Position Knobs)

---

---

I don't know if rotating the Neck pickup so the slug (North) coil is closest to the neck is an option, but if it is, it might be worth considering making a change to the selections.

Bridge parallel tends to be weak and very bright. It might be desirable to replace that with either inners or outers, controlled by the Bridge volume and tone.
If inners, then configure position 3 for outers controlled by the Neck volume and tone.
If outers, then configure position 3 for inners controlled by the Neck volume and tone.

[stateofepicicity]

Hey there reTrEaD,

Thanks very much for your thoughts! The guitar is a Sun Valley Super Shredder Exotic FR with Schecter pickups, a Sunset Strip Bridge and Pasadena neck. Here's the original wiring diagram Schecter sent me when I first wrote them (they use an import (I believe Alpha) 5-way):






This diagram is probably from another model of theirs but it is accurate to the way it's actually wired from the factory, except mine does not have a treble bleed. I hadn't yet tried to decipher where the common lugs are on this 5-way, 

Right now I have that bridge inner / neck outer in position 2 (if you count the bridge as position 1), and I think it's a remarkably great Strat quack tone; I just wanted to move it to the middle position instead. I called Schecter and they told me their color codes are the same as Duncans.

As far as bridge parallel goes, that's one thing I like about it, actually. That major drop in output allows me to get some mean and nasty tones on the bridge, especially through something like a raunchy Plexi tone. I like rolling back the volume knob on that and getting some cool snarl tones in bridge parallel. Now, inners are okay, but I'd lose the hum cancelling. Outers sound amazing, and I would LOVE to do that, but I'd lose the hum cancelling their too. And since I like the factory position 2 as it comes from the factory, I figured just bumping it to the middle position would be best for me.

I have a love / hate relationship with parallel in general, but a guitar like this is filled with compromises, and I adjust the tones to work with it. For instance, it's a 24 fret guitar, and I'd prefer a 22 fret neck placement for warmth. I love a genuine Strat neck tone with the magic that heppens when you really dig in on a dynamic amp, but on a 24 fret guitar you of course have a less warm and sweet tone, no matter the pickup. I think in the future I'll go for a 22 fret guitar with either a ZexCoil Tribucker or a Rio Grande Tallboy with an Illitch or Ulbrick dummy coil system, because I just can't deal with the 60 cycle hum. So to me parallel is a wierd compromise. Since you lose the highest end to comb filtering, you automatically are in a worse situation than a real strat pickup, but that big drop in output also brightens your tone. Now, let's say you switch to something like an AC30 top boost with the treble set really damn high, now you have way more sparkle than you need, enough to cop a genuine 21 fret strat neck pickup tone. And now you throw on top of that 50s wiring, where I keep more high end that I need, and I'm set. With my other superstrat, which I have wired in a kind of similar way (but with Duncan Saturday Night Specials, an LP 3-way switch, two series / parallel mini switches, and 50s wiring for both pickups), I can dial up a pd off Plexi tone and get sparkly, beautiful cleans just by rolling back the volume knob. In fact, I still have so much high end, even though I'm only in parallel and not actually split, that I often roll back my low value (.015) tone cap. It's awesome. But I've been meaning to move that other guitar to have modern wiring on the bridge anyway. The cool thing is, now I have a good idea of how to deal with these options.

With regard to 50s wiring, I have to say I've read the very cool testing that was done on it that's stickied on this forum, but weirdly my experience is so different.  I hear such a better retention of highs, and I much prefer the tones I get that way to treble bleeds.  I mean, I guess there's no right or wrong with this stuff, but when I've felt kinky and gone back to modern just to try for a little while, I end up racing back to the soldering station to go for my 50s neck.

[JohnH]

It all sounds cool and the key thing is that you have a clear opinion based on how you play, of what you'd like this to do.

For that number 3 position, your arrangement is giving you hum-canceling, and that's worth having. That boils down to having a North coil and a South coil. But it doesn't matter which is which. On my diagram I called them Neck (n) at top left, and Bridge (s) at lower right, which mix together for setting 3. But I didn't need to know which was n and s, so long as they are different. All your settings have one of each.

[reTrEaD]

Apr 7, 2024 20:42:34 GMT -5 stateofepicicity said:

Hey there reTrEaD ,

Thanks very much for your thoughts! The guitar is a Sun Valley Super Shredder Exotic FR with Schecter pickups, a Sunset Strip Bridge and Pasadena neck. Here's the original wiring diagram Schecter sent me when I first wrote them (they use an import (I believe Alpha) 5-way):

SPOILER: Click to show

This diagram is probably from another model of theirs but it is accurate to the way it's actually wired from the factory, except mine does not have a treble bleed. I hadn't yet tried to decipher where the common lugs are on this 5-way,

This is a very specialized 5-way Alpha produced that Ibanez used extensively in their 2HB guitars. Part number is 2502n.

Apr 7, 2024 20:42:34 GMT -5 stateofepicicity said:

Now, inners are okay, but I'd lose the hum cancelling. Outers sound amazing, and I would LOVE to do that, but I'd lose the hum cancelling their too. And since I like the factory position 2 as it comes from the factory, I figured just bumping it to the middle position would be best for me.

You could have hum-canceling with inners and outers but it would require you to rotate your neck pickup such that the slug (North) coil is closest to the neck. But since you're happy with the selections you've already experienced, that's a moot point. We should focus on getting you what you requested, in the proper switch positions with the required volume and tone selections.

Apr 7, 2024 20:42:34 GMT -5 stateofepicicity said:

Right now I have that bridge inner / neck outer in position 2 (if you count the bridge as position 1), and I think it's a remarkably great Strat quack tone

John's schematic will get you something very close to that in position 3. But it will be bridge outer / neck inner. If you're satisfied with that, leave everything as he has it.

If you want bridge inner / neck outer, make the following changes:
Exchange Neck (n) and Neck (s).
Exchange Bridge (n) and Bridge (s).